Further tests for Australia-Indonesia ties

Michael Danby, Melbourne

In June I wrote in The Jakarta Post about the Schapelle Corby case and the risk that it would damage relations between Australia and Indonesia. I expressed the view that the Corby case would not permanently damage the Australia-Indonesia relationship, and that has turned out to be the case. Now, however, that relationship, which is so important to both countries, is under strain again, as a result of three new events.

The first is the bombing atrocity in Bali on Oct. 1, which killed 15 Indonesians and four Australians, including a 16-year- old boy. Although the death toll was not as high as that in the first Bali bombing in 2002, it has revived all the grief and anger that Australians felt at the time of the first bombing.

Australians do not, of course, blame the government of Indonesia or the Indonesian people for these crimes. Reactions over the past two weeks to this latest terrorist attack have been dominated by expressions of sympathy for the people of Indonesia, particularly the people of Bali, from the Australian government, media and people.

Australians are well aware that the people who organize and carry out these crimes are a tiny minority of fanatics, inspired and funded from outside Indonesia. Australians understand that the hateful ideology of these people is a distortion and betrayal of the principles of Islam, particularly as it has always been practiced in Indonesia.

But Australians also expect that Indonesia will do everything in its power to catch and punish those responsible for this attack. Although the three suicide bombers are dead, it is important that those who recruited, trained and directed these people be caught, and that the political leadership of the groups responsible be found and punished.

Having heard General Made Mangku Pastika speak when I was in Indonesia in 2003, I have every confidence in the ability of Indonesia's law enforcement agencies to do the job. But punishing those responsible and preventing further such attacks requires more than police work. It requires judicial firmness and political will. Here there is more cause for concern, and this leads me to the second recent event I want to mention.

Abu Bakar Ba'asyir was one of the founders of Jamaah Islamiyah, and very few Australians doubt that he was the mastermind behind the first Bali bombing. Australians were therefore disappointed that he was not charged with direct responsibility. He was charged instead with conspiracy, and sentenced to two and a half years. Most Australians think this was a very inadequate sentence for a man charged with involvement in an atrocity which killed over 200 people -- 38 of them Indonesian citizens.

Since his conviction, moreover, Ba'asyir has had his sentence remitted by four months. I understand, of course, that he was entitled to this remission under Indonesian law, like most other prisoners, on Indonesian Independence Day. But this news was very badly received in Australia, and I would think also by the relatives of those Indonesians killed in the two Bali bombings, the Marriott Hotel bombing and the Australian Embassy bombing.

Many people in Australia have called on Indonesia to ban Jamaah Islamiyah. That is of course a matter for the Indonesian government, and I understand that there is some difficulty in banning an organization whose name means "Islamic Community" in a Muslim country. But there would be less concern in Australia over the question of banning the organization if Australians were convinced that Indonesia was serious about prosecuting those responsible for planning the Bali and other bombings.

The third event is the trial of the so-called "Bali Nine." Few Australians have much sympathy with those who are stupid enough to engage in drug trafficking. Nevertheless, the situation of the nine young Australians currently facing death sentences in Bali after being charged with trying to carry heroin out of Indonesia is obviously getting a lot of media attention in Australia, which abolished the death penalty more than 20 years ago. Even those who think that drug traffickers deserve the most severe punishment will oppose the death penalty in these cases.

The real problem for Indonesia-Australia relations with the Bali Nine case, however, is the stark contrast between the penalty which hangs over these Australians and the sentence received by Abu Bakar Ba'asyir. Many Australians are asking: If drug trafficking is an offense punishable by death, what is an appropriate penalty for conspiring to plant bombs in crowded bars and restaurants and killing hundreds of innocent people? Surely, they are saying, it should be more than two and a half years in prison, minus remissions.

Last May former presidential adviser Dewi Fortuna Anwar chaired an intense weekend meeting between five Australian MPs and 25 of their newly elected Indonesian colleagues. This kind of contact between Jakarta and Canberra must not and will not be derailed by Jamaah Islamiyah. Democrats in Indonesia and Australia must work to defeat the terrorists by redoubling our contacts and co-operation.

Indonesians will be favorably impressed by the pro-Indonesia sentiments that the terrorist attacks in Bali engendered in the Australian Parliament. During debate on the motion condemning the attacks, moved by Prime Minister Howard and seconded by Opposition Leader Beazley, I said: "Australia must continue to work closely with Indonesia, both at the government level and at the level of civil society, to make that relationship closer and stronger. The people who carried out the Bali atrocity hoped to wreck that relationship. We must make sure they do not succeed."

Michael Danby is a Labor Party member of the Australian House of Representatives and Secretary of the Opposition National Security Committee.