Indonesia-Australia ties: What went wrong?

By Hal Hill and Chris Manning

This is the first of two articles exploring the low ebb in the Jakarta and Canberra ties.

CANBERRA (JP): As the Timor crisis deepened in 1999, relations between Australia and Indonesia soured, and then deteriorated seriously, sharply and unexpectedly in September-October.

After a decade of seemingly positive and broad-based expansion, developing into what some came to regard as an emerging 'special relationship', these two months witnessed unprecedented recrimination and antagonism.

Although an open, formal rift was avoided, the cooling of relations was reflected in public statements made at the highest level.

President Habibie referred in the Indonesian parliament to Australia's unwelcome 'interference in Indonesian affairs', while Prime Minister Howard spoke of the need to assert 'Australian values' in the region rather than kowtowing to the policies of neighbors, referring (implicitly) especially to Indonesia.

At the heart of the matter was the crisis in East Timor. The extensive and almost instantaneous coverage by the international electronic media of the tragic events in Timor, together with its tendency to highlight isolated and extreme reactions in both countries, heightened the sense of crisis.

It contributed to emotional responses. Australian unions boycotted Indonesian ships and Garuda passengers were harassed, the Indonesian flag was burnt and the Indonesian Ambassador could not enter his office for over a week.

In Indonesia, in response, there was an almost continuous demonstration outside the Australian embassy, seemingly (if TV shots were to be believed) verging on violence.

Australian offices were attacked and Australian citizens threatened. At the nadir of the relationship in early October 1999, Indonesians saw Australia -- seemingly too enthusiastically -- take the lead in the formation of a multinational force, UNAMET, to restore order following the post referendum militia rampage in Timor.

But many Indonesians saw Australians zealously entering 'their territory' (as most Indonesians regarded East Timor then), and behaving in a militaristic and bellicose fashion -- the armed Australian soldier standing over the defenseless Timorese youth, for example.

How and why was the relationship so easily and quickly derailed? And where do we go from here?

Answers to these questions are important, not just for Australia and Indonesia but, more broadly -- since the two countries are the dominant powers of the South Pacific and Southeast Asia respectively -- for the harmony of the region.

It was not just the Australian actions which angered many Indonesians. Australia's style was unpalatable. Indonesia expected its neighbor to show some understanding of Jakarta's predicament (at least that of a weak civilian government), and to help calm the situation.

But instead Australia appeared to take the lead in condemning Indonesia. The voice of Australia -- its media, its politicians and its people -- appeared more strident than any other. Even liberal-minded and sympathetic Indonesian figures, such as Sarwono Kusumaatmadja and journalist Wimar Witoelar, saw Australian reactions as 'arrogant' or 'insensitive', its words and actions smacking more of a colonial power than an understanding neighbor.

Conversely, in September, Australians watched each night on television the abuse of a poor and innocent people, whose only 'crime' was that they clearly and decisively voted for Independence.

Why couldn't the all-powerful Indonesia military assist these people and control the violence, Australians (and indeed the world) asked.

Why was the government in Jakarta so seemingly two-faced in response to international criticism?

The immediate cause of tension -- a process of decolonization, strongly opposed by elements of the Indonesian military and equally strongly supported by large sections of the Australian public, and by their government -- which erupted in violence, was as difficult a problem as most neighbors will ever face.

In one sense, it was a credit to the leaders of both countries that diplomatic relations remained open, despite many calls from their domestic constituencies for radical action.

But beyond the immediate rift, ill-informed recriminations and the proliferation of stereotypes revealed that there is still a fundamental lack of understanding of national characteristics and political processes in each country -- a lack of understanding which was all too easily manipulated by mischievous elements on both sides.

Among these caricatures of each other, Indonesians often view Australians as white, racist, rich, arrogant, and possessing an unrivaled propensity to lecture other countries.

On the other hand, many Australians continue to view Indonesia (even after fall of the Soeharto) as corrupt, brutal, militaristic, authoritarian, and maintaining an iron grip on a reluctant non-Javanese citizenry in the eastern provinces.

Like all caricatures, there is an element of truth in these views. But as generalizations they are seriously distorted. Many Australians, especially in the media, failed -- or didn't want -- to recognize, the broad-based improvements in Indonesian living standards since the mid 1960s, across both socio-economic groups and its far-flung regions.

Australians have also tended to pay scant attention to deep historical and cultural sensitivities. Having never been a poverty stricken colony, never been invaded by a foreign power, and never had to fight a protracted and bloody war of Independence, most Australians don't have the historical perspective to understand Indonesian sensitivities on key issues.

Flag-burning, for example, arouses little passion in Australia, yet for most Indonesians it is a highly provocative action.

With a hard-fought Independence achieved just two generations ago, destruction and defamation of national symbols by a neighbor is quite shocking to many Indonesians.

The fact that Australians are predominantly rich and white, and are culturally disposed towards frank and blunt expressions of opinion abroad -- mirroring the style of domestic debate -- further complicates the issue.

These misperceptions work in both directions, however. It is true that Australia maintained a discriminatory immigration policy until about 1970 (the so-called 'White Australia Policy'), and that for the first 180 years of European settlement the treatment of aboriginal people was disgraceful.

But things have changed much in Australia over the past 30 years. Australia now has an open, non-discriminatory immigration program, matched by very few countries.

The resulting societal transformation has been rapid and Australia is arguably one of the world's most vibrant multi- cultural societies.

Its generous refugee program has few parallels, certainly in this region. It is true that this 'multiracialism has been strongly criticized at home -- the 'Pauline Hanson' factor.

But the immigration program continues to attract bi-partisan political support. The One Nation party is now in decline and never captured votes on a scale comparable to similar parties in the U.S. and Europe.

It is also true that Australia's aboriginal community (numbering about 250,000 persons) have unacceptably low living standards. But there are many 'positive discrimination' programs and the community's problems are openly acknowledged and debated within and outside government.

In addition, Australia continues to be one of the major donors to Indonesia, including a generous scholarship program. It strongly supported the international financial rescue effort in the wake of the economic crisis and, despite fiscal austerity at home, the real value of aid has been broadly maintained.

Australia's per capita income is now below both Singapore and Hong Kong, neither of whom provides aid to Indonesia.

The Australian press is often seen as a complicating factor in bilateral relations. It is easy to understand Indonesians' anger here: in recent times, the extraordinarily rude and ill-informed television interview with the Indonesian ambassador on a commercial network, and the 60 Minutes team crassly walking into a 'minefield' by asking queuing East Timorese how they would vote in the referendum.

More generally, many Australian journalists, with their single-minded focus on human rights, East Timor, and corruption, have failed dismally to present a balanced picture of the complexity of Indonesia.

There is no doubt that, rightly or wrongly, the murder of five journalists in Balibo in late 1975 has contributed to this press hostility towards Indonesia. But, while Indonesian dismay is quite understandable, here too the issue is not amenable to sweeping generalizations. There have been some very fine Australian journalists in Indonesia, particularly in the print media.

Indonesia's sometimes heavy handed press controls needlessly antagonized the foreign (and of course the domestic) press. And the problems with the Australian press have arisen in part from proximity and familiarity.

The New York Times, London's Guardian, Dutch papers, the BBC and CNN have often been just as critical as Australian outlets. But because there are not as many of them, and they don't report as often, the tensions have not been so great.

The authors are respectively professor of economics and head of the Indonesia Project, Research School of Pacific Studies and Asian Studies, and Asia-Pacific School of Economics and Management, the Australian National University.