Towards Indian Ocean cooperation

Towards Indian Ocean cooperation

By Hasyim Djalal

JAKARTA (JP): Australia is reportedly planning to organize an
informal conference in Perth in the middle of this year to study
the possibility of developing a Pacific Economic Cooperation
Conference (PECC) type of cooperation for the Indian Ocean.

Some 27 littoral and hinterland countries around the Indian
Ocean are expected to attend. Since the conference will be
informal, the participants will presumably attend in a private
capacity, although, like the PECC, the participants may consist
of government officials, academics and business communities.

It is assumed that the conference will be exploratory in
nature, and therefore it may not have a clear cut agenda. It will
be a brainstorming meeting in order to assess the mood for
cooperation, and if the mood is good, the conference may identify
areas and the modalities for such cooperation. Like PECC, it is
assumed that it will strongly emphasize economic rather than
political or security cooperation.

Development of economic cooperation in the Pacific has reached
a higher level than in the Indian Ocean. After many years of
"second track" informal approaches, the PECC has now achieved a
formal level through the establishment of APEC. In the security
area, it has also achieved a formal forum through the
establishment of ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), in addition to the
continuing activities of the "second track" informal approach of
the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific (CSCAP).

At the same time, the Western Pacific area has also shown
tremendous economic activity and growth. ASEAN, as a sub-regional
organization, plays a very significant role in making the PECC,
APEC, CSCAP, and ARF a working mechanism for cooperation in the
Pacific. This due, to a large extent, to the viability and
cohesiveness of the association.

It is therefore understandable that many countries around the
Indian Ocean would like to emulate the development in the Pacific
region and study how a similar relationship can be transplanted
to the Indian Ocean.

True, the two areas are not the same. The Pacific Ocean is
surrounded by highly advanced industrialized countries such as
the United States, Japan, and Canada; newly industrialized
countries or entities such as South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and
Singapore; and emerging countries like China and Indonesia.

Although the level of development in these countries vary, the
challenge and the success of the cooperative efforts in the
Pacific have been the ability to recognize the diversity and
develop complimentarily and cooperation through the diversity for
mutual benefits, rather than confrontation for the benefit of no
one.

Despite their differences, the Pacific countries have been
able to emphasize the common good, rather than specific and
narrow individual nationalistic approaches. To a large extent,
this is due to the success of ASEAN and the "ASEAN spirit" and
solidarity.

The Indian Ocean is different from the Pacific region in many
respects. With the exception of Australia, practically all the
littoral and hinterland countries of the Indian Ocean are
developing countries and some of them are still beset with
internal, bilateral or regional problems. The ability to advance
a common good as in ASEAN, is still less pronounced in the sub-
regional organizations in the Indian Ocean. The promotion of
cooperative relations in the Indian Ocean would require strong
external support and donors. In some cases, nationalism and
ethnocentrism still command major components of the national
political culture. Emphasis on economic considerations is just
beginning to emerge in the political culture and its full impact
may not be felt for some time.

Despite the discrepancies between the Pacific and the Indian
Oceans, efforts to promote regional cooperation in the Indian
Ocean should not be brushed aside. In fact, these efforts should
be nurtured and any proposal should be looked upon positively
and, as far as possible, supported.

There has been much effort to develop a notion of togetherness
around the Indian Ocean. There was a proposal to establish the
Indian Ocean as a Zone of Peace, free from nuclear weapons. This
proposal didn't go anywhere because some countries didn't want to
forego nuclear weapons in the Indian Ocean Basin. There was also
a proposal to convene an Indian Ocean conference.

Again, this didn't go anywhere, partly because of difficulty
in defining which countries are to be regarded as littoral or
hinterland in the Indian Ocean and who should be invited to
attend. The motivation behind the initiative was mostly
political, and therefore met with some political difficulties.
There was also the influence of the Cold War that made it
difficult to convene such a conference or to establish such a
Zone of Peace.

Now that the Cold War has ended, and states are concentrating
on economic development, it should be relatively easier to forge
such a regional cooperation in the Indian Ocean.

In fact, there has been a non-political formal cooperative
organization in the Indian Ocean, namely the Indian Ocean Marine
Affairs Cooperation (IOMAC), which concentrates its efforts on
promoting cooperation in marine scientific research, marine
resources utilization, environmental protection and other Law of
the Sea related areas.

After the adoption of the Law of the Sea Convention in 1982,
several Indian Ocean countries began to look for areas of
cooperation in implementing or benefiting from the provisions of
the Law of the Sea Convention. After several years of
informality, the cooperation was formalized into an inter-
governmental organization through an IOMAC charter adopted in
Arusha, Tanzania in 1991, and signed by Indonesia, Iran, Kenya,
Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Mauritius, Mozambique, Nepal and Tanzania.

India, Australia, Malaysia and others attended the meeting but
didn't signed the charter. The charter will go into force when it
is ratified by eight countries. So far, six countries have
ratified it, (Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Pakistan, Mozambique, Kenya,
Mauritius) while other signatories are expected to ratify it
soon.

Australia, France, Germany, India, Malaysia, Thailand, Nepal
and others regularly or from time to time attended the IOMAC
meeting as observers. In the past, IOMAC activities and its
secretariat in Colombo have been supported by the UNDP.
Currently, some non-Indian Ocean countries are supporting the
IOMAC activities and programs, particularly the United States and
Germany.

If the Perth Conference is intended as a "second track" non-
governmental approach to develop economic cooperation in the
Indian Ocean region, it should be supportable and should
complement the IOMAC.

Countries that are not members of the IOMAC should be
encouraged to become members, particularly those that have signed
its charter and those that have been attending IOMAC meetings as
observers, including Australia and India.

The Perth conference must not compete with the IOMAC or look
to create another "first track" governmental organization in the
Indian Ocean that would ignore or undermine IOMAC activities.

Dr. Hasyim Djalal is the Indonesian Ambassador at Large for
the Law of the Sea. .