Indonesia still pursuing its role in Non-Aligned Movement

By Nana S. Sutresna

JAKARTA (JP): One question that is often asked these days by observers and analysts of Indonesian policy is whether the country should continue its well-known active role in the Non- Aligned Movement (NAM).

After all, the Cold War is a thing of the past. During the Cold War the NAM served as the moral alternative to alignment with either of the two ideological blocs that were then engaged in a rivalry that had potentially devastating consequences. As if to suggest that such a function was the rationale of NAM's existence, another question that is often asked is: With the alignments gone, is non-alignment still meaningful?

Moreover, in a global situation where the emerging economies like Indonesia have lost much of their dynamism, the NAM, whose members are all developing countries, must have also lost much of whatever leverage it had in dealing with the developed world. Is it still be prudent and practical for Indonesia to be so closely identified with the NAM?

My personal view is that while the end of the Cold War and the surge of globalization have changed the political and economic landscape of the world, they have not in any way changed the fundamentals of international relations.

Nor can they change the historical fact that Indonesia was born non-aligned. This means that virtually right after the Indonesian Republic was proclaimed in 1945, it acquired a foreign policy that then Prime Minister Mohammad Hatta would subsequently describe as "independent and active." Independent because it is neither shaped nor influenced by the designs of any world power but only by the national interest and the ideals and principles to which our founding fathers committed the Indonesian Republic. Active because it seeks to launch or participate in common initiatives towards the shaping of a more peaceful, more just and more prosperous world order. The mandate to do so comes directly from the Preamble of the 1945 Constitution.

Therefore, if Indonesia is to be true to itself, if it is to be faithful to the ideals and vision on which it was founded, it should remain as non-aligned as it was at the moment of its birth. And as long as the NAM sticks to the principles of non- alignment as enunciated some 44 years ago at the Asia-Africa Conference in Bandung, Indonesia should continue to be a mainstay of the movement.

The Ten Principles or Dasa Sila Bandung which constituted a code of ethics among nations have never been more relevant than in today's global situation where only one superpower tends to dominate the political landscape while the rest of the world strives for a new equilibrium. Primarily due to a mistaken notion that one bloc has scored a victory over the other, the growth of a monolithic situation seems to be gaining momentum in the post- Cold War era. This tendency might eventually constitute a threat to the common endeavor to create a juster world, adding complexity to the problems of developing countries that, even now, face bleak prospects. Hence, the world must not be allowed to become a monolith. There must be a balancing factor.

I do believe that the NAM could eventually become a balancing factor in international politics provided it continues on the path blazed by Indonesia during its chairmanship of the Movement. This was the path of dialog, negotiation and cooperation on the basis of partnership that was so eloquently embodied in the Jakarta Message, the most important document to come out of the NAM's Jakarta Summit of 1992.

Since then, the NAM has become a force for dialog in international politics and as such as influenced the perspective of the major powers in the UN Security Council. Because of the initiatives taken by the NAM, the tragedy of Somalia was greatly alleviated, a peaceful solution to the nuclear issue on the Korean peninsula was reached, and an alternative peace process on Bosnia was ready to be put in place if the United States, firmly backed up by the other Contact Group Countries on Bosnia, had not taken its own initiative to launch a successful peace process.

In the deliberations on many delicate issues in the UN, including in the economic field, the NAM has demonstrated that it can be effective in forging partnerships that would effectively address common problems.

That capability of the NAM is very much needed in the economic sphere today. The world is threatened with recession, many developing countries are reeling from the negative impact of a prolonged global financial crisis, multilateral cooperation for development is in retreat while unbridled liberalization continues to wreak havoc on the economies of the developing world.

The only feasible prescription for this situation is a global dialog between the developed North and the developing South that will lead to a global partnership that will solve the persistent, systemic economic problems of the world. The most effective advocate of such a global dialog today is the NAM.

If the NAM had not taken audacious initiatives at dialog and cooperation with the developed world, it is possible that its South-South cooperation activities could have been totally crippled by the financial crisis. But many important South-South cooperation activities are still on stream because of tripartite arrangements involving developed country partners or international financial institutions.

This approach, together with two other approaches, the pooling of resources and the evolutionary approach amongst member countries, enunciated during Indonesia's chairmanship of the NAM, now constitute the main modalities through which South-South Cooperation is to be pursued.

Consider also that UN decisions on economic matters have been mostly by consensus. With NAM countries making up two-thirds of the UN membership, the movement is naturally an important factor in the making of such a consensus.

The international community today badly needs a consensus on what to do with the financial crisis that has devastated East Asian economies including Indonesia. The NAM is working hard on bringing about that consensus. During its 12th Summit in Durban, South Africa in September 1998, it readily espoused Indonesia's proposal for a system of global governance that would make monetary flows more transparent and less of a threat to fragile developing economies.

Another Indonesian initiative has been to revive the proposal of the NAM to hold an international conference on the monetary situation. In this regard, the 12th NAM Summit adopted Indonesia's proposal that the next meeting of the NAM Standing Ministerial Committee on Economic Cooperation should address this issue to prepare for that projected conference on international monetary governance.

Support for the proposed global monetary governance has been voiced by some of the major powers including President Clinton before the Council on World Affairs in New York just before the start of the UN General Assembly Session of last year. France also supports it. No less than the IMF is seriously considering ways of reforming the international monetary regime.

It is in the national interest of Indonesia that these initiatives should be crowned with success. Thus far, Indonesia's being active in NAM affairs have yielded more than intangible prestige.

The quick sympathetic responses of the major industrialized countries, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to the requirements of Indonesian economic recovery, I think, is in consideration of Indonesia's vast economic potential, its strategic geographical position, and its many contributions to the cause of a global partnership for development.

With regard to the latter, for instance, at least six of the highly indebted poor countries (HIPCs) are now benefiting from Indonesia's espousal of a debt-relief strategy that would restore them on the road to development.

Indeed, Indonesia is gaining a great deal of goodwill of both the developed and developing countries as well as the multilateral institutions through its active work with the NAM. We need that goodwill because it can be translated into cooperation. And the cooperation of the developed countries, the other developing countries as well as the international financial institutions will greatly help in saving the day for Indonesia as it strives for economic recovery.

It is therefore not only desirable that Indonesia continues to pursue its independent and active foreign policy within the framework of the NAM but also vitally necessary.

In this context, it has indeed been reassuring to note that President B.J. Habibie in a recent speech before the House of Representatives reaffirmed Indonesia's commitment to pursuing the ideals and objectives of the NAM.

The writer is former ambassador-at-large on Non-Aligned Movement Affairs.