Hard road to Indonesia-Australia ties

Hard road to Indonesia-Australia ties

By Damien Kingsbury

MELBOURNE (JP): There have been encouraging signs recently
about the level of commitment to rebuilding relations between
Indonesia and Australia. Former Ambassador to Australia, Wiryono
Sastrohandoyo's comments to the Indonesia-Australia Business
Council stand as a good illustration of that. But relations
remain difficult and, while they will improve, such improvement
will not come without real effort on both sides.

The issue of East Timor has been central to the recent fallout
between the two states. From the Indonesian perspective,
Australia has acted too strongly in what many Indonesians
consider an internal matter. From Australia's perspective,
Indonesia has failed to curb the violent activities of TNI-backed
militias against helpless civilians in a territory legitimately
offered the choice of independence.

A very big part of the problem was that, in its efforts to
please Jakarta, successive Australian governments endorsed a
policy of recognizing Indonesia's incorporation of East Timor.
This was despite numerous surveys showing that such endorsement
in Australia was always opposed by around three-quarters of its
population. Certainly the shift of position on this issue by the
Australian government was populist in sentiment, but it was also
an accurate reflection of public will.

In appealing to a domestic audience, Australian Prime Minister
John Howard also claimed credit for influencing ex-President B.J.
Habibie's decision to allow a referendum on independence in East
Timor. The reality was that negotiations between Habibie,
Portugal and the UN were already well underway. Howard simply did
not want Australia to be seen to be endorsing East Timor's
incorporation into Indonesia at a time when Indonesia's own
president was, at best, ambivalent about it.

Similarly, Australia's involvement in Interfet has been
interpreted by some Indonesians as an affront to nationalist
sentiment, and an imposition of neo-colonialism in Southeast
Asia. Some have even suggested that Australia has strategic
designs on the territory.

The only threat to Australia's sovereignty came, in the early
1940s, through the archipelago and Timor was regarded as a
critical point to counter-attack. It was from this time that many
Australians began their warm relationship with the East Timorese.
But Australia has since then had no strategic interest in
occupying East Timor. Indeed, Australia's security is far better
served by having good relations with Indonesia.

Further, while Australia has acted in East Timor -- only under
the auspices of the UN -- it has done so in concert with other
Asian states. Regardless of its mixed racial composition or
colonial history, Australia does not wish to dominate or occupy
East Timor. But it does retain a genuine moral and strategic
interest in seeing stability restored there. Once stability is
guaranteed, Australia will disengage. Australian aid will
probably continue for some time but, as with Indonesia, that is
based on humanitarian concerns.

The East Timor issue came at a bad time for Indonesia. Already
reeling from economic devastation and political insecurity, it
was a further blow to national pride. Burning Indonesian flags in
Australia was also going to upset Indonesian nationalists. Yet it
was under the Red and White that Indonesia committed
unmentionable atrocities in East Timor.

As a symbol, the Red and White was tarnished by those events,
and others around the archipelago. But the positive aspirations
that many Indonesian still attach to the Red and White remain. It
is now time to restore to this flag the honor it deserves. That
must be done by the new Indonesian government, acting with and in
the best interests of the Indonesian people.

Since 1975, Indonesia's education system and its media have
presented an interpretation of Indonesia's involvement in East
Timor that is at best open to challenge. This is not the place to
debate history, but such an interpretation could not have been
otherwise, given the tightly controlled flow of information that
existed under Soeharto's New Order government. The New Order is
now dead and is in the process of being buried.

Along with this interpretation of history has been Australia's
tendency, since the early 1970s, to say what it believes
Jakarta's elites wish to hear, as opposed to what it believes to
be accurate. It was said that frank expression is at odds with
"Indonesian" or "Javanese" culture. So the rare expressions of
Australia's frank expression, from its media and diplomats, was
not appreciated.

But the days of self-censorship by the Indonesian media are
all but over, so there is little chance that Australia's
otherwise forthright media will now start to self-censor, about
Indonesia or about anything else. In a democracy, in which
freedom of expression is valued, political leaders need to be
able to accept criticism. Very often it is deserved, helps them
correct mistakes and stops them from making more. Does anyone
remember a controversial Australian newspaper article in 1986 on
Soeharto's ill-gained wealth? Would anyone criticize that now?

As Indonesia is learning, the lessons of democratization
follow the painful test of experience. It is a hard path to
follow, but one that seems to reflect the aspirations of most
Indonesian citizens. Happily, it is a path that Australia also
travels so that, as neighbors, both countries might travel
together.

As Wiryono said, trust and friendship must be earned. It has
been slow coming in the past and will be slow again to restore.
But trust and friendship, built on honesty and transparency, is
available between the peoples of Indonesian and Australia and
between our governments. A relationship built on honesty and
transparency is the only sort of relationship worth having.

The writer is Executive Officer of the Monash Asia Institute,
author of The Politics of Indonesia (OUP 1998) and co-editor of
Reformasi -- crisis and change in Indonesia (MAI 1999).