Indonesia's mixed military ties

Indonesia and Australia's leaders this week have signed deals on defence cooperation, and Australia has gifted Indonesia with four refurbished heavy transport aircraft.

 

While Australia and Indonesia are strengthening their military ties, other nations, such as the Dutch are concerned by the Indonesian military's dismal human rights track record.

But as Australia's military ties with Indonesia grow stronger, other western nations are keeping their distance.

Indonesia has had to pull out of a $280 million deal to buy 100 battle tanks from the Netherlands after waiting several months for the Dutch parliament to approve the sale.

Dutch media reports that the majority of parties in the Dutch parliament opposed the deal because of Jakarta's poor human rights record.

Peter King, a research associate in international relations from the University of Sydney spoke to Radio Australia's Connect Asia. He says that the Dutch's concern with human rights in Indonesia harks back to their historical relationship with the region. 

"Well the Dutch have been very sensitive to human rights violations in Jakarta. I think there is a historical reason for that." he said. 

"They themselves mucked up the whole West Papua issue during their own colonial administration, they held it back from Indonesia and then in the end had to give in to international pressure." 

"So they compensate that by kind of indicating that being forced to hand West Papua to Indonesia, even in this post Suharto democratic period has been a risky business because the army continues to dominate affairs so much in West Papua. 

The United States and the European Union have similarly imