Reflections on Australia-Indonesia ties

Reflections on Australia-Indonesia ties

By S. Wiryono

CANBERRA (JP): As Australia's former prime minister, Malcolm
Fraser, once remarked, "life was not meant to be easy". That is
surely true for career diplomats such as myself, whose main task
in life is to represent their country to the rest of the world.

Since no country on earth is totally free of unhappy incidents
or episodes in its present or past, this is not always a
comfortable position to be in. Indonesia is, of course, my reason
for being. We are still growing into the nation we aspire to be,
and naturally we are experiencing many difficulties and growing
pains. Inevitably there are moments of doubt and frustration when
the government's policies and one's own beliefs and values clash.

Much is being written and said in Indonesia at present about
Australia and Australians that reflects deeply hurt feelings. But
although partly spontaneous, it would be wrong to conclude simply
that Indonesians have suddenly come to hate Australians. At the
same time, much discussion of Indonesia in Australia at this time
is also based on a lack of understanding of, and sensitively to,
my country and its present circumstances.

This is not really surprising. Despite the rapid expansion and
deepening of relations on a wide range of levels, most
Australians know little of Indonesia, just as most Indonesians
know little of Australia.

It is important for Australians to appreciate that Indonesia
is going through a very traumatic period. The smoothly
functioning democratic process that is taken for granted in
Australia is yet to be established in Indonesia.

Australians have a healthy disrespect for their politicians,
and the well-established electoral process allows voters to tip
governments out of power if they feel their interests are not
being looked after. On occasion, they feel that they need to go
further by demonstrating on the streets about issues of
particular concern, but they have the luxury of knowing that they
can do so without fear for their safety.

The Indonesian people hoped that with the resignation of
former president Soeharto and the successful staging of the
legislative election in June, democracy would be firmly
established in Indonesia, but things are clearly not so simple.
Indonesia has been experiencing increasing political turmoil
since the election. While Dr. Habibie's ascendancy to the
presidency last year was in accordance with the Constitution, he
does not enjoy widespread popular support. Yet, because of the
nature of the presidential election process, there will have been
a hiatus as long as a year-and-a-half since Soeharto resigned
before we know who will be our first truly elected president.

Unfortunately, no single party gained a majority of the seats
in the House of Representatives, which means that we are forced
to go through a period of several months during which the various
parties, and the military -- which also holds a substantial block
of nonelected seats in the House -- must try to form a coalition
strong enough to command a majority of votes. All kinds of
methods are being employed in trying to win this battle, some of
which surely were never intended by those who fought for our
independence and framed our Constitution.

The recent tragic events in East Timor have been played out
against a background of this great national effort to form a new
government to bring Indonesia into the family of democratic
nations. It is important that Australians understand that the
institutions they have built up over a hundred years of
nationhood -- a democratic electoral process, a strong and
independent judiciary, a free and reasonably responsible press, a
largely noncorrupt and highly competent civil service, a
decentralized system of government in which strong states
counterbalance the strength of the national government -- are
things we Indonesians aspire to, and are just beginning to enjoy.

Our strongest institution is the military, although in line
with our democratic aspirations, its dual function is in the
process of being phased out, perhaps before the next election. We
are acutely aware of our own vulnerability to the dark forces
within our society that are able to be harnessed in a manner that
results in such terrifying episodes as the suffering visited upon
Indonesians of Chinese descent in May last year, and social
upheaval in places such as Ambon, Kalimantan and so on more
recently.

At the same time, Indonesians need to have a better
understanding of Australian motivations toward Indonesia, and it
is helpful to look back further than just the past few months if
this is to be achieved. At the government level, Australia was
one of the first nations to pledge financial assistance to
Indonesia after the monetary crisis began to get out of hand late
in 1997. At the individual level, I cannot forget the two young
women university students who rode their bicycle around Australia
in a magnificent people-to-people fund-raising effort to support
Indonesian families hard hit by the crisis. Looking back much
further into the past, we need to remember also that Australia
was the country Indonesia chose to represent it in the UN Good
Offices Commission when we sought to wrest our independence from
the Dutch.

