Handle Indonesia with care

Handle Indonesia with care

By Santi W.E. Soekanto

JAKARTA (JP): By any standard, Indonesia is an improbable
country. It is a wonder how it has been able to withstand for so
long the polarizing forces that have always accompanied its
existence.

British economist Anne Booth wrote in 1996 about how the very
improbability of such a huge and heterogeneous collection of
islands forming itself into a single country was once a source of
national pride.

Not anymore, according to many Indonesians. A niggling sense
of shame began to creep in about four years ago, coinciding with
the international exposure of Indonesia's failures to handle many
of its problems.

Individuals returning from overseas trips talked about trying
to conceal their nationality during gatherings.

"Sometimes they looked at us with pity, sometimes with
contempt. Some people lashed out at us over East Timor -- I
wasn't even born when Soeharto 'integrated' the territory," one
said.

Let us start with the forest fires that choked the breath out
of many neighboring countries in 1996, to the economic collapse
in 1997, from the famine in Irian Jaya and other remote regions,
the massive rioting that killed thousands in 1998, to the
revelations of gross rights abuses and the deadly sectarian
conflicts in 1999. And, of course, the unceasing bickering among
the political elite of today. All are cause enough to turn
Indonesia into both a regional and international pariah.

Sociologists would assess the "multi-dimensional crisis"
currently threatening Indonesia's survival as something that is
sociologically "natural" because of its long-standing potential
for disintegration.

First, it has a long history of rebellions in its regions that
dates back to the early years of the republic. Political dissent
is a long-standing issue in Irian Jaya, Aceh and also its "former
colony" East Timor, where armed political movements have been
waged for years and responded to with massive military
operations.

Second, Indonesia's diversity might have been a source of
pride when the country was united -- as was expressed in the term
Bhineka Tunggal Ika. But the term also means an uneven degree of
integration among its more than 300 ethnic groups that vary
enormously in size and cultural sophistication. This constitutes
a threat to national integrity.

Scholars have pointed out how Java has had an unbroken
tradition of dense population and powerful states for 1500 years.
Speakers of the Javanese language number at least 80 million.

By contrast, in parts of eastern Indonesia there are tiny
language groups whose recorded history dates only from the
colonial period and whose integration into the broader
archipelagic economy has always been weak and sporadic.

It is small wonder that the Republic of Indonesia emerged at
all. Now this is not a cue for anyone to declare, "had we taken
the option of federalism after independence, we would have been
better off now." History is history after all, and the decision
to opt for a fragile unitary state in 1945, as opposed to
federalism, should remain a lesson for all.

The third reason is regional discontent over Soeharto's
policies. These covered many spheres but at least three major
issues have been identified: the decades of economic injustices,
the state and military abuses of human rights, and the highly
centralized New Order regime that left almost no space for
regions to have a say in how their resources were being managed.

Now that the New Order is no more, the glue that had been
keeping the country together has also gone. Which is why
Indonesia began to unravel -- so people say.

The fourth reason for the threat of disintegration is
something that has been spoken of from time to time, but has yet
to be explored further: the presence of forces that seek to
undermine Indonesia's geopolitical importance by fomenting unrest
and discouraging separatist campaigns.

For example, the Christmas Eve 2000 bombings which took place
almost simultaneously in a number of provinces and caused further
sectarian tension, have been perceived by many analysts as a
manifestation of the existence of a highly organized force such
as the military seeking to take over power from civilians.

Another example was the West's meddling in the East Timor
debacle. In an interesting article titled "Indonesia, Master Card
in Washington's Hand" in Indonesia (Cornell University Southeast
Asia Program, October 1998), Noam Chomsky revealed how Washington
ignored its own restrictions on arms sales with Indonesia.
Further, the UN Security Council's order that Jakarta withdraw
from East Timor became an empty gesture because the U.S. State
Department rendered it "utterly ineffective in whatever measures
it undertook."

This, according to the then UN Ambassador Daniel Patrick
Moynihan in his memoirs, was because the U.S. wished things to
turn out as they did. Chomsky pointed out how within a few months
some 60,000 Timorese had been killed after the annexation,
"almost the same proportion of casualties experienced by the
Soviet Union during the second world war."

Chomsky believes the atrocities that continued until the late
1990s took place with the decisive support of the U.S. and its
allies.

How ironic that it is also the West that condemned Indonesia
in the 1990s for gross abuse of human rights in East Timor when
violence had always been there throughout the territory's
"integration." Doubly ironic that it was those very same
countries and the UN that forced Indonesia to evacuate East Timor
in 1999.

The most ironic situation, however, is the fact that groups of
Indonesians are now pleading for the West and the UN to intervene
into their affairs.

Parties in the sectarian conflict in Maluku, for instance,
have for some time asked the UN to send its peacekeeping forces
to the region, accusing the Indonesian military of unfairness and
the government of incompetence in curbing the violence.

Now, students and activists in the restive Aceh province have
asked visiting U.S. Ambassador Robert S. Gelbard for
international intervention into the military-separatist conflict.
The activists accused the Indonesian government of not having the
good will to investigate the crimes against humanity committed in
the province.

The Acehnese have the most reason to cry for help, given its
violent history under the Military Operations status, but will
international intervention really help?

The push for separation in Indonesian regions is a sign that
the question of national disintegration is far from settled here.
Regional discontent that threatens national integration is one
thing but threats that come from other forces seeking to
undermine Indonesia's geopolitical importance is a different
matter altogether. This particular threat needs to be considered
and handled well if Indonesia wishes to maintain its integrity.

Indonesia has undergone so much -- if this were our parents or
our other loved ones that are ailing like this we would move
heaven and earth to find a cure. We would not feel ashamed.

Indonesia, too, needs to be handled with care. It serves no
one's interests to have it splintered into pieces. If it were to
fall apart, it would suffer but so would Aceh and Irian Jaya and
other regions now demanding separation.

As historian Robert Cribb says, "the thing that most
Indonesians yearn for -- human dignity and prosperity -- seems
much more likely to be achieved within the larger framework of
Indonesia than within any possible combination of smaller
states."

The writer is a journalist at The Jakarta Post.