RI's foreign policy put in perspective

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