New RI-Australia security pact?

New RI-Australia security pact?

Robyn Lim, The Straits Times, Asia News Network, Singapore

John Howard, recently re-elected for a fourth term as
Australia's conservative Prime Minister, was the only non-ASEAN
head of government to attend Indonesian President Susilo Bambang
Yudhoyono's inauguration.

And now, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer is
talking about a new security pact with Indonesia.

While a good idea in principle, this needs to be approached
cautiously. It should represent the culmination of a process of
post-Timor Leste rapprochement between Australia and Indonesia,
not the beginning. Otherwise, it risks going the way of the 1995
strategic alignment, which proved unsustainable.

True, cooperation in meeting the terrorist threat could
provide the rationale for the cooperation -- especially in the
wake of the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 88 Australians and
last month's attack on the Australian Embassy in Jakarta.

For Australia, there is also considerable appeal in the idea
of a new alignment with Southeast Asia's largest country, and the
country that has the world's largest population of Muslims.

For its part, Indonesia might also see value in a security
agreement that could constrain Australia from actions that
challenge Indonesia's national integrity in ways that other
neighbors cannot. For example, Indonesia is worried about the
activities of some Australian human rights advocates, who seek to
foster secessionism in West Papua.

In broader regional terms, Australia and Indonesia have
congruent strategic interests. Australia is an island continent,
while Indonesia is a far-flung archipelago straddling the vital
straits between the Indian and Pacific oceans.

Apart from the threat of Islamic terrorism, China's strategic
ambitions are the greatest potential source of regional
instability -- as can be seen in the rising tension between China
and Japan in the East China Sea as China presses on its maritime
frontiers.

While both Australia and Indonesia seek to foster good
relations with China, they cannot afford to ignore the growing
evidence of Chinese blue-water ambition.

Not long after the Cold War ended, China reasserted vast
territorial claims in the East and South China seas. These claims
are so extensive that they press on the eastern entrance to the
Malacca Strait. Also, China has a strategic foothold in otherwise
friendless Myanmar, at the western entrance to the straits.

The recognition of shared security interests led Australia and
Indonesia into the 1995 strategic alignment between then-
president Soeharto and Labor prime minister Paul Keating (1992-
1996), an alignment first proposed by Soeharto in 1971.

Soeharto's feelers to Canberra (and Tokyo) were prompted by
fear that the Nixon Doctrine -- itself a consequence of America's
need to find an exit from the Vietnam war -- might herald a U.S.
retreat from East Asia and hence a growing role for China.

For Soeharto, Australia was valuable as a security partner
because of its alliance with the United States as well as its
defense links with Southeast Asia, including defense cooperation
with Indonesia.

But then came the problem of Portuguese East Timor (now Timor
Leste) -- itself a strategic consequence of a left-wing 1974 coup
in Lisbon that raised fears of critical Soviet gains in the Cold
War, including in the Azores (vital for U.S. maritime
reinforcement of Europe). Soeharto, in the wake of the fall of
Saigon in 1975 to Soviet-backed Vietnamese communists, rightly
feared a 'Cuba at my doorstep', and so did his ASEAN partners.

He sought to resolve the East Timor issue by political means,
but failed. So he convinced Australia's Labor prime minister,
Gough Whitlam, to acquiesce in Indonesia's invasion of East
Timor. But Whitlam was unable to carry his party. Subsequently,
Indonesia was widely condemned in Australia and elsewhere for its
brutal policies in East Timor.

Nevertheless, in 1978, the conservative Fraser government
recognized the incorporation of East Timor into Indonesia. And by
1995, Keating was able to set aside the East Timor ulcer in order
to forge his alignment with Indonesia -- the Agreement to
Maintain Security (AMS). For its part, Indonesia was worried that
China's territorial claims might extend to the Natuna gas fields
and sought an unprecedented alignment with a U.S. ally.

But the AMS was not submitted to the Australian Parliament and
proved unable to outlast the departure of its principals. In
1998, the overthrow of Soeharto led to the East Timor crisis and
Australia's United Nations-authorized intervention there in 1999.
The AMS was one of the first casualties, not least because
Indonesia felt betrayed and Howard was unwilling to put much
effort into maintaining an agreement made by his Labor
predecessor.

Indeed, Howard has continued to lacerate Indonesian
sensitivities by talking to Australian audiences about the
'liberation' of predominantly Catholic East Timor, or what is now
Timor Leste. Moreover, Australia's support for the U.S. in Iraq
has won it few friends in Indonesia, as among many other
predominantly Muslim countries. Former president Megawati
Soekarnoputri would never have contemplated a new security
agreement with Australia.

But President Susilo might. A former lieutenant-general, he
was closely involved in military cooperation with Australia pre-
1999. But he has much on his plate, and if things go wrong,
Indonesia could become another near-failed state.

So, Howard should proceed cautiously. Australia's overriding
objective in Indonesia is to see the achievement of stability
there. Any new security agreement would have to be ratified by
the parliaments of both countries, and that would not be easy.

And while Australia has reason to welcome Indonesia's
transition to democracy, it must resist the temptation to think
that democracy is a panacea for strategic problems.

The writer is Professor of International Relations at Nanzan
University, Nagoya, Japan. From 1988 to 1994, He worked in the
Office of National Assessments, Australia's national foreign
intelligence assessment agency.