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The Indonesian Relationship: A Good Start?

Mr. Rudd’s recent Jakarta visit was obviously a success, paving the way for a more informal and creative relationship between Canberra and Jakarta. However, this successful encounter should be seen as a basis for a more positive and creative relationship, not as an end in itself. There is nothing unusual about close and easy relations between the Australian and Indonesian leaders. Remember Gough Whitlam’s so-called batik shirt diplomacy? He impressed Suharto with his determination to bring Australians to Asia. And what could be closer that the relationship between Paul Keating and the Indonesian dictator? In the end this leadership intimacy led the Australian governments concerned into a shameful policy of pandering to a dictator, now discredited by his own people as ruthless and corrupt, whose family’s voracious appetite for wealth stripped the Indonesian state of a huge fortune. Even worse, in the case of East Timor we then gave strong diplomatic support to Jakarta, helping shield it from allegations of gross crimes against humanity, including against its own people.  

In many ways the situation is now changed. The dictatorship is history and Indonesia is on the way to becoming a democracy. At least that is the case under SBY’s leadership, but he just might not make next election, and that could changes. Hower, Kevin Rudd make good use of the June meeting. The leaders discussed a wide range of issues - security and defence cooperation, environmental issues such as carbon trading and climate change, the status of our large aid program for Aceh, free trade and Rudd’s proposal for an Asian Pacific union. These were relatively easy matters, with the possible exception of the Asia-Pacific union. Indonesia has a strong commitment not only to ASEAN, but also to its offshoot, the Asian Regional Forum, which embraces the wider region outside Southeast Asia.

The problem is that these forums simply do not go far enough, in relation to key issues like trade, security and the increasingly important subject of human rights, the implementation of which is today seen as the real test of a functioning democratic system. Just what SBY thought of the proposal is hard to judge: he is polite listener. Mr. Rudd apparently reiterated our support for Indonesia’s transition to a democracy. In its wider context the latter issue is a sensitive matter, and clearly here our prime minister does need to tread carefully, always bearing in mind that Indonesia’s road to nationhood has been infinitely more difficult than the Australian experience. It is one thing to enjoy an easy and warm relationship with Indonesia’s political leaders and its spirited media, that part of the establishment that has really been freed up. It is another to deal with the not yet reformed military and the undemocratic, expanding and increasingly assertive Islamic fundamentalists whose leaders are bent on weakening the secular nature of the Indonesian state. In relation to the TNI we should move very cautiously, avoiding past practices where, on occasion, senior Australian military officers echoed TNI claims that the human rights situation in East Timor was in good shape.  

There are no doubt a number of serious issues that were not addressed during the Rudd visit. One of these should arise quite soon, and it could offer a challenge to our prime minister, of the kind that his predecessors declined to take up. An issue that may soon challenge the Government’s stand on humanitarian issues will surface, with the release of the Indonesia-Timor Truth and Justice Commission report on crimes against humanity in East Timor in 1999 and earlier. The Commission’s report will probably disappoint those of us who would like to see an exposure of, and some action against, those military commanders responsible for nasty war crimes that are now well documented. Already there are renewed international calls for a tribunal that might offer a measure of justice, and closure,  to the Timorese who felt the cruel weight of the TNI’s brutal culture. Interestingly today they are likely to be supported by those Indonesians pressing for comprehensive democratic reform, especially of military organizations like Kopassus which still retain a shadowy, intimidating presence.  

What is at stake is justice for a catastrophic level of killing, torture and suffering that has inflicted on the Timorese a kind of trauma. Some leaders, like Xanana Gusmao, are unwisely prepared to forego justice for the sake of good relations with Jakarta. Such a course, however, risks being counter-productive from a security point of view, so we, too, should be pressing for the kind of justice that we have joined with the international community in demanding for Bosnians, Kosovars, Rwandans and Cambodians. But it is not just about the rights of the East Timorese; it is also about clearing the way for the fulfillment of Indonesia’s democratic transformation. As for Australia, from the point of view of our human rights commitment, it is about behaving responsibly rather than pragmatically.

                 Floating a New Regional Forum. 

Prime Minister Rudd’s visits to Japan and Indonesia were, in the eyes of some of the media, viewed with a degree of scepticism, reflecting the fact that our new leader’s honeymoon with the media is over. In the case of the Japan part, to which I shall confine my comments in this column, it was predicted by these sceptics that the impact of the visit would be blighted by Rudd’s alleged preoccupation with China, and perceptions that Japanese leaders felt slighted over his delayed visit to Japan. Well, as it turned out the Prime Minister was well received in Japan, although Prime Minister Fukuda, who had just suffered a no-confidence defeat in the Diet, might be excused for having other things on his mind.  

The fact that Kevin Rudd opened his mission with a visit to Hiroshima warmed the Japanese to him. In the past there has been a tendency by Australian leaders to shun the scene of the world’s first atomic bomb, in the belief that it would represent a kind of apology to the Japanese, whom they saw as being responsible for all the evils in this region of World War II. This view ignores our side’s responsibility for what was really an act of genocide, in the terms of the 1948 convention on this subject. As one who was shocked by that scene 62 years ago, as a member of our occupation forces on the outskirts of Hiroshima, it was good to see a prime minister acknowledging the awful reality of nuclear destruction.  If Mr. Rudd had witnessed the distressing scene of thousands of children slowly and painfully dying of the effects of atomic radiation among the ashes of devastated Hiroshima, he would no doubt have been even more moved by this terrible product of mankind’s awesome capacity to destroy indiscriminately. In the circumstances, Mr. Rudd’s initiative on nuclear arms control would have been widely welcomed in Japan.

The main negative was our strong opposition to whaling, but then many Japanese are also opposed to the slaughter of whales, along with other animals. What tends to puzzle some Japanese is our readiness to slaughter animals like cattle and sheep, not to speak of our culling of kangaroos. However, these differences do not seem to have impaired a relationship that has in reality been more strongly enmeshed in trade issues than in people to people relations. As for our ties with Beijing, the Japanese, too, have been moving to strengthen relations with their increasingly powerful neighbour. 

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 Perhaps the proposed Asia-Pacific forum did not excite the Japanese, but at this early stage the initiative is rather vague. Is Mr. Rudd proposing an upgraded version of APEC, or does he want a stronger regional arrangement, with a peace-keeping function? APEC is hardly a regional body; it is a rambling arrangement with a very limited agenda, and is unlikely to grow in its present form. The Asia-Pacific region does need a forum like the Council of Europe, one empowered to deal with security problems, the environment and to enhance the upholding of  human rights conventions. As Mr. Rudd’s Indonesian hosts reminded him, we already have ASEAN, but on security and human rights issues it is really quite toothless. ASEAN has also hosted an extended forum on security issues, but it falls well short of the kind of agency this regions needs. 

The European Union has been held up as an example of what might eventuate, but it would take more will and consensus on democracy, security, the environment and human rights than is around in this region of ours to move in that direction. What we need is a body with a clear agenda, and a capacity to implement it. The Americans are already members of the Organization of American States. The Rudd proposal deserves encouragement, but membership should be more focused on the Asia-Pacific Island region, with its members including East, South and Southeast Asian states, along with the several small Pacific nations. The new organization should have a strong focus on human rights, collective and environmental security, with an early-warning capacity in relation both to conflicts and natural disasters.

Foreign Affairs and the 2020 Summit

It will be interesting to see what concrete actions emerge from the 2020 Summit on foreign policy reform, on how we might shape Australia’s role in global issues. My involvement in the summitry was confined to the 2020 Canberra Summit where there foreign policy issues received little attention. The summit plenary outcome will no doubt reflect widely held desires for fundamental changes to the direction of both foreign and domestic policies This kind of brain-storming forum may be an imperfect instrument to bring about changes, but it is very significant having aroused many Australians from that mix of slumber and frustration that has existed for the past decade or so. It should have a significant impact. Some will argue that, aside from the climate change issue, the summit focused on national policy issues, such as education, health and indigenous affairs, and if that was the case we need to give more attention to the wide range of global issues confronting us in this 21st century.  

 As I understand it one of the conference’s panels specifically addressed international issues, with the broad title ‘Australia’s Future in the World’, a bold, but rather too imprecisely defined title. At the time of writing it is not clear what emerged from this panel, but in this article (a short version of which appeared in the Wollongong Mercury) I would like to make some suggestions and observations, based on 60 years of experience – as a soldier, academic, defence SEAsia specialist, diplomat, adviser to parliamentarians, international human rights activist, and UN official.  Firstly, by 2020 I would like Australia to have freed itself from a tendency to cling to powerful friends, having at last dismissed those fears that, unprotected by our ‘great and powerful’ friend, our national security is in danger. We will have undergone a major change of attitude. We will have finally discarded those fears that began with the Yellow Peril attitudes of a century ago and were then agitated by the war with Japan, then the Cold War. In short as recent history demonstrates our world is much safer from external military threats than most of our politicians, and their strategic studies advisers, seem to believe. Moves by one state to seize its neighbour are now rare, and are confined to situation where there are unresolved claims (Argentina’s attempt to seize the Falkland Islands and Saddam’s Hussein’s move against Kuwait).

We should, in my view, be less concerned about the risk of a military assault on this country.  Such fears are in part fuelled by our links with the United States, with the implication that we must be ready to go to war in the event of a US engagement with another power. We should no longer be tarnished with that image of a devoted follower of the US Administration in power. I hope we will become more truly internationalist, seeking peace and security less on the basis of the US alliance, than by strengthening multilateral peacekeeping mechanisms. We need to become a more active and creative supporter of the UN system, recognizing that the world body will be as effective as its member states are prepared to make it. We should seek to enhance the latter’s moral authority and strengthen its independence, and its capacity to take action to end abuses of human rights, bringing to justice those responsible for crimes against humanity.   

The Australia of my vision will therefore have played a leading role in redirecting global expenditure from weapons of war to the eradication of the causes of war – world poverty, racial and religious intolerance, and political oppression. Australia will have been a leader in the reform of the UN’s management, the Security Council, whose permanent membership will have been expanded to include India, Brazil and Nigeria or South Africa, but without the power of veto. We would have played a leading role in making the UN a much more effective peacekeeper, with a stronger capacity to prevent conflicts. The Security Council would have a different make-up, with India, Brazil and Nigeria (or South Africa) as permanent members, but the latter would no longer hold the power of veto.   

My 2020 Australians will have constructed a cultural bridge between Asia and the West, creating a leading world centre of knowledge about Asia, its cultures, languages, politics and people. By 2020 my Australia will have established special links with the small states around us, welcoming guest workers from them, and nurturing their democratic processes.   My independent Australia would have shed those inhibiting fears of Asian hordes and, more recently terrorism, which have driven our foreign and defence policies, creating public anxiety. We will have developed treaties of friendship and cooperation with major regional powers, treaties that would reduce wasteful defence expenditure, redirecting billions of dollars towards the eradication of poverty and to health and education improvement. Our security would have been enhanced by the setting up of a regional security arrangement to warn us of possible conflicts, one empowered to intervene before it is too late. This new body will be actively urging countries like China, India and Pakistan to rid themselves of their nuclear arsenals.   

In 2020 my enlightened Australia will be a republic, with close ties with Britain and other European countries, based on shared cultural heritage and commitment to human rights and democratic practices. Already the ingredients exist for the nation-wide development of an enlightened community. There is now greater awareness of the fundamental importance of human rights, with the ACT government leading the way with its Charter of Human Rights. However, community awareness, especially of the individual’s obligations, is still at a disappointing low level. What is needed, in the first instance, is community education about human rights, about what the basic five conventions are about, and especially about the implicit responsibility of individual citizens to observe rules that, by virtue of ratification, this country has committed itself to. They need to understand that to enjoy human rights protection, we need to be active in upholding them. A bill of rights will help, but until we develop human rights as a code of conduct for all, the purpose of these conventions will not have been fulfilled. 

The community itself is offering a lead in relation to another area, one almost ignored by past governments. I refer to people to people relations with our neighbours. In the past this subject has been given little attention, yet we cannot get closer to our neighbours, we cannot become truly internationalist, without a concerted effort of this nature. However a number of Australian communities, including the ACT, have shown the way in the case of East Timor, with community to community arrangements, e.g. Canberra Friends of Dili, the Bega Valley program to help the people of Natabora, and the Ballarat community aid program, and numerous others. These ventures have developed much greater understanding in the communities concerned, at the same time enhancing our understanding of the people who live in our neighbourhood.  This type of aid and contact is vitally important to developing a better Australian understanding of neighboring cultures, of the difficulties they confront, and of the way they see us. I would like to seek the government encouraging a national expansion of this dimension of aid the delivery cost of which is tiny, when compared with official programs. For one, I would like to see more programs of this nature operating in Indonesia, where our ‘good relations, are almost exclusively confined to government officials, our military and academic elites. 

One final point in the field of education. There has already been some discussion about the study of Asian languages in tertiary institutions, but little about school programs. In fact this process should begin in primary schools, where we could start with basic country study programs – e.g. Where Indonesians live, how they live, and how they communicate, with more advanced courses in high schools and colleges.    

Easter Reflection on Iraq and a Changing Scene for Australians

 So much for the material and humanitarian costs.  We also need to reflect on the lies and distortions resorted to, to justify the invasion to American, British and Australian voters. As it turned out there were no weapons of mass destruction and, contrary to the claims about the need to act against al Qaeda terrorism,  there were no links between Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden’s terrorists, because the latter considered the Iraqi dictator, with his non-sectarian domestic policies and harsh treatment of Shiites, little more than an infidel. The result of George Bush’s lumbering intervention was to provide Bin Laden with a very convenient battlefield, and a cause that swelled the ranks of those Islamic extremists who believe that a jihad of violence is the only way forward.  It may be true that getting rid of the dictator led to a shift towards democracy, but the intervention intensified the already bitter sectarian differences that have long divided the Iraqi people into three main camps – Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds. The democratic structures erected in the past five years have imposed little more than a veneer of national unity, and should the Americans leave, the country could easily be torn apart by a civil war. 

Nor did the conflict serve Western interests in the Middle East. It increased tensions with Iran, clumsily designated part of the Axis of Evil, as well as with Syria, while the bitter divides in Palestine and Lebanon were worsened by the conflict in Iraq.  Not least the war involved a betrayal of the fundamental peace-keeping role of the United Nations which now became the subject of scorn in Coalition capitals for its attempts to restrain the US in terms of the principles set down largely by an earlier generation of Americans.  As for the world at large, the war severely set back our earlier hopes that the 21st century would bring tighter and more effective international cooperation, enabling us to escape a repeat of the catastrophic conflicts that dogged us in the previous century.  The one achievement was the deposing of Saddam Hussein, but that, I believe, in the way of Middle East politics was about to be achieved by less bloody means.

We really need to challenge those who continue to defend our involvement in the Iraq war, in order to learn its harsh lessons. These lessons should prompt us to review some of the assumptions on which our foreign policy has been based. Maybe, with this in mind, as he wends his way to Washington, Prime Minister Rudd will be thinking about ways to place the important US relationship on a more equal, creative and more flexible footing. This brings me back to the Easter spirit of reconciliation. Prime Minister Rudd has moved very positively in relation to our aborigines. What we now need is a similar campaign internationally, if we are to get our world back on track in the spirit of the UN Charter. First let’s move to strengthen the UN system, to make use of its moral authority to help Iraqis, Tibetans, Papuans, Palestinians and others reclaim their basic rights, rejecting the counter-productive use of violence. Currently our defence force capability is much in the news, but what needs to be stressed right now is that energetic negotiation towards peaceful resolution of those problems that impact on Australia’s security is surely our first line of defence, for military actions have shown themselves to create more problems than answers.

Now that the Cold War is over, the practice of naked aggression - the embarking of nations on military adventures has been dramatically reduced. Today the major powers are really more open to negotiation, and to take human rights seriously into consideration, a trend we should be doing our utmost to encourage. The Rudd Government has a rare opportunity to re-launch our foreign policy in a form more appropriate to a 21^st century middle-ranking world power, with a commitment to strengthen global and regional cooperation, encouraging democratic reform, the upholding of humanitarian standards and environmental protection. We may not be able to discard our weapons, but we can press for the reduction of global stockpiles, and discredit their use other than as a last, desperate resort.  

The current crisis in East Timor is not being well reported in the media. My reading of the situation is that the crisis is easing rather than becoming more tense. Most of the former Defence force rebels (the so-called petitionsers) have now virtually surrendered and are in a cantonment in Dili. Only Lieutenant Salsinha and about 30 of his men are holding out - after having agreed to surrender. Salsinha now says that he will only surrender to President Horta, but of course the president will not be in a position to perform such a function for at least a couple of weeks. Of course there is evidently a continuing unease in the population, but at least some of the displaced persons in the refugee camps now seem ready to return to their homes, some of which have been reconstructed.

For the root problems behind the crisis to be overcome the Xanana Government needs to act cautiously. A military assault on the rebels would not help. It would mean more bloodshed and possibly a widening of rhe rebellion. What is urgent is a concerted effort to provide employment to those who make up the gangs. Also necessary is a more concerted effort at reconciliation of the tribal and regional differences that became magnified during the crisis.