Nurturing a fledgling democracy

The following article is based on address to the Indonesian Council on World Affairs by Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General in Jakarta on Feb. 16, 2000. This is the first of two articles.

JAKARTA: The Asian financial crisis was neither Asian nor financial. But it was a crisis. As you know better than anyone, its impact was far more than financial. As people everywhere know, it went far beyond Asia. The rest of the world is therefore all the more impressed and inspired by what Indonesia is doing and has done already -- to overcome it.

Under difficult circumstances and in a short space of time, you have made significant progress in restoring macroeconomic stability, advancing structural reforms, and assuring food security. Of course, economic development has been a priority since the birth of your nation. But in the past two years, because you have understood that people are the most precious resource of any nation, this work has taken on new dimensions.

You have understood that economic and social recovery cannot take hold without a system based on transparency, accountability and the rule of law. And so you are carrying out economic reform in tandem with political, legal and institutional reform.

You have opted for a foreign policy built not on competition with your neighbors, not on confrontation with the rest of the world, but on cooperation and friendship. You have championed non-alignment and South-South cooperation. You have set an example to other developing countries.

We have seen what Indonesia is capable of in the field of regional cooperation. We have witnessed it in the indispensable strength and direction you have given to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) since its inception -- something indeed that made ASEAN possible.

Today, ASEAN is not only a well-functioning, indispensable reality in the region. It is a real force to be reckoned with far beyond the region. It is also a trusted partner of the United Nations in the field of development. I hope that in the field of peace and security, too, we will see the beginnings of closer cooperation between ASEAN and the UN.

In the United Nations, Indonesia's leadership and engagement give voice not only to this nation, but to the interests of all developing nations. Last month your able Permanent Representative to the UN, Makarim Wibisono, was elected President of the Economic and Social Council for the year 2000.

And last year, you crossed a new milestone. Thanks to last year's free and peaceful general election -- which, I am pleased to recall, the UN Development Program helped you organize -- you now have a government with a broad popular mandate. Your political parties have shown wisdom and a spirit of statesmanlike compromise. This should now make it possible for their leaders to focus on an agenda of long-term stability, economic recovery and democracy. We all have a stake in this and we all want you to succeed.

Already, political reform has opened the door to a free and vibrant press. Civil society is becoming increasingly active and effective. Parliament has grown more assertive.

The challenge now for Indonesia, its people and its friends -- including the United Nations -- is to build on the democratic institutions that have so gloriously emerged, so that they grow stronger tomorrow.

No one is born a good citizen; no nation is born a democracy. Rather, both are processes that continue to evolve over a lifetime. As your foreign minister has rightly noted, democracy is a habit that we need to cultivate consciously in ourselves. That is how we build enduring political, economic and social institutions. That is how we develop government that is answerable to citizens, and citizenry that is fully engaged in decisions that affect their country's future.

Strong institutions, underpinned by the will of the people and the rule of law, are crucial at all times and in all countries, but perhaps never more so than here and now, at this decisive time in Indonesia's history; a time when freedom and openness is bringing to the forefront a wide range of challenges. These challenges are not new in themselves but many of them are made more difficult by the fact that, in the past, they were disregarded, dismissed or dealt with as purely security issues.

These challenges are many and various, and they all compete for the government's urgent attention. The country is suddenly faced with myriad political and social demands, all of which seem to require immediate answers. And of course you know that there are no ready-made solutions.

Among these challenges, probably none seems more threatening than the issue of separatism. It may well feel to some of you as if Indonesia's very existence is under attack from covert forces which believe the country is too large, and want to break it up. But in fact, your case is not unique at all.