Susilo test is in reform delivery
Susilo test is in reform delivery
In his potted account of plate tectonics, the pop historian Bill Bryson refers to Australia's inexorable shift towards Indonesia as the continental plates creep north several centimeters a year. It seems diplomacy is finally catching up.
The unprecedented goodwill generated in the wake of the Boxing Day tsunami brought five Indonesian cabinet ministers to Canberra last week to discuss Australia's billion-dollar aid package.
Next week, the Indonesian President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, is due here; the most important Indonesian visitor since a brief trip by the former president Soeharto 30 years ago. This is real cause for optimism after decades of erratic bilateral tensions.
As Indonesia's ambassador to Australia, Imron Cotan, pointed out recently, Indonesia now offers Australia a "three-point guarantee" against the oft-perceived threat from the north. First, Indonesia is a democracy; second, it has no intention of threatening Australia; and third, it lacks the means to do so, anyway.
How swiftly the new neighborhood goodwill translates into expanded links between the peoples of Australia and Indonesia, however, depends on more than reforms at the top in Indonesia. The election of Susilo last year ushered in the most comprehensive political reform platform since the fall of the authoritarian Soeharto regime in 1998.
Most immediately, Australia's aid package must be quarantined from systemic corruption within the Indonesian bureaucracy.
The Australian government's standing warning to citizens to defer non-essential travel to Indonesia is viewed by many Indonesian officials as a public vote of no-confidence. But Australians have been specifically targeted by terrorists as recently as the bombing outside the Australian embassy in Jakarta last September.
Jakarta's best prospects for undermining the appeal of extremism lies in economic recovery. Australia's aid package was triggered by the devastation of the tsunami. But Canberra's decision to permit up to half of the funds to be used for welfare programs in other parts of the country recognizes the urgent need to tackle poverty.
It's also important to acknowledge the potential returns for Australia. Foreign aid usually generates benefits for donor nations through the letting of contracts and the fostering of commercial ties.
Bluescope Steel and Leighton Holdings, for example, have won reconstruction contracts in Aceh. But the bigger point is this: a democratic, stable Indonesia greatly enhances Australia's own security -- and goes a long way to dispelling historic popular fears of a threat from the north. -- The Sydney Morning Herald.