RI pursues world order in diplomacy

The following article is based on a paper presented by Foreign Minister Ali Alatas at the inaugural meeting of the Indonesian Council on World Affairs in Jakarta on Dec. 2, 1997. This is the first of two articles.

JAKARTA: Indonesian diplomacy was born and immediately began to function in the crucible of a revolutionary struggle to defend and preserve the independence that our founding fathers proclaimed on Aug. 17, 1945.

Although the circumstances of its birth were frenetic and turbulent, Indonesian diplomacy nevertheless had a clear constitutional mandate from the very start.

The Preamble to the 1945 Indonesian Constitution has clearly prescribed that the newly established Republic of Indonesia shall "contribute to the realization of a world order based on indepen dence, abiding peace and social justice."

Accordingly, the Indonesian government has pursued this objective by developing a foreign policy that is, as then vice president Mohammad Hatta described it in a speech before Parliament in 1948, "independent and active."

This means the free exercise of our right to determine our own views and position on international issues and to initiate or support those policies and measures that we believe would best serve the cause of world peace.

Thus, in the more than five decades of its existence, Indo nesia has taken many initiatives that demonstrated its commitment to the cause of a new world order of independence, peace and justice.

Among the most notable were its hosting of the Asian-African Conference in Bandung in 1955 and the leading role it played in the founding and first summit meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement in Belgrade in 1961.

It has participated in most UN peacekeeping operations and worked with the other Non-Aligned Countries to help many nations in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean achieve independence.

A leading negotiator in the North-South dialogue in the 1970s, Indonesia as chairman of NAM from 1992 to 1995 spearheaded a successful move to revive the process.

A dedicated promoter of South-South cooperation, Indonesia has carried out all impassioned advocacy on issues that are of special concern to the developing nations.

It played a pivotal role in the realization of the Convention on the Law of the Sea of 1982 and has contributed substantively to international efforts at general disarmament and security.

A founding member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Indonesia has played a key role in the Cambodian peace process, served as facilitator in the negotiations that led to peace in the Southern Philippines and has initiated a workshop process on managing potential conflict in the South China Sea.

Indonesia also participates actively in the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum and the Asia-Europe Meeting.

At present, Indonesia holds the chairmanship of the Organization of Islamic Conference at the ministerial level and in January will assume chairmanship of the Group of 77.

In pursuing such wide and varied involvements, Indonesia has been motivated by the ideals and principles enshrined in the UN Charter and articulated in the Dasa Sila of Bandung as well as by a keen sense of identification with the nations of the devel oping world.

But there is also an underlying practical consideration in these endeavors, for only in a world order of independence, justice and peace can a developing nation like Indonesia flourish and fulfill the aspirations of its people for a better life for themselves and their future generations.

It is therefore clearly to the national interest that such a new world order evolve and serve as the external environment in which nations like Indonesia can successfully pursue their social and economic development goals.

The world has vastly changed since the constitutional mandate for our foreign policy was laid down more than half a century ago when the Cold War was just beginning to engulf the world.

The Cold War has ended and the world, now in the grip of rapid and fundamental change, has entered the era of high technology, globalization, interdependence and liberalization.

Human civilization itself is going through a long period of transition characterized by great uncertainty. The political and economic foundations of international relations that were estab lished at the end of the World War II have begun to crumble but the contours of a new international order are not yet discern ible.

On the international scene both encouraging progress and distressing setbacks are taking place. The easing of East-West tensions have opened up new possibilities in disarmament, in the solution of long-standing conflicts and the pursuit of a global agenda for peace.

And yet armed conflicts are raging in many parts of the world and, in spite of disarmament, the killing power of nuclear weapons in the arsenals of the major powers continue to pose a threat to all life on earth.

The deeply-rooted inequities and imbalances in the relationships between the developed and developing world, the North-South divide, has become the major unresolved issue of our time. Traditional concepts and approaches to the solution of global issues are becoming increasingly irrelevant and international institutions and the ways in which we manage interstate relations are perceived to be increasingly ineffective.

The primordial challenge before the international community today is how to manage the fundamental changes that are now taking place so that they can lead to the creation of a more peaceful, just and equitably prosperous international order.

The realization of such an effective system of global governance will require new ideas, new ways of thinking and new approaches to the solution of global problems. It will also entail the reform of existing international institutions that are no longer relevant to the realities of our time.

When I refer to "global governance," I do not mean world government, which is still utopian, nor merely to cooperation among governments through the work of intergovernmental institu tions.

I mean the sum of all the actions and interactions among all the actors in international relations, including new ones: non- governmental organizations such as this forum, parliaments of the world, transnational corporations, the global markets, research institutions and the global mass media.

Governments no longer bear the whole burden of governance although they remain the primary actors. At the global level, they now have to work with a "global civil society," an international network of citizens who are increasingly active and vigorous in expressing their views with regard to international issues.

I am sure that as participants in this forum, you are aware of yourselves as members of that global civil society.

Considering these developments, the world has indeed changed rapidly and profoundly but by no means to such an extent that the vision of an international order of independence, justice and peace has lost any of its relevance.

It is true that all but a few of the formerly colonized nations of the world have already achieved political independence during the period between 1945 and 1970.

But the concept of independence that the founding fathers of our Republic put forward has never been confined to the political dimension but has always also included economic independence: a nation's inalienable right to develop its own political, social and economic systems and to maintain and defend its own cultural identity. The nations of the developing world today are still waging a struggle to realize and maintain the fullness of their independence.

Likewise, the concept of peace as an element of a new world order does not only mean the "absence of war." Indonesia has always maintained that global peace can never be achieved so long as the great majority of humankind still languish in poverty and backwardness.

International peace and security depends as much on social and economic factors as on traditional military factors. We must therefore also address the non-military threats to peace and security such as poverty, underdevelopment, population pressures, environmental degradation, mass migrations, international terrorism and illicit drug trafficking.

Whatever peace we achieve will remain fragile without the realization of another element of the envisioned new world order: social justice within and among nations.

It is therefore crucial and urgent that we strive to overcome the discrepancies and inequities in the relations between developed and developing countries and to eradicate all forms of coercion and intimidation in interstate relations, especially in the relations between the strong and weak nations, between the rich and the poor.

As its mission of helping shape a new international order of independence, peace and justice remains valid and even urgent in the light of present-day global realities, Indonesian foreign policy has found it necessary to maintain a set of broad initia tives with regard to a number of critical global concerns that include the following.