The WPF: An idea worth pursuing

By Irawan Abidin

JAKARTA (JP): The administration of President Abdurrahman Wahid is often criticized for its directions in foreign policy. Its first diplomatic initiative gave the impression that it was trying to form an anti-Western grouping composed of Indonesia, India, China and the Russian Federation. Then it gave the impression that it was being soft on Israel, which did not sit well with many Indonesians.

Late last year, the President announced another initiative -- this time toward the establishment of a West Pacific Forum that would include Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines and East Timor. This idea was immediately classed along with the notion of an Indonesia-India-China-Russia axis, a concept that would not be able to fly.

This is unfortunate because the proposal for a West Pacific Forum is one of the few good ideas that ever came out of the Abdurrahman administration. There are several good reasons why the idea should be taken more seriously.

The West Pacific is an important geographical unit within the Asia Pacific region and if the countries within it cooperate with one another, there is a great deal to be gained by each of them. A subregional organization in the West Pacific, if well tended, can make a unique contribution to the growth of stability and cooperation in the larger region.

Indonesia, of course, would gain a great deal if the forum were realized. In fact, it is now trying to get into the South Pacific Forum as an observer precisely because it feels the need to interact more intensively with the other Pacific countries on a subregional basis. The formation of the forum would certainly hasten its long delayed reconciliation with Australia. The Forum would also make it easier for Indonesia to manage some of its diplomatic problems resulting from the separatist movement in West Papua (Irian Jaya).

Logically, the forum could be of great help to East Timor in taking its first steps as a new state. Indonesia would be more comfortable with a multilateral minding of East Timor than with a situation where East Timor is to a large extent an exclusive ward of Australia. For its part, Australia should be happy sharing the financial and other burdens attendant to helping East Timor.

East Timor is correct in making membership in ASEAN its first priority: ASEAN, after all, is already a successful organization that can extend a great deal of technical and other forms of help to East Timor in the same way that the earlier members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations are now helping their new members on the Indochinese mainland.

But East Timor's membership in ASEAN is not incompatible with its membership of the projected West Pacific Forum. In fact, membership in both organizations could even generate a kind of synergy that would multiply the benefits for East Timor.

Australia has supported the idea quite vigorously and that is not only because Australia, too, wants to mend its fences with Indonesia; it is also because Australia is keen on getting more deeply engaged with its neighbors, particularly its neighbors to the north, and the forum would be one more opportunity for doing just that. After failing to join the Asia-Europe Meeting and ASEAN + 3, Australia should find it a kind of compensation being in the West Pacific Forum.

Early reports were that New Zealand went along with Australia in welcoming the idea of a West Pacific Forum. The latest word going around, however, is that New Zealand has decided to reject it. It is possible that the issue of West Papua may have something to do with New Zealand's apparent change of mind, compounded by a wish to emphasize the fact that it has its own foreign policy, which is not just an echo of Australia's.

Neither the Philippines nor Papua New Guinea, two prospective members, have indicated their responses to the idea. But when the time comes when the idea is in some way directly proposed to them, there is no logical reason why either country should reject the idea.

There is the observation that the projected regional organization would not work well because of the presence of two developed countries, Australia and New Zealand, which could dominate the developing country members of the forum. This argument does not hold water. If that kind of thinking were correct, then the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum should not have been formed at all, and Australia and New Zealand should not have been invited into the Indian Ocean Rim-Area for Regional Cooperation (IOR-ARC). In fact, these two organizations are all the more relevant because of their mixed membership of developed and developing countries.

The basic idea of the forum sorely needs to be fleshed out. Officially it has been merely described as "not solely economic and political". It is also social and cultural cooperation, which will enhance the existing good relations between the participating countries.

The seminar on the need for a West Pacific Forum which will be held by the University of Indonesia's Center for Australian Studies and the Department of Foreign Affairs, and which is scheduled to start on Tuesday, is therefore most welcome.

One international body that would be very glad to participate in the consultation process is the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), which has the experience to be able to help in the planning. It is also within its geographical and functional mandate to assist in the process. It would not hurt to also consult the UNDP.

There might have been more initial support for the idea of the West Pacific Forum had it been made public under more auspicious circumstances. Many circles now simply associate the idea with the fit of irritation that President Abdurrahman went into when he had the mistaken impression that Singapore was against the entry of East Timor into ASEAN. This was on top of the fact that at that time he was smarting from various other frustrations with Singapore and perhaps some of the other ASEAN members. It was the worst possible timing for such a revelation. But considerable time has passed since then and it is now possible to see the issue in a more serene light.

And in a more serene light, it is evident that this is basically a good idea. How good an idea it really is will finally be seen when the detailed concept, the framework for the forum, is released, perhaps a few months from now. A lot will depend on the skill of the diplomats who will flesh it out and the quality of consultations on the projected forum during the months ahead.

This will be quite a big task: the devil, they say, is in the details.

If they produce a reasonably good framework, the West Pacific Forum will have a chance to be perceived as a good idea whose time has come, and nothing is more powerful than that. It will then be a major achievement of Abdurrahman's administration.

The writer served as Indonesian ambassador to Athens and to the Holy See before his retirement last year.