Meeting of minds in Tokyo

While in Tokyo to attend the funeral of the late Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi, one of President Abdurrahman Wahid's main agenda items will be to patch up Indonesia's relations with Australia -- again, because patching up strained relations with Australia has become something of a routine job that every Indonesian president since the 1950s has had to perform.

The importance of maintaining good relations -- or at least a workable relationship -- between Indonesia and Australia has been commented on every so often in this column. Indonesia is the biggest and the most populous country in the region -- apart from being the fourth most populous in the world -- and, despite its present condition, has every potential of playing a key role in the region.

Australia, on the other hand, is an advanced industrial country with scientific and technological advantages that could greatly benefit other countries in the Asian and Pacific regions -- a representative of the modern Western world on the region's doorstep, as it were. Good relations between the two countries would therefore be greatly beneficial to the entire region.

Hence, there is nothing strange or unusual in President Abdurrahman meeting with Australia's Prime Minister John Howard to discuss Jakarta's ties with Canberra, which suffered yet another setback during the East Timor crisis last year. And since there are no fundamental differences whatsoever between the two governments with regard to East Timor, there is no reason to expect that hitches will occur.

In the meantime, however, a shadow of renewed discord between the two nations is already looming, which, unless tackled with wisdom and good sense, could lead to another crisis in Australian-Indonesian relations. This concerns reports that Australians were attending the recently concluded Papua People's Congress in Jayapura. President Abdurrahman has made it clear that he would ask his Australian counterpart to "handle" whatever problems might arise from the presence of Australian non- governmental organizations at the Papua conference -- if indeed there were.

Whatever his shortcomings, we believe President Abdurrahman is well enough equipped to handle this particular problem. In the short period that he has been in power, President Abdurrahman has shown an unfailing commitment to the establishment of justice, human rights and democracy, which, after all is what the Papua problem is all about.

In all this it is heartening, meanwhile, to observe that, for once, most Indonesians seem to be reacting with a rather surprising degree of rationality to the Papua People's Congress, including the reported presence of Australians at the congress. The congress itself, including its demand for independence, has hardly caused a stir in Jakarta. The president has not only kept the military from over-reacting, he has allowed the Papuans to raise their Morning Star flag, albeit on certain conditions.

Indonesians, it seems, are confident that they have little to fear from the Papuans as long as they keep their promise of giving the people the justice they have long been clamoring for by granting them regional autonomy. Irian Jaya, or Papua, differs from East Timor in that it is recognized by the United Nations as having become a part of Indonesia through a UN-approved "act of self-determination" in 1963. For now, at least, Indonesians seem to be confident enough that they will be able to maintain their unitary state.

It is also well to keep in mind that it is in the interest not only of Indonesia, but for the stability of the entire Asia- Pacific region to keep this country from becoming Balkanized. For Indonesians, this means that it is their responsibility, and theirs alone, to administer their country with justice, wisdom and skill so that peace and contentment can prevail. This, unfortunately, is easier said than done, but there is no other way the country can be kept intact and the people contented.