Indonesia needs more 'carrot' and less 'stick'

By Edward Neilan

TOKYO (JP): What Indonesia needs from the United States and the rest of the West is more "carrot" and less "stick".

Leadership needs to be offered to the important nation which has been devastated by an economic crisis not unlike the U.S. Great Depression.

The endless lectures by foreigners from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) showing up in Jakarta and World Bank threats about ending "crony capitalism" should be junked. Western embargoes should be undone, United Nations sanctions lifted and positive measures implemented. The world should give Indonesia a sweeping amnesty for its supposed transgressions and allow Jakarta a fresh start.

What is needed is no less than a revolution in the nation's institutions. As an aside, at a conference last year, former U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger said "Why is it that the United States is always left with the role of rebuilding, of picking up the pieces? Where are the Europeans, the Japanese?"

One thing the United States could do right away -- with Indonesian approval -- is to restore military cooperation with the Indonesia's armed forces (ABRI).

This suggestion is bound to evoke wails of protest by those who see the ABRI as responsible for the situation in East Timor including a series of appalling abuses earlier this year.

Attempts to reform the military are essential because of the ABRI's strong role in Indonesian society and the realization that further dehumanization of the military would only lead to "another Myanmar." Change has to start somewhere and the military is an excellent departure point.

The U.S should not cooperate or conduct exercises with the Indonesian special forces or paramilitary units suspected of the abuses.

"It should cooperate," as Heritage Foundation research John T. Dori said recently, "with less political branches of Indonesia's military, like the air force and the navy. The United States should also praise Indonesian efforts to place the military under greater civilian control."

One way to promote military reform would be the restoration of the U.S. International Military Education and Training program with Indonesia. This program allows foreign military officers to study in the United States and witness firsthand the relationship between the U.S. military and civil society.

Former president Soeharto suspended Indonesian participation in the program in June 1997 because of U.S. congressional criticisms of human rights abuses in East Timor. "Both the Clinton administration and Congress should make clear their interest in resuming this program," Dori said.

Similar reforms should be pursued, in other areas of society, such as education and management. The stress of assistance should be know-how and butter, not guns.

In strategic context, East Timor is a sideshow posing as the main event. Brutal factionalism existed all during the Portuguese era of control, due partly to the Christian religion background of the Timorese with incidents fanned by a vocal overseas diaspora.

Indonesia, Portugal and United Nations authorities are trying to set guidelines for an election in July to decide between independence or more autonomy within Indonesia.

Indonesia, after all, is the world's fourth-largest nation at 209,774,138 (1997 estimate). It could become the third-largest democracy after the United States and India.

Indonesia is important to the security of the United States and Japan and South Korea. Indonesia's islands are astride strategic sealanes connecting the Indian and Pacific Oceans through which passes 40 percent of the world's shipping, including 80 percent of Japan's oil supply and 70 percent of South Korea's.

Indonesia has been a welcome moderating force in the Islamic world as the world's most populous Muslim state.

As a champion of reforms in its transition to a democratic political system, the United States should reward Indonesia, particularly if progress can be made in reducing levels of violence and human rights abuses.

An invitation for Indonesia President B.J. Habibie to visit Washington would be appropriate if parliamentary elections set for June 7 go off smoothly. He is at least as worthy a guest as China's Premier Zhu Rongji who recently received red-carpet treatment in the U.S. despite China's shaky record on human rights.

The writer is a Tokyo-based veteran analyst of Northeast Asian affairs and a media fellow at Hoover Institution, Stanford University.