Oz-RI patient on improved ties

Oz-RI patient on improved ties

By Peter Kerr

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesians may gain some comfort from knowing
that their confusion and exasperation over President Abdurrahman
Wahid's erratic leadership, and the current political mire, is
shared by their neighbors in Australia.

What has become known as Abdurrahman's on-again off-again trip
to Australia has been canceled for the fourth time. Or perhaps it
was the fifth -- there is some uncertainty even on this, due to
the opaque nature of the President's pronouncements.

Again, the red carpet for what would be the first visit by an
Indonesian leader in 27 years has been put on hold.

But striking about this latest reversal, despite some
embarrassment in both countries that Abdurrahman has visited up
to 55 other nations while still neglecting Australia, has been
the measured response on both sides.

The Australian press raised the usual concerns that efforts to
rebuild relations between Jakarta and Canberra would be damaged,
but acknowledged along with politicians from both countries the
pressures on Abdurrahman at home.

The continuing message from Australia -- despite public
bewilderment at the President's actions, and fears from some
Indonesia watchers that he has added fuel to anti-Jakarta
sentiment -- is that the bilateral relationship remains to be
built upon with patience over the long-term.

While Abdurrahman's political future is in doubt, Australian
officials would not speculate this week on the prospect of the
historic trip to Canberra being made by Megawati Soekarnoputri as
Indonesia's first female president.

Indeed they maintained that Australia was ready to greet
Abdurrahman at a moment's notice.

But as lecturers Scott Burchill and Damien Kingsbury noted in
The Jakarta Post earlier this week, another element of the
Australia-Indonesia dynamic is likely to change significantly as
Canberra anticipates a change of power by the end of the year.

With Prime Minister John Howard suffering in opinion polls,
the Labor Party led by Kim Beazley is expected to win office, and
offers to bring with it a renewed engagement with Indonesia and
the rest of Asia.

Beazley has long criticized Howard for not taking the
initiative to travel to Indonesia, claiming the Prime Minister
waited too long to help salve the wounds caused by Australia's
military role in East Timor in 1999.

Labor MP and former diplomat Kevin Rudd, a rising star with
the party who has been allowed the running on many foreign
affairs issues, told a Jakarta conference on Indonesia-Australia
relations last month that Beazley saw the two countries as
"partners in democracy".

Australia viewed the maneuvering in the legislature and the
People's Consultative Assembly as normal: "Democracy is a messy
business," Rudd said.

He went on to give assurances that, despite concern at the
conference about the emerging Indonesian democracy and bilateral
relations, among Australians aged below 40 there were "no fears
at all, absolutely none" over the security relationship.

"When Labor wins the election there will be regional
engagement: Evanism, Keatingism, Hawkism all wrapped together,"
Rudd enthused of the years under Labor prime ministers Bob Hawke
and Paul Keating, and foreign minister Gareth Evans.

"We'll find some different wrapping paper but essentially that
will be it."

His optimism overlooked what might be a first hurdle for a
Beazley government: reconciling its pro-active appoach with the
stance of Labor on issues such as East Timor -- particularly the
insistence that those responsible for human rights abuses face
justice -- and the independence movement in Irian Jaya.

Labor's shadow foreign minister Laurie Brereton has been
outspoken on East Timor and was responsible for reversing Labor's
policy that supported Indonesia moving into East Timor in 1975.

Meanwhile, Labor federal president Greg Sword, who is also
vice president of the powerful Labor-supporting Australian
Council of Trade Unions, signed a memorandum of understanding
last year with the West Papua movement.

Unlike Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, Brereton agreed to
meet West Papuan leaders last year, but took pains to emphasize
that Labor's policy did not challenge Indonesian sovereignty over
Irian Jaya. Brereton also spoke to Sword after he signed the
memorandum.

Labor Party officials, increasingly attuned to the likelihood
of an election victory, were more circumspect this week than Rudd
about the specifics of a Beazley government's approach to
Indonesia.

But if Labor could break the stalemate over the visit by a
head of state in either direction -- or if Abdurrahman undertook
his own trip, albeit under criticism for being a lame duck -- a
way forward might be found.

For while experts from both countries agree that Australia and
Indonesia both have much to gain from renewed dialog, some are
frustrated that opportunities are being missed.

Academic Jamie Mackie told the Jakarta conference there had
been a shift in Australia from "considerable optimism after the
overthrow of Soeharto to alarm over violence in East Timor and
weariness over Irian and Maluku".

There also had been a shift "between the friends of Indonesia
and what I would not call the enemies of Indonesia, but the
critics. The hand of the critics was somewhat strengthened in
1999".

Mackie said he agreed with the former ambassador to Australia,
S. Wiryono, that Indonesia could help Australia find its place in
the region.

Another academic, Richard Robison, said the first challenge
for Australia was to identify a paradigm for the bilateral
relationship, then to "bring those parties concerned with
Indonesia together".

Deep changes such as Indonesia's economic crisis, the
overthrow of Soeharto and the independence vote in East Timor
meant Australia had lost its blueprint for relations with
Indonesia.

"Does Indonesia matter any more?" was a question being raised
because of the vacuum.

"The challenge now is to find a new paradigm, and in a sense
it should be easier now that we have a commonality in democracy,"
Robison said.

With the United States spelling out its desire for Australia
to "take the lead" in relations with Indonesia, and with
Indonesia facing more economic turmoil and regional instability,
the two neighbors can look forward to some complex diplomatic
challenges.

The writer is Deputy Foreign Editor of The Sydney Morning
Herald newspaper. He is spending four months at The Jakarta Post
under a Medialink fellowship, funded by the Australia-Indonesia
Institute.