Licking our wounds

Licking our wounds

Indonesia never really had a chance in its legal battle to
claim the ownership of Pulau Sipadan and Pulau Ligitan. This much
is now clear from the overwhelming vote against Indonesia by the
panel of 17 judges at the International Court of Justice in The
Hague on Tuesday.

The judges voted 16 to 1 to rule that the two islands off the
northeastern tip of Borneo/East Kalimantan belong to Malaysia.

This runs contrary to the claim by the government, in this
case the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which led the legal
campaign in the Dutch capital, that based on the evidence
presented in court Indonesia had a pretty strong case.

The whole country had been led to believe, even as late as
Monday, that there was a fifty-fifty chance of winning.

If that had been the case, Tuesday's vote would have reflected
it. At the very least, the vote should have been 8 to 9, or 7 to
10. A 15-2 vote would still have made our case look decent.

As if losing was not enough, the 16 to 1 vote was downright
embarrassing. It is like reading the scoreline of a soccer match,
with our national team being trashed by Brazil. Knowing we had
little chance, we should not have made the attempt at all.

Either we never had a solid case to begin with, or the
government and its international lawyers (who were retained for a
handsome $1.6 million to fight Indonesia's case in The Hague
since 1997), have done a poor job. The government had us
convinced, or fooled, that we had a chance.

Since the International Court of Justice's ruling is binding
and final, there is no sense in ruing our loss. Nevertheless,
there are valuable lessons that we should draw from this bitter
experience about how we deal with our sovereignty.

The court in its ruling opined that neither Indonesia nor
Malaysia had presented a solid legal case in staking their
respective claims, because the issue was never determined by the
Netherlands and Britain, which respectively ruled what later
became Indonesia and Malaysia in the 19th century.

The majority of judges voted for Malaysia solely on the basis
that Kuala Lumpur has exercised authority over the two islands
since 1930, and thus had de facto ownership of them. Indonesia,
the judges noted, only contested Malaysia's claim in 1969.

This was the line that Malaysia had used in its argument after
it became clear that the old Dutch and British maps and
conventions which both Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta had used in
staking their claims were found by the court to be inconclusive.

Indonesia turned to the fact that Malaysia had breached the
goodwill that should have been shown, knowing that the islands
were the subject of a dispute with Indonesia. While Jakarta
refrained from conducting anything that resembled an exercise of
sovereignty, Malaysia continued to build infrastructure on the
two islands, even as negotiations with Indonesia were being held.

Had Indonesia also tried to exercise sovereignty over the two
islands after 1969, the two countries would likely have come to
war. And that was just three years after the end of the military
confrontation between the two neighboring countries.

Indonesia wisely refrained, even as it repeatedly protested to
Malaysia for developing Pulau Sipadan, and later touting it as
one of the world's best diving resorts.

One valuable lesson we can learn from the court's ruling is
that goodwill counts for little, while the de facto exercise of
sovereignty, even in violation of goodwill, counts for a lot
more.

This means that Indonesia had better ensure that it exerts
physical sovereignty on all the remaining 17,506 islands (down
from 17,508 before Tuesday), including the uninhabited ones, lest
we let other countries come and take them over.

Still, there is no point in being a sore loser.

When Indonesia and Malaysia agreed to refer their dispute to
arbitration by the International Court of Justice after diplomacy
failed in 1996, it was with the commitment that both would accept
the decision, whichever way it went.

As a responsible members of the United Nations, Indonesia must
abide by the ruling, even if it was not exactly fair and square.

Indonesia can look back at this episode and still stand proud
that we have given our best shot in defending our territory,
without firing a single shot. We abided by international law and
codes of conduct.

As hard as it is in accepting defeat, we can say to ourselves
that we have done our share in ensuring peace and stability in
this region. At the very least, Tuesday's ruling has removed one
more pebble from our relations with Malaysia.

The dispute over the two islands never undermined the
relations between the two countries as we both believed that the
matter was too small in the context of overall ties, and also
because we both believed that it could be resolved in a civil
manner.

Now that the case has been settled, there is no reason to feel
enmity, or for relations to be harmed in any way. We shall
continue to leave peacefully as neighbors.

We will just have to put a brave face on it and get on with
our lives, secure in the knowledge that we did the right thing.