Distrust hurts Indonesia-Singapore bilateral relations, says analyst

Fabiola Desy Unidjaja and Tiarma Siboro, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The statement by Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew on terrorism reflects the city state's distrust of Indonesia and will hamper stable bilateral relations between the two neighbors and cooperation among members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), a political analyst says.

Bantarto Bandoro of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said on Thursday that "Indonesia and Singapore are friends who will never be close to each other."

"We have different races and Singaporean leaders always harbor distrust about the ability of Indonesian leaders to handle regional problems," Bantarto told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.

Singaporeans are mostly of ethnic Chinese background, while Indonesians are mostly Malay in origin.

Lee, the city-state's founding father and former prime minister, said in a newspaper interview earlier that Singapore remained vulnerable to terrorist attacks because regional terrorist leaders were still roaming around free in Indonesia, suggesting that Indonesian authorities have allowed the country to become a safe haven for terrorists and done nothing to curb the groups' activities.

The statement has irked Indonesia and prompted the government to summon Singapore's ambassador to Indonesia to discuss Lee's remarks.

Dozens of activists protested in front of the Singapore Embassy in Jakarta on Thursday, demanding Lee retract his statement.

Singapore defended Lee's statement on Thursday, saying that it was well-known that Indonesian Muslim cleric Abubakar Ba'asyir, identified by Singapore authorities as a leader of the extremist Jemaah Islamiyah, was living in Solo, Central Java.

Indonesian police have already questioned Ba'asyir but did not detain him for a lack of evidence linking him with terrorist groups.

According to Bantarto, Lee's statement should encourage Indonesia to be consistent in dealing with international terrorism.

"Singapore was wrong to make such a statement that touched the sense of Indonesia's sovereignty, but Indonesia should not be so defensive and emotional in reacting to remarks," he said.

Separately, Vice President Hamzah Haz joined the chorus of Indonesian officials on Thursday asking the Singaporean government to clarify Lee's statement.

"They need to clarify it because such a statement has economic impacts for our country, it will scare off investors," Hamzah told reporters after a cabinet meeting on Thursday.

Hamzah played down speculation that Lee's statement would worsen relations between the two countries.

The two neighbors have experienced rocky bilateral relations since the downfall in 1998 of former president Soeharto, once considered one of the most powerful men in Asia.

Former president B.J. Habibie once said that minority Malays in that country were being discriminated against by their government and dismissed the city state as a "tiny red dot" on the map.

Former president Abdurrahman Wahid also accused Singapore of taking economic advantage of Indonesia's crisis and threatened to collude with Malaysia to deprive Singapore of a clean water supply.

Meanwhile, Coordinating Minister for Political and Security Affairs Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono expressed disappointment on Friday over Lee's remark, saying that the Singaporean senior minister should have clarified any intelligence data regarding international terrorism through existing channels with the Indonesian side before making it public.

"Personally, I think he should not have made it public like that. He should have used formal diplomatic channels, ... we also have intelligence cooperation ... Because revealing it to the public will only create new problems should the accusation be baseless," Susilo told reporters at his office.

Susilo said that President Megawati Soekarnoputri was considering the appropriate way to resolve the misunderstanding through a diplomatic approach, "because the two countries have a good relationship."