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.