Indonesia is a friend of Australia's, not an enemy

Indonesia is a friend of Australia's, not an enemy

This article is based on a farewell speech by Indonesian
Ambassador to Australia S. Wiryono at the 1999 Merdeka Luncheon,
organized jointly by the Australia Indonesia Business Council
(AIBC), New South Wales branch, and the Consul General of the
Republic of Indonesia in Sydney on Aug. 20, 1999. This is the
first of two articles.

SYDNEY (JP): It has been about three-and-a-half years since I
arrived here in March 1996 when Australia changed leadership from
the Labor government to the coalition government and I was one of
the first ambassadors to arrive in Canberra to work with the new
government of Australia. The intervening years have been marked
by continual problems in Indonesia, starting with the forceful
takeover of the headquarters of one political party from a
faction not recognized by the government and continuing with the
financial crisis, and then becoming an economic-sociopolitical
upheaval which ended an era known in Indonesia as the New Order.

Those three-and-a-half years coincided with my posting and,
consequently, it has been extraordinary and difficult
circumstances for the Indonesian ambassador and naturally also
for the Indonesia-Australia relationship. A carping fractious
media, a volatile public opinion and a minority fixated and often
unrealistic about East Timor has made it even more difficult.

Being as they were, and great have been the burdens, however,
I always knew that in the AIBC, Indonesia had many friends who
were understanding and would give counsel and support to me. For
all that, I am grateful to all of you.

When I was told I was to be ambassador to Australia, I
realized the grave duties and responsibilities of my assignment,
for Australia, our closest neighbor to the south, is a nation
whose culture and historical experiences were very different from
Indonesia's and whose economy had reached a much higher level of
development and whose political style was also very different.

I entered upon my duties with a sense of anxiety lest my
abilities fail to keep pace with my eagerness to constantly
strengthen the bridges of our relationship.

Now that those three-and-a-half-years are over, I realize that
our relationship will continue to be full of challenges and the
two countries should be able to come up with appropriate
responses, but I sense that the relationship between our two
countries is now more mature and stronger despite the fact that
Indonesia was hit by the devastating and multidimensional crises
that frightened and confused our neighbors and considerably
blunted our ability to interact in the economic and other fields.
Indonesia also became the target of continuous scrutiny and
criticism.

But more than that, and it is not out of place to diverge here
for a moment and note that the recent crises brought as much pain
and suffering to the Indonesian people than anything we had
experienced since the upheavals caused by the aborted communist
coup of 1965 and its aftermath. Intriguingly, the first coincided
with the start of my diplomatic career, while the currency,
economic and social crises that led to political upheaval and the
downfall of president Soeharto, came as my career of more than 35
years drew to a close.

So my career started in a time of crisis and ended in a time
of crisis. But, between these two, we experienced many years of
steady, if not spectacular growth, although with the benefit of
hindsight we have now come to realize that the quality of the
growth and some of the means by which it was achieved were not
entirely appropriate nor acceptable. We can only say, it was part
of the growing and learning process as a young nation.

But it is difficult to forget the broadcast images of
suffering of the Indonesian people, of the businesspeople and the
ordinary men and women of Indonesia and their families who lost
their jobs, through no fault of their own. I feel for all these
people -- as you and your government has clearly done also.

However, there is a brighter side to the crises. Importantly,
it set the pattern for a program of necessary reforms and for a
much overdue process of democratization. But there have been
other less noticeable benefits. For example, because the
Indonesian currency has been so undervalued, our exports to
Australia have increased considerably and our imports from
Australia have fallen, resulting overall in a surplus in favor of
Indonesia in the balance of trade with Australia.

Currently, thanks to the consistent implementation of the
recovery program by the Habibie government, Indonesia's economy
is recovering and, as avid Indonesia watchers, you will have
discerned that over the past six months, the economy has turned
around despite the fact that, politically, Indonesia still has to
prove that it is able to move forward and into a stable and
democratic system. It is not yet fully out of the mire, but the
economy is stabilizing and is now partly rebuilt.

The favorable movement in the currency and the capital markets
that began following the general election, and that has, by and
large, been maintained since then, is extremely encouraging, and
points unmistakenly to the conclusion that domestic and
international confidence is slowly -- but surely -- returning.
That is to say, the new coalition government in Indonesia, under
whoever it may be, will not be inheriting an economy in deep
crisis any more. But at the same time, the incoming government
clearly cannot afford to underestimate the crucial challenges,
both political and economic, that still lie ahead.

Politically, we seem to be still in the embryonic and euphoric
stage of learning how to be a democracy and I realize that, to
our friends, it is often bewildering and confusing, but, somehow,
I believe that we will muddle through toward a more stable
democratic system. We just cannot afford to return to the
previous system nor to the unstable parliamentary system of the
1950s.