'Free and active' foreign policy no longer relevant

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia's "free-and-active" foreign policy is no longer relevant because it was originally designed during the Cold War, an expert in international relations said yesterday.

Now that the Cold War has ended and the New Order government under President Soeharto has other foreign policy priorities, Indonesia needs to reshape its foreign policy, Dewi Fortuna Anwar said in a seminar on politics.

During the Cold War, Indonesia was concerned with containing the spread of communism and maintained closer relations with the West, said Dewi, who is a researcher at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) and the Center for Information and Development Studies.

"This means that the 'free-and-active' stance of the past, which Indonesia used to its benefit during the rivalry between the West and the East blocks, is no longer relevant," Dewi noted.

"Indonesia's options and initiatives in the international context have become fewer nowadays than before," she said in the seminar organized by LIPI.

The New Order administration has more opportunities to make economic development its main priority and paramount consideration in the international arena, she pointed out.

Dewi was discussing a paper presented by political scientist Mochtar Mas'oed of Gadjah Mada University on the interaction of global politics and the "ideals of the nation".

Mas'oed suggested that Indonesia develop a kind of nationalism and a sense of belonging which people can feel for their country.

Now, Mas'oed said, the people are being treated as clients who need to be served by various public services and policies in return for their loyalty to the government.

Mas'oed also scrutinized Indonesia's weaknesses in the face of global capital and its dependence on the industrialized countries' capital, technology and market access.

Dewi added that global interaction has affected the Indonesian people's struggle for democratization. During the Cold War era, she said, the economic and political relations that the government established with various foreign forces "hindered democracy".

Using their campaign against communism here as justification, Western countries and donor agencies chose to support the government regardless of whether it was democratic or not, she said.

"There was even a tendency for the foreign capital to support non-democratic governments as long as they were against communism," she said.

After the Cold War, the situation changed drastically. "Democracy and protection of human rights became a major agenda in the international economic and political relationship, and in the donor agencies' means to apply pressure," she said, adding that this was reflected in social clauses of their financial assistance.

Noted economic observer Christianto Wibisono and businessman Iman Taufik discussed economic democracy and conglomerates. They debated whether conglomerates are an asset or a liability to social, economic and political development.

Iman asserted that conglomerates are an asset, that they are basically "good" and that it is only "their behavior that should be checked". Problems such as collusion and corruption, he said, cannot be blamed on the part of the giant businesses alone.

Indonesia probably needs to establish a code of ethics for government officials to prevent them from colluding with big businesses, he said. (swe)