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.