The Australian and other international media's reporting on
East Timor reflected people's sense of outrage as to what they
saw going on. But many of the broadcasted images were angled and
spliced so as to be almost entirely weighted against Indonesia,
and to picture the proindependence side in highly sympathetic
terms.

The fact is that the situation in East Timor is very complex,
not a black and white case of angels fighting devils. The
animosity between the disputing parties has been building up over
many years. Violence has been committed by both sides, and
episodes in which the perpetrators were proindependence
supporters have almost never been reported.

Nevertheless, while I realize that there have been all kinds
of statements coming from Australia that are perceived in
Indonesia as over intrusive and boastful, I feel that Australia's
motivation now is no different from before. If we are honest with
ourselves, we must recognize that many East Timorese people
suffered during integration, just as we suffered under the Dutch,
despite all the funds we contributed to the development of the
province. We can draw no other conclusion from the result of the
recent referendum, which was a vote of 78.5 percent to 21.5
percent for independence.

Indonesian diplomats have suffered personally as a result of
the tragedy in East Timor. As the Indonesian Ambassador in
Australia, I have had to bear the brunt of media accusations,
criticism, sharp questioning -- in some cases, virtual
interrogation.

It has not been a pleasant experience, and I have to say that
I have little respect for those members of the media who seem
intent on stoking the fires of Indonesia-oriented xenophobia to
build their own ratings or circulations, rather than making a
positive and constructive contribution to informing the general
public and discussing the issues in a thoughtful manner. Some
could, indeed, be accused of seeing East Timor as an event to be
exploited as a form of entertainment for their audiences.

On the other hand, I have been much heartened by many letters
and calls expressing sympathy and regret for the unenlightened
behavior towards me and my country by some sections of the media.
But not all members of the Australia media can be characterized
as irresponsible. And in Indonesia, we cannot say that our own
media are perfect. We are just starting to become used to having
a free press after decades during which it was firmly controlled,
and in some cases this new freedom is also abused.

In addition, although sometimes I have been on the receiving
end of behavior I considered to be intolerable on the part of the
Australian media, I note that, indeed, life is not meant to be
easy for politicians or diplomats, and it is not the job of the
media to make their life easier.

On the contrary, if we care about transparency and
accountability, we are unlikely to get it unless the media are
free to make government officials and their political masters
somewhat uncomfortable from time to time.

Nevertheless, the media would do well to contemplate the
considerable power they have at their disposal to influence
public opinion by reporting current events in a balanced and
objective manner, and thus positively to influence the course of
relations between our two countries.

If there is one plea I would make on the eve of my departure,
it is that the media in Australia and Indonesia recognize their
responsibilities in this regard more than they have done in
recent weeks.

An ambassador should seek not only to project the face of his
own nation within the country to which he is posted, but more
generally should aim to build stronger ties between both
countries.

To this end, it is also possible for people such as myself to
project the realities of the host country, in this case
Australia, back home to my own people. At no time have these
tasks been more important than now.

I am glad to be going home after many years away on foreign
soil, but I am sad to be leaving at a time when Indonesian-
Australian relations have deteriorated so greatly. But there is a
great deal of goodwill in each country toward the other, and I am
confident that this will form the basis of efforts to heal the
wounds and bruises in the months and years to come.

For the time being, people on both sides need to keep their
emotions in check and to look for the right moment to begin
rebuilding the relationship. God has made our two countries
neighbors, and our economic and security interests link us
inextricably. It is the challenge, and the grave responsibility,
of men and women of goodwill on both sides not to allow the
relationship to be damaged further.

The writer is the Indonesian Ambassador to Australia who
completed his three-and-a-half year tour of duty in Canberra on
Sept. 30, 1999.