White Paper set off alarm bells

By Anthony Burke

CANBERRA (JP): Many Indonesians will no doubt be aware of the release last month of Australia's first foreign policy White Paper, titled In The National Interest.

A masterpiece of British understatement, its aim is to reassure both the Australian public and our neighbors that there is a fundamental continuity in Australian diplomacy, that the nation can continue to be trusted, and that future regional developments -- political, economic and strategic -- are well in hand.

Yet the document's calm self-assurance is misleading. Buried beneath its bland surface are some potentially big surprises, with which current foreign policy frameworks are ill-equipped to deal.

The document asserts that the "national interest" will be the government's "basic test" of foreign policy and that "Australians should have confidence in Australia's capacity to shape its future".

Fundamental priorities are unchanged: a desire to shape the evolving regional security environment and to further the process of trade liberalization in Asia.

The evolution of these structures, it argues, are essential to regional stability and hence Australia's own security and well- being.

As I read it I thought of my experiences while doing research in Jakarta last year, the warmth and friendliness of everyone I met and the enormous social contrasts between the daily struggle of the city's millions of poor and the glittering wealth of the mall at Kebayoran, dotted with boutiques like Gucci and Armani.

The state of politics seemed to be symbolized by a vast billboard on an entrance ramp to Jl. Gatot Subroto, showing the Golkar-ABRI (Armed Forces) family and the development achievements of the New Order government.

Four months prior to the most bitter election campaign in many years, there was a potent air of unreality about it all.

Closer to home, I also remember the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI)'s Dewi Fortuna Anwar warning me that if Australia's climate of racial tolerance continued to worsen we risked being permanently locked out of the region.

Such concerns are obviously high on the Australian government's agenda, with the White Paper going out of its way to assure Asians of the government's "unqualified commitment to racial equality and to eliminating racial discrimination".

Yet I do not believe that Indonesians should be reassured by such statements.

Asian students in Australia have already reported increasing harassment and abuse, and Prime Minister Howard himself was agonizingly slow to condemn the racist agenda of Pauline Hanson.

After Hanson's maiden speech in 1996, he said only that there was a new spirit of "free speech" in Australia. His refusal to apologize to Aboriginal people who were stolen from their parents and the attempts to wind back native title suggest that the government's commitment to "eliminating racial discrimination" is mostly rhetoric.

With this has come greater pressure on potential Asian immigrants and visitors to Australia, with some finding it almost impossible to obtain visas for even short stays.

Indonesians would be wrong to see an upside to the government's refusal to grant asylum to some 1,300 East Timorese refugees. Their cases are becoming a new flash point for anti- Indonesian sentiment, with student groups and the Catholic Church willing to risk imprisonment by offering sanctuary to Timorese denied residency.

Growing media interest has already brought Indonesia poor publicity. This increase in anti-Indonesian feeling could be avoided if the refugees were quietly processed and absorbed into the Australian community.

Indonesia is of course listed as one of Australia's most important bilateral relations. Alongside gratitude for Indonesia's constructive role in the region, the White Paper strikes an almost imperceptible note of alarm.

The bilateral relationship, it says, will "require careful management as Indonesia faces a leadership transition after two decades of growth and social change.

"In these circumstances, continuing economic liberalization, political stability and continuity in foreign policy are not necessarily assured over the next 15 years, although they are clearly in the interests not only of Indonesia but also Australia and the region."

Beneath these polite words I hear the rumblings of an earthquake. Among many officials and analysts there is increasing despair over the current political stalemate in Indonesia.

While the President and the ABRI leadership appear to have a firm grip on any opposition, there are no meaningful efforts to narrow the vast "social gap" that is generating so much frustration.

Analysts fear the myriad incidents of violence prior to and during the election campaign portend an explosion. Their fears are compounded by the increasing concentration of power close to the presidential palace and the refusal to consider reforms or initiate any mechanisms for a stable transition.

Yet while countries like the United States and Britain are visibly hedging their bets and developing links with the opposition and other government critics, Australia has left all its eggs in the Soeharto-ABRI basket.

With this has come a reluctance to raise human rights concerns, despite the White Paper's insistence that "promoting and protecting human rights underpins Australia's broader security and economic interests". One does not have to go as far as "posturing" to press a little harder in this area.

At the same time the bipartisan approach to Indonesia has broken down. Last year, the Labor spokesman for foreign affairs, Laurie Brereton, argued that "the emergence of an indigenous democracy movement in Indonesia is a critical development of potentially far-reaching significance" and hoped that "a role can be found for this movement in the political process".

He warned that Australians should not "assume a necessary congruence between the interests of any group, including the Soeharto government, with the interests of both Indonesia and Australia".

Private discussions with Labor members also suggest that a lack of improvement in East Timor means that Indonesia can no longer assume the same level of support for its position there.

Obviously a positive and friendly relationship between Indonesia and Australia is of fundamental importance and the growing people-to-people links are adding real depth and warmth to it.

The many levels of links between our two countries, and the complexities in Indonesia's political future, mean that identifying the "national interest" is no longer so easy.

As the political crisis deepens it will require a great deal of imagination on both sides to ensure that the relationship does not go the way of Indonesia's hard-won stability.

The writer is a lecturer at the Department of Political Science, Australian National University.