RI's foreign policy put in perspective

Indonesia's Foreign Policy Under Suharto: Aspiring To International Leadership Leo Suryadinata Times Academic Press, 1996 210 pp, S$25.75

JAKARTA (JP): When the New Order government took over a chaotic Indonesia from the previous Sukarno administration following the 1965 abortive communist coup, General Soeharto, who went on to become the republic's second president, certainly felt then that foreign policy was an important consideration in his scheme of rehabilitative priorities.

The more so when it badly needed a drastic overhaul because the previous regime's careless adventurism in courting the communist bloc had greatly alienated the Western powers, especially the United States, whose economic aid was badly needed then to save Indonesia from imminent economic collapse.

But much as President Soeharto would have preferred to directly involve himself in formulating Indonesia's foreign policy then, his greater priority lay in stabilizing the volatile nature of domestic politics after the abortive coup neatly destroyed Indonesia. It was a case of putting your own home in order first before you personally venture out to see how your ties with your neighbors should go.

This Herculean task, whose main focus was bringing economic development to the country, virtually required the president's full attention to ensure its success -- to the extent that Soeharto had to share making foreign policy decisions with the military and a civilian foreign minister. That was for the first 16 years of the New Order government.

The above-mentioned scenario forms the curtain-raiser to Dr. Leo Suryadinata's book Indonesia's Foreign Policy Under Suharto: Aspiring to International Leadership, where the imprint of the mercurial president has been increasingly felt over the last 14 years in charting the republic's foreign policy trends -- unlike the pre-1982 situation when the military and foreign ministry were still playing a substantive role.

A significant portion of the study was conducted between 1988 and 1989 during Dr. Leo's sabbatical leave at three institutions of higher learning -- the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore as well as Ohio University and Cornell University, both in the United States.

But Dr. Leo, currently associate professor in the Political Science Department and senior fellow in the Master of Public Policy Program at the National University of Singapore, has since updated his work with developments up to July 1995.

In his book, he contends that from the outset of the New Order government, Soeharto, the military and foreign ministry were jointly involved in formulating Indonesia's foreign policy. Though Soeharto had the final say, he nevertheless considered the views of the military the foreign ministry, especially the military.

This would partly explain why certain foreign policy decisions like Indonesia's membership in the Association of Southeast Asian Nation, bore the imprint of Foreign Minister Adam Malik.

Soeharto's main reason in allowing joint decision-making in foreign policy was perhaps due to the fact that his goal of political stability had yet to be attained. Golkar, the party of the government, had yet to convincingly trounce its rivals -- the United Development Party (PPP), a fusion of Islamic parties, and the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI), made up of nationalist and Christian parties -- in the country's general elections.

It was only from 1982 that Soeharto felt sufficiently comfortable about political stability having been achieved in Indonesia, as Golkar finally had scored a resounding electoral victory over the PPP and PDI that year. Golkar has since then held on to its massive support in subsequent elections.

From then onwards, Soeharto began to impose his personal stamp in charting Indonesia's foreign policy directions, often dispensing with the military and foreign ministry, much to their chagrin. They gradually found themselves marginalized against an insistent and mercurial president determined to have his way.

The military saw its power eroded on a number of occasions after 1982. Soeharto went ahead on direct trade links with China in 1985 despite the Army's opposition. To pacify a growing international outcry against the 1991 shooting of demonstrators in East Timor, the President ordered punishment for those soldiers responsible. Again the military was helpless.

Soeharto has his reasons for wanting to impose his personal stamp on Indonesia's foreign policy. With domestic politics under his firm control, he now feels that he can be an international statesman, and make Indonesia's voice heard at international forums on domestic, regional and international issues. After all, Indonesia is one of the world's largest countries and plays a leading role in Southeast Asia, which is increasingly in the mainstream of global events.

Dr. Leo mentions that the abangan background of Soeharto and his strong sense of Javanism have a bearing on Indonesia's foreign policy in the following ways:

Firstly, Soeharto's foreign policy is not based on Islamic considerations despite Indonesia being and overwhelming Moslem- majority nation. Secondly, the President's strong sense of Javanism makes him view the world from a Javanese perspective. And finally, he has inherited Javanese traditions leading him to practice a personalized kind of benign rule, dwarfing all other institutions.

From reading Dr. Leo's book, one can understand why Soeharto does not play the Islamic card (like Malaysian Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohamad does) in cultivating the Arab nations. Rather, he has made it clear that Indonesia's support for the Arab cause against Israel is more from the point of view of justice, Islam being a secondary factor. Soeharto appears to be more interested in playing a leading role in the Non-Aligned Movement rather than the Organization of Islamic Conference.

This is linked to his fears that giving a political role to Islam, which could lead to an Islamic state, will contradict his firm commitment to the national ideology of Pancasila, which gives equal treatment to all religions in Indonesia.

Still, the practical reality of Indonesia's 90-percent Moslem majority population necessitates some accommodation of Islam which Soeharto has pursued diligently in such measures as building more mosques, more welfare programs for Moslems and tapping the brains of the Indonesian Association of Moslem Intellectuals, a Moslem think-tank, in the formulation of national policies. Soeharto himself performed the haj pilgrimage in 1991 to show his identification with Islam despite his strong pre-Islamic Javanese background.

Indonesia's desire to play a prominent role in world affairs under Soeharto via its foreign policy directions is nothing new as Dr. Leo has pointed out. It had already done that during the Sukarno era where the flamboyant former president, who died in 1970, literally hurled abuse at western powers and their Asian allies with cryptic slogans such as "NEOCOLIM" (Neo-Colonialism), "OLDEFOS" (Old Established Forces) to the delight of his communist friends who egged him on.

Dr. Leo has shown that Soeharto's quiet, no-nonsense style, even while he was not directly involved in charting Indonesia's foreign policy directions prior to 1982, in a sense may be considered more successful than Sukarno's outpouring of empty rhetoric.

He mentions that despite all the aggressive talk, the Sukarno regime did not succeed in acquiring territories outside the former Dutch East Indies. The New Order government on the other hand quietly managed to integrate Portuguese East Timor with the rest of Indonesia following the withdrawal of the Portuguese garrison in 1975.

The book is a useful source of reference not only for academics, but also for any layman interested in Indonesia's foreign policy. It is written in a style which is easily understood. It contrasts the foreign policy of the Sukarno era with that of the New Order government to give the reader a better perspective and understanding of the situation. In showing that foreign policy is linked to domestic politics via the domineering personality of Soeharto as the main player from 1982 onwards, Dr. Leo has highlighted certain important milestones like Indonesia's relations with China, the East Timor issue and others.

-- David Chew