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. .