Southwest Pacific forum, beyond Papua issue
Kornelius Purba, Staff Writer, The Jakarta Post, Yogyakarta, korpur@yahoo.com
The startling vision of former president Abdurrahman Wahid had rarely been taken seriously. But when closing the two-day Southwest Pacific Dialog in Yogyakarta on Saturday, Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda might have recalled that the forum of six foreign ministers was born out of Abdurrahman's anger against the sharp-tonged statesman of the region, Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew.
Two years ago Abdurrahman had spontaneously announced his idea to establish a new multilateral West Pacific grouping after being humiliated by Lee. Lee had rejected his idea to include Papua New Guinea and East Timor into the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
After attending the ASEAN annual summit in Singapore in 2000, Abdurrahman pointed out that the West Pacific forum would become a new cornerstone for Indonesia's diplomacy. Many laughed at what seemed like another of his several grand, spontaneously declared notions. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs however followed up on the idea. Hassan knows, at least for the short term, that the informal forum can be used to encounter the diplomatic campaigns by the Free Papua Movement (OPM) especially among states in the Pacific.
Then, what is the result? Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, New Zealand's Phil Goff, Papua New Guinea's Rabbie Namaliu, the Philippine's Blas F. Ople, East Timor's Jose Ramos Horta and Hassan met in Yogyakarta to discuss future cooperation of Southwest Pacific countries.
"We all want our partners of dialog to reiterate ... their support for our struggle of (territorial) integrity and national unity," Hassan said in conversation with The Jakarta Post before chairing the meeting on Friday.
Whatever Abdurrahman's motivation, he had rightly corrected the four-decade paradigm that ASEAN was the cornerstone for Indonesia's foreign affairs policy making -- neglecting in effect the needs of people living in Indonesia's eastern part.
ASEAN has been relatively more relevant for the interests of people in western Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Brunei, the Philippines, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar are members of ASEAN, but for Sulawesi, especially North Sulawesi, the Philippines is the closest foreign neighbor.
ASEAN was established in 1967, shortly after Soeharto came to power. As Indonesia wanted to concentrate on economic development, Soeharto decided to focus its foreign affairs policy on Southeast Asia. From an anti-communist grouping, the organization eventually embraced the 10 countries in the region, including communist Vietnam.
But times have changed. The region has also drastically changed, as well as the global situation. Indonesia, perceived as much weaker now, is no longer the anchor of ASEAN. Many Indonesians feel that they have sacrificed too much for neighbors, who did not assist them enough during these difficult times as Indonesia is too big to depend only on ASEAN.
Somewhat similar to the East and West Coast of the United States, respectively facing the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, Indonesia is split between the western part, facing the Indian Ocean, and the eastern regions, facing the Pacific Ocean.
The western part includes Java, Bali, Sumatra and Kalimantan, while the eastern provinces, among which most inhabitants identify themselves closer to Melanesians, comprises Sulawesi, Maluku, Papua, West Nusa Tenggara and East Nusa Tenggara.
People in Papua are not interested much in the progress of Singapore or Malaysia, which are too remote from them. Culturally and geographically, they feel much closer to Papua New Guinea. The sufferings of Papuans easily provokes expressions of solidarity from their neighbors. Australia, New Zealand and the smaller states in the Pacific, are Papua's closer neighbors.
For East Nusa Tenggara people, East Timor is their nearest neighbor, where the people share a similar culture, religion and also economic hardship. Although the presence of unwanted refugees from East Timor is still a big burden for the poor province, a prosperous East Timor will also benefit its closest neighbor. Instability and chaos in the new state will also firstly affect East Nusa Tenggara. Australia is another major economic power important to Nusa Tenggara. Residents of Maluku and North Maluku are also culturally and physically closer to those in the Pacific.
Provinces in eastern Indonesia have long lagged far behind the western areas, their natural resources exploited by the Javanese and the money deposited in banks in Java.
It is time now for the government to give more serious attention to the Pacific, not just to minimize international support for the Papuan rebels but also to boost economic cooperation between Indonesia's eastern provinces and the Pacific countries.
Minister Hassan knows very well that although many of the countries in the Pacific are small in terms of size or population, they could make problems for Indonesia as in the case of the 1980s. At that time the government had clearly underestimated the position of outspoken Vanuatu. Its government often attacked Indonesia's position on East Timor and Papua, but it was ignored for a long time until the government gave more attention to the tiny island.
During the Yogyakarta meeting, the five dialog partners expressed support for Indonesia's territorial integrity including on Papua. But there is no guarantee of everlasting loyalty.
Neighboring countries in the past had also continued to say that East Timor was a part of Indonesia. This helped boost the government's confidence of its support among the international community -- while the struggle of the East Timorese were belittled, ending in the major shock for Jakarta when most of its population chose to separate from Indonesia.
Therefore, regarding any other troublesome regions in the country, a senior Indonesian diplomat said, "Whatever we do in diplomacy, if our treatment (of other regions) like that of East Timor in the past does not change, we may be repeating the same history all over again."