The WPF: An idea worth pursuing

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.