U.S. must prevent chaos in RI

U.S. must prevent chaos in RI

By Tom Plate

Why U.S. must not let Indonesia devolve into anarchy

LOS ANGELES: The problem with moral purity of the political
kind is that it can produce consequences of the most immoral
kind.

That will be the case in Indonesia if the United States adopts
what would in effect be a hands-off policy, as many Western human
rights groups are advising. Such a course would prolong
Indonesia's agony and cause many more deaths than if the U.S. is
properly involved. Commendably, the Bush administration appears
to be on top of this Asian crisis and understands the grave
issues at stake.

Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous nation, is now at
a crossroads. Lady-long-in-waiting Megawati Soekarnoputri, tapped
by parliament last week (July 23) to succeed mystical Muslim
cleric Abdurrahman Wahid as president, should in fact have been
president for the past two years anyway. In 1999, she garnered
more votes than any other politician, only to be outmaneuvered
for the job in the final turn by Abdurrahman.

Now this untested daughter of Sukarno, post-colonial
Indonesia's first maximum leader, inherits the ironical destiny
of being drafted by her countrymen to save the very modern nation
that her father founded.

Will this taciturn but well-connected member of parliament
prove to be the strong-willed Margaret Thatcher of Southeast
Asia, the needed Indonesian iron lady? Or will Megawati, in the
words of unkind critics, be a "Mini-wati"?

Among the keys to her ability to succeed will be the support
not only of her own people but of the biggest players in the
Asia-Pacific region. Japan still has enormous investments there.
China is well aware of widespread anti-Chinese tensions within
that largely Muslim society and would gain stature by helping the
new government keep its balance.

And the last thing the U.S.. wants in geopolitically pivotal
Southeast Asia is an anarchic archipelago of thousands of
islands, near some of the world's most vital sea lanes, self-
destructing and spilling over onto the shores of key U.S. allies
Australia, the Philippines and Singapore.

That is why the Bush administration is right not to hide
behind the apron of moral correctness and look the other way.
Indeed, it appears poised to ask Congress to drop the well-
intentioned but ill-advised ban on U.S. military aid to Jakarta,
and is working to reconnect with the country's military in ways
that are consistent with our own values. The military-to-military
ban was initially put into place by lawmakers under pressure from
human-rights lobbies upholding the morally pure view that the
military's past excesses invalidate any future effort to work
with it.

This is a touchy issue, of course, because the Indonesian
armed forces have indeed often proved a mechanism of rough law-
and-order, most notoriously for repression in East Timor,
scheduled for independence next year. But while it is true that
the military must not be given free rein to levy truncheon law,
it can hardly be cut out if Indonesia is to avert the far more
massive bloodshed of national disintegration.

Sure, the military must be properly supervised by the civilian
Megawati government, just as true internal economic reform must
be a condition for further aid from the International Monetary
Fund. But the purist human-rights position -- that the past
misdeeds of the Indonesian army irredeemably dirty the hands of
any nation that would help -- is a formula for an Asian
Yugoslavia of roiling ethnic revenge.

Oft-exemplary Western human rights organizations, from the
luxury of their well-evolved democracies, don't understand the
wrenching ethical choice here. One New York-based human rights
spokesman put it this way: "Any reengagement with the military at
this time would severely undercut reform efforts."

In actuality, the opposite is the case. Failure to reengage
the Indonesian military will doom economic reform for this nation
of 206-plus million. And many more people will die if the army,
historically central to the cohesion of this sprawling,
ethnically diverse country, is not actively involved in the
nation rebuilding.

The unpleasant truth is that, no matter what happens, either
many will die in Indonesia or only some. A hands-off policy will
almost certainly lead to the former; a pragmatic policy of
Western engagement could well help mitigate Indonesia's ongoing
agony and loss of life. The penchant for morally pure foreign
policy solutions can lead only to large scale tragedy.

-- The Straits Times/Asia News Network