Year 2002: Using foreign policy to address domestic problems
Fabiola Desy Unidjaja The Jakarta Post Jakarta
Activities at the foreign ministry this year demonstrated that foreign policy can be advantageous to domestic interests.
Trying to regain its international stature by using foreign policy to address many domestic problems, the ministry launched a number of initiatives that were warmly greeted by neighboring countries.
Undertakings such as international conferences on illegal migrants, money laundering and the Southwest Pacific Dialog were organized by the ministry to address domestic security problems.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Hassan Wirayuda called the initiatives "intermestik" policy (the intermingling of international and domestic politics), underlining that the conferences were held to support Indonesia.
"It was in our own interest that we launched such initiatives, as we can learn from developed countries how to deal with such crimes," Hassan said.
During the conference on illegal migrants, attended by more than 30 countries, Jakarta successfully shifted the burden from its shoulders and made the issue a regional problem.
Accused of not doing enough to stop people-smuggling, Indonesia convinced the international community that it would be impossible to handle the issue unilaterally as it also involved the migrants' origin and destination countries.
At the Southwest Pacific Dialog, the country managed to secure support for its sovereignty over strife-torn Papua province from the other five participating countries: Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines and East Timor.
In addressing pending issues with the former province of East Timor, Jakarta also chose to take the lead to settle the problem at the soonest possible time and hosted a tripartite meeting between Indonesia, East Timor and Australia to address delicate problems arising from East Timor's secession from Indonesia.
Although Indonesia received support and knowledge from the international community through these initiatives, the country still has a long way to go to really address its domestic problems.
Australian National University scholar Siswo Pramono considers the current foreign policy similar to the country's "crisis diplomacy" during the 1945 to 1950 period.
"Indonesia should learn from the 'crisis diplomacy' during the 1945 to 1950 period, a time of marathon negotiations (i.e. Linggarjati, Renville and the Round Table conferences) and Dutch military aggression, in attempts to find a better way to manage the current multidimensional crisis," Siswo stated in an article published on Aug. 30.
Since the crisis hit in 1997, Indonesia has been forced to keep a low profile in the international community, as the country's credibility in the international fora has deteriorated somewhat.
Political instability hit the country after the downfall of former strongman Soeharto in 1998, when he bowed to pressure from hundreds of thousands of protesters and appointed then vice president B.J. Habibie to take over the helm.
Even under two successive presidents, Habibie and Abdurrahman Wahid, Indonesia was unable to regain the international respect it once commanded, and it was not until Megawati Soekarnoputri assumed the country's presidency in July 2001 did traces of respect and credibility trickle back.
International confidence in the government's ability to resolve the country's multifaceted problems has slowly increased.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, underlining the importance of communicating its activities to the public, appointed four middle-ranking officials in charge of public relations. Active diplomacy and enhanced public relations efforts in the past year proved fruitful as the country regained its international stature.
Some policies, however, need to be reconsidered. For example the frequent overseas trips of President Megawati, which many critics claim were conducted without clear purpose and had little benefit to Indonesia's foreign policy. The visits, according to the critics, yielded only memorandums of understanding, many of which cannot be implemented.
Given the country's economic situation, the President should have made foreign visits that would have benefited Indonesia and its people, so say the critics. Besides, the President's trips, called "high-level diplomacy" measures, more often than not overshadowed the success of "ministerial-level diplomacy" initiatives.
As was the case with Hassan's "intermestik" policy, which was able to convince the other five nations participating in the Southwest Pacific dialog to acknowledge Indonesia's sovereignty over Papua, where two separatist groups have failed in their attempts to establish an independent state.