The Age [Australia], November 9 2002
OPINION
Indonesia in PM's too-hard basket
Difficulties with Jakarta reflect six years of withering of Australia's relationship, writes
Kevin Rudd.
One senior adviser to former Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid put it this
way: the Australia-Indonesia relationship is a bit like watching the emotional trials and
tribulations of Elizabeth Taylor - at any one time full of romance, engagement,
marriage, recrimination, separation - together with the ever-present threat of divorce.
Put another way, this relationship has never been a walk in the park. It is a product of
geographical proximity, cultural difference and a great bucket-load of conflicting and
complementary interests.
To get anything done within Indonesia and, more broadly, within the region, requires
an effective, long-term political relationship. This may seem obvious, but such a
relationship is the artery through which the body of the relationship is fed, both in
security and economic dimensions.
This was the core logic underpinning Labor's long-term policy of comprehensive
engagement with Asia. It rests on the simple proposition that if you have good
relations with your neighbours, it is good for your security, and it is good for the
economy and jobs.
This is not rocket science, but over the past five or six years, it seems to have been
beyond the comprehension of the Howard Government. Political relationships, based
in large part on a large degree of interpersonal goodwill between leaders, provides a
relationship with the political capital to draw down on when times get tough - as they
are at present.
Our difficulties with Indonesia do not arise only from post-Bali misunderstandings.
They are largely the product of the long-term withering of the relationship between our
heads of government over the past five or six years. The truth is, John Howard has not
had an effective political relationship with presidents Suharto, Habibi, Wahid or
Megawati.
I have never suggested this is all Howard's fault. It takes two to tango. Tensions
arising over Australia's action in East Timor (actions supported by Labor) were, in
most respects, unavoidable. Indonesian political and military pride suffered as a result
of East Timorese independence.
But where Howard was culpable was in rubbing salt into the wound within a month or
so of the conclusion of the initial military action proclaiming the so-called "Howard
Doctrine". Under this doctrine, which received widespread reportage across Indonesia
and the rest of South-East Asia, East Timor was seen as a mere foretaste, with
Australia acting as a "deputy sheriff" of the United States across South-East Asia and
possibly beyond.
It is in these entirely avoidable errors that the Howard Government has been culpable.
And culpable more broadly in not injecting the personal time, effort and resources into
building a network of close heads of government relationships across this immediate
region - the region which has always fundamentally shaped Australia's national
security.
From here, the first priority must be to re-establish the political ballast necessary to
sustain rebuilding an effective bilateral intelligence relationship with Indonesia.
Former intelligence officials tell me that in the mid-1990s there was a large volume of
material flowing through to Australia. Now, they tell me, this has dried to a trickle.
Australia's fundamental national security interest is that we have the best idea
possible of what is actually going on across the archipelago.
Second, when it comes to domestic law enforcement within Indonesia, Australia must
lift its level of training, resourcing and general cooperation with the Indonesian National
Police. The Australian Federal Police has already made a good start on this. But the
scope of this cooperative engagement with the INP must now step up several
notches.
The INP is now charged with responsibility for domestic security under Indonesian
law. That is no longer the province of the Indonesia armed forces, the TNI.
As for Defence Minister Robert Hill's proposal (backed by Foreign Minister Alexander
Downer) that Australia should consider joint operations between our SAS and
Indonesian Special Forces (Kopassus), Labor is fundamentally opposed. In my time
in Indonesia, I was unable to detect any enthusiasm for the proposal.
My visit to Indonesia confirmed a fresh reservation of Kopassus itself. Kopassus
officers are now on trial for the assassination of a former Papuan independence
leader. And there are grave questions about Kopassus' operational relationship with
the radical Islamic group, Laskar Jihad.
Nobody pretends this is easy. If Labor was in government at present we would find
this difficult, too. But Australia's national interest demands that we do not consign the
Indonesia relationship to the "too-hard basket" where, by and large, Prime Minister
Howard and his most senior advisers, including Max Moore-Wilton, have consigned it
in the past. Such an approach gets us nowhere fast.
* Kevin Rudd is the opposition spokesman on foreign affairs.
Copyright © 2002 The Age Company Ltd
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