Keating's defeat won't affect RI-Aussie relationship

Keating's defeat won't affect RI-Aussie relationship

By T. Sima Gunawan and Johannes Simbolon

JAKARTA (JP): The election victory of Australian Liberal party under John Howard over Paul Keating of the Labor party yesterday is not likely to affect the existing warm relations between Australia and Indonesia, international relationship experts said.

Jusuf Wanandi, chairman of the supervisory board of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Sabam Siagian, former Indonesian Ambassador for Australia and Theo Sambuaga, a legislator overseeing foreign affairs, said separately that relations will continue more or less along the same path with the change of government in Canberra.

"The new government under Prime Minister Howard will share the same strategic view of his predecessor in the sense that Indonesia and Southeast Asia is an important area for Australia," Sabam, who was ambassador in Canberra in 1991-1995, said.

Like Keating, Howard considers Indonesia important and will therefore strive to maintain the existing good ties, he said, adding that Howard will allocate considerable attention to manage and expand the bilateral relationship.

Sabam however foresees a decline in the intensity of the Indonesia-Australia relationship. "For one thing, the problem of the new government will be the lack of talented people. So most probably the intensity of the relationship will suffer and also we will see a diminishing volume of creative ideas."

"In the Australian Labor party, after Keating, you have Kim Beazly, Gareth Evans, Simon Crean, but in parliament with that coalition you don't have that much choice," he said.

Sabam speculated that Howard will appoint Robert Hill as his foreign minister. "He is calm, less exuberant than Gareth Evans, a systematic worker, likes to finish his tasks one by one, but very observant."

Sabam said the new government in Canberra will have a clearer stance in the case of East Timor.

"Don't forget, it was a Liberal government under Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser that recognized East Timor as a province of Indonesia," Sabam said. "Suppose the coalition had been in power last year, I don't think the candidacy of Gen. Mantiri would have been dropped," he said.

"The problem in the past with Gareth Evans, for one thing, as a foreign minister he worked quite hard for the bilateral relationship. On the other hand he tended to be somewhat lenient to activist groups on Indonesia human rights and East Timor issues," he said.

Jusuf said that whoever is in power, Canberra's foreign policy is unlikely to change much.

"There will probably be little impact on Indonesia because the foreign policy of the two are more or less parallel, which is to establish good ties with Asia," he said in Bangkok where he was observing the Asia-Europe summit.

Initially there might be some adjustments necessary because in the past, relations between the two countries were heavily dependent on the "personal relationships" between President Soeharto and Keating and between foreign ministers Ali Alatas and Gareth Evans, he said.

Jusuf said relations now are stronger than ever before because the foundations have been firmly established and are not dependent on personal relationships to cement the bond.

Jusuf said that as a first step, it is important for the new Australian leadership to improve the personal relations they have so it will not become a potential impediment later on.

Sambuaga believed that Australia would maintain its good relationship with Indonesia, which was developed long before the East Timor issue emerged.

"Australia has seen lots of benefits from the good relationship and I'm sure Howard will keep on maintaining the relationship," he said.

Howard is expected to follow up the principles in accordance with the bilateral Security Agreement which were signed recently by the foreign ministers of the two countries.

"Clearly, Australia wants to see the region safe. I think he will follow the principles as stated in the agreement," he said.

Syarwan Hamid, Chief of Socio-Political Affairs of the Armed Forces, also believed that Keating's loss in the election would not affect Canberra's ties with Indonesia.

"We hope whoever wins the election will continue what Keating has pioneered. The two neighboring countries have interacted well during his administration," he said.

The relations between Indonesia and Australia saw ups and downs since 1945, but became warmer when Keating assumed office.

During his tenure, Keating visited Indonesia six times and there was also good contact between both country's officials at lower levels.

The warm relations reached its peak when both countries signed the Security Agreement last December.