RI-Aussie ties look toward millennium

RI-Aussie ties look toward millennium

By Geoff Forrester

The following article is based on a paper presented at the
panel discussion "Australia-Indonesia Relations: Facing a New
Millennium". The session was held during the Australian Studies
Conference, organized by the Australian Studies Center,
University of Indonesia, on April 21 and April 22, 1999.

JAKARTA: The immediate prospects for Australia-Indonesia
relations are gloomy.

It would have been ludicrous to make such a statement six
months ago. Why suggest it now?

My reasons for doing so have nothing to do with the economic
crisis. Despite the collapse of much of the modern sector of the
Indonesian economy, the economic relationship has remained
strong. Australian investors have for the most part remained
committed to Indonesia, and Australia has responded to the crisis
with a substantial increase in development assistance.

Nor is Indonesia's overall human rights record the problem.
Despite some glaring breaches, for example at Semanggi on 13
November, Indonesia's human rights record has improved
substantially with the fall of Soeharto. There is a new press
freedom. And Indonesians are preparing for the first genuinely
democratic election in 44 years.

The issue which is undermining and poisoning the bilateral
relationship is East Timor.

The issue of great importance to both countries is being
seriously mishandled by all those involved: the Timorese
themselves, by Australia and Indonesia, by the United Nations
and, once again, by the pusilanimous Portuguese.

The Timorese, Indonesia and Australia are the most directly
involved in the problem. Whatever the outcome, we three parties
cannot run home to Europe or let the problem slip as other crises
elsewhere in the world grab the limelight.

In 1975, the world let a vicious civil war run its course and
did nothing to restore order or legitimate authority. Thousands
died. And then Indonesia annexed the territory. There are many
similarities between the situation then and the situation now.
First, bloodshed is already occurring and civil war threatens
again.

Before the 1975 civil war, all sides wanted time to prepare
the territory for an act of self-determination. Events in Timor,
propelled directly by political events in Lisbon, ran out of
control and the violence and killing began. The Portuguese
allowed Fretilin to seize their arsenal, just as the
proindependence militia are now acquiring ABRI weapons.

The same loss of control threatens now, but for different
reasons. It is Jakarta which is inexplicably accelerating the
timetable for political evolution in East Timor. No longer are
the parties contemplating ten or five or three years of
transition leading up to an act of self-determination. Jakarta is
insisting, and the outside world is accepting, that East Timor
must make a choice now, even as Indonesia struggles with its own
democratization. If autonomy is not accepted in the next few
months, the province will be free by the end of the year.

Time was essential for a peaceful evolution in 1975. It is
even more essential now.

Not surprisingly, this abrupt timetable has terrified the pro-
Indonesia elements in the province. Still imbued with the
brutalization of the New Order, they are protecting their
interests by using force. And not surprisingly, they reportedly
have the support of Indonesia's Armed Forces during this
transition period when the power structure which maintained the
New Order is still in place.

This is the most dangerous time possible to force a choice on
East Timor. The New Order is still intact. Its democratic
successors have not even been chosen. There is every reason to
expect that a democratic Indonesia will behave differently toward
all Indonesians generally. It will behave differently toward East
Timorese. It will promote the development of a strong civil
society, and gradually move ABRI out of politics. Waiting for
political change in Jakarta could well secure a peaceful
transition in the province. The current breakneck timetable is
certain to end in disaster.

In this dangerous situation, Australians are totally
preoccupied with the East Timor situation, and tend to see the
fate of 202 million Indonesians through the prism of 800,000
East Timorese.

East Timor is only one of many problems spawned by the
Soeharto New Order. A new democratic Indonesia must solve the
problems of Aceh, Madurese immigrants forced from West Kalimantan
and the thousands of farmers forced off their land during the New
Order era. Indonesia must develop new financial and political
relationships with its provinces and restore religious harmony.
It must restore a shattered modern economy. I believe that a new
democratic government can make a genuine start on these problems,
and will. At the very least, it must be given a chance.

Australians do not focus, however, on this massive reform
agenda and the need to support it. We see only the violence and
the bloodshed. And East Timor dominates our view of Indonesia. No
wonder then that Indonesians ask why, in the New Order period, we
made an issue only of human rights abuses in East Timor and Irian
Jaya and never about the systematic slaughter of Muslim Acehnese.
East Timor is a small neighbor, which certainly needs our help
and support. But Indonesia is a huge neighbor, which needs
massive help and understanding at this critical point in its
history.

Current discussion of East Timor in Australia is ill-informed,
arrogant and verging on the hysterical.

Some of the debate is carried on through the Australian media
-- diplomatic leaks and press releases -- as if our consciences
can be salved by calls for United Nations peace enforcers or
peacemaking or peacekeeping forces, which we know will never
transpire. Make the problem someone else's.

And the Portuguese, of course, are the best at this game. The
Portuguese representative in Jakarta, Ms Anna Gomes, reportedly
said on April 13 she was "shocked to hear (Howard's) comments
last week that he was not willing to put Australians lives at
risk". She reminded us of the East Timorese lives lost in the
province in World War II defending Australian soldiers. Portugal,
of course, has never risked a single life of its own in the
province. This is extraordinary gall from a country which basked
in the comfort of the fascist Salazar regime during World War II.

Then there is the "Why not bomb Jakarta too?" phenomenon. If
NATO can pour so many bombs into Serbia because of its human
rights abuses in Kosovo, which is still legitimately part of its
territory, there is more justification to do so against
Indonesia, which has no right to be in East Timor.

To quote Brian Toohey: "The message for Indonesia is ominous:
because the UN does not recognize Indonesian sovereignty over
East Timor, it doesn't even have the excuse that the behavior on
the island is an internal affair. While no one is suggesting that
Jakarta should be bombed, Indonesia's political and military
leaders must expect to come under growing international pressure
to stop arming paramilitary groups." (Australian Financial
Review, April 13, 1999).

Is Brian suggesting that the NATO intervention in Yugoslavia,
with all its fine, moral dimensions, has been a success? Instead
of providing a rapid, clean solution to the plight of the
Kosovars, it has precipitated a humanitarian and political
disaster which will require decades for Europe to resolve.

Will Brian raise the possibility of bombing when the next
religious or ethnic violence breaks out elsewhere in Indonesia?
The fact is that he has put the issue on the public agenda, where
it will no doubt feed White Australian primordial fears of Asia.

"Be a man and stand up and do something about this or there
will be a great deal more bloodshed." These are the oddly sexist
words of a Sydney Roman Catholic nun calling on Australia to
become involved immediately in a peacekeeping force in East
Timor. She accuses the Australian government of betraying "all
that Anzac has stood for. It has betrayed the ideals of fairness,
comradeship and courage".

Is she saying that our debts to the Timorese can only be paid
in still more blood? Where is the understanding of the forces at
work now in the archipelago? Where is compassion for all those
involved? And where is the humility and acknowledgement that no
one is perfect?

I grew up in a country town where Aboriginal girls were
brought to a training school after being seized from their
families. They were trained there by the Anglican Church to
become maids in wealthy white houses for "a lousy little
sixpence". I know them now as our lost generation, a profound
injustice for which many Australians cannot yet apologize.

Then there is the extraordinary arrogance of those who think
they know best for Indonesia. For example, Scott Burchill writes
in the Canberra Times of April 14: "Australia needs to take an
international lead in discussions about democratizing Indonesia
and any other states which may emerge from its post-colonial
clutches".

Is he totally unaware of the struggle now underway to achieve
a democratic Indonesia? Has he not heard of Megawati, or Mukhtar
Pakpahan, or Amien Rais or Budiman Sudjatmiko? Thousands of
Indonesians, known and unknown, are fighting now to secure a
voice for all Indonesians in their Government. This will take
years to achieve and consolidate, but the opportunity is here
right now. Indonesia does not need to be lectured from outside
about democratization. It needs help and support, not
interference.

If Australia is not careful, we will come to be considered in
Indonesia as having harmed, not helped, Indonesia in this crisis.
Already Australia is losing sight of the primary challenge
Indonesia faces. Public opinion in Australia is swinging
aggressively against Indonesia. The government is being led by
events, rather than trying to set a new course. We are falling in
behind the agendas of others, including the Portuguese. And we do
not seem to recognize that as a result of the June elections, new
political forces could emerge in Indonesia quite soon which will
want to take a different path.

At the moment, attitudes and actions in Australia and
Indonesia on East Timor are fraying tempers and draining patience
on both sides. There is now a real danger that both countries
will fail to manage this extremely difficult problem. The most
pressing need is to slow the pace of events, and allow time for a
new, genuinely democratic government in Indonesia to find a
peaceful solution in East Timor.

If this does not happen, for whatever reason, the next
millennium is likely to begin with an absence of trust and
confidence, which neither Australia nor Indonesia can afford. The
positive myth of the support Australia gave Indonesia during the
war against the Dutch, which has underpinned the relationship in
good and bad times, could be overtaken by a conviction that
Australia failed Indonesia at its most critical point.

Dr. Geoff Forrester is a board member at the Australia
Indonesia Institute and editor of the bestselling The Fall of
Soeharto.