Neighboring countries concerned over developments in Indonesia

Hanys Salmi, Kuala Lumpur

The current social-political developments in our giant neighbor Indonesia have become the focus of attention in the Southeast Asian region. There are at least three areas of concern on which strategic thinkers and policy makers are training their political telescopes -- Indonesia's July 5 presidential election, the possible spill-over of its social and economic problems, and the country's dubious stance on the international fight against terrorism.

On the issue of the Indonesian presidential election, the main worry is about the possibility of a military dictatorship emerging and masquerading as a democracy. Such concern is not without logical foundations. The fact is, although millions of Indonesians are struggling to create civilian supremacy in their fledgling democracy, the country's political parties have intentionally nominated three retired generals to contest the election -- former Military (TNI) commander Wiranto, former chief of the TNI's territorial staff (Kaster) Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who used to oversee nine regional military commands (Kodam), and former commander of the Sulawesi military region Agum Gumelar.

Though the three have served in Cabinet in civilian capacities their former subordinates are still on active duty in the military. These connections could allow any of them to revive the dirty politics of the country's former tyrant Soeharto.

However, Wiranto and Yudhoyono have tried to convince the Southeast Asian region of their honest intentions in promoting democracy in Indonesia. Both were invited separately to Singapore recently to address policy makers and business strategists who are now wondering whether they will match their words with deeds if they are elected.

At the center of their speeches was an apparent determination to promote the rule of law, democracy and human rights while pulling the country out of its socio-economic crisis. In a five year-term of office, by any logical calculation, none of them would be able to solve all the country's problems, even with magic spells. Indonesia's domestic problems are so huge that perhaps the country needs 20 years to put its house in order and turn itself into a stabilizing influence in the region.

The next president's first priority must be improving national stability and securing territorial integrity against the implementation of regional autonomy that, if not well-checked, could eventually become a source of disintegration.

In order to balance autonomy with the need to keep the nation intact, there are very big temptations for the next Indonesian president to pursue a military approach, simply because the archipelago with more than 17,000 islands inhabited by over 220 million people from various religious and ethnic backgrounds cannot be easily held intact with a soft civilian approach.

Regional analysts doubt that the Indonesian reform movement will make much progress in the next five years. The most likely outcome is that the current pace of change will be maintained, but after some time Indonesians may well become cynical or bored with reform and concentrate on their personal and familial economic wellbeing. This could endanger the future of the nation's democracy and could encourage the return of military politics, especially if the civilian forces remain split as they are today.

Another focus of attention is on Indonesia's social and economic maladies. This is a noisy country where political leaders talk too much and act too little. Each one of them can spend hours talking about economic recovery to satisfy their audiences, and do only that. When the monetary crisis hit the region in July 1997 and grew worse the next year, virtually all the members of ASEAN were seriously affected. And Indonesia is the only ASEAN member still unable to pull itself away from the impact of the crisis.

One of the reasons for this is its political reluctance to strengthen the legal system, which makes it hard for honest government leaders to take stern measures against well-connected debtors and "law-proof" corrupters.

Up to 1.2 million of the workforce have now been employed in Malaysia and almost twice the number are employed in Arab and other Asian countries. But the major bulk of the disgruntled jobless people are inside Indonesia doing whatever they can to make ends meet. This is a dangerous political time bomb that may explode in the years ahead if no serious action is taken to defuse it. Of the 150 million eligible voters, 40 million are jobless while the country's official statistics show that 37 million people are living in abject poverty.

For countries like Malaysia and Singapore, the main worry is if this time bomb should explode and spill over in the form of an uncontrolled outflow of illegal workers and other types of social refugees in which case the region's stability could be seriously affected. One way to prevent this from happening is perhaps for the Malaysian and Singaporean governments to pay more attention to Indonesia's domestic issues and increase bilateral assistance for Indonesia's labor-intensive sectors.

The third topic of interest among regional strategic thinkers and policy makers is Indonesia's bizarre stance on the international fight against terrorism. The country is a good place for extremists, fundamentalists and perhaps even terrorists to take sanctuary and partake in activities that elsewhere would be considered subversive.

Since May 1998 when the country began its ambitious reform process, this particular area has been the most difficult to deal with. Government leaders simply have no concept about how to handle such troublemakers, although the culprits represent only a tiny portion of society and their claims of faith are not supported by their countrymen of the same religion. This situation is a puzzle to government leaders, business people and analysts in many countries.

Considering all these developments, analysts are wondering if Indonesia will remain stable in the years ahead or whether it would reverse backwards and become a source of regional instability. The future depends of the actions of the political leaders.

The writer is a researcher on Indonesian issues for a Kuala Lumpur-based company. He can be reached at hanyssalmi@malaysia.com