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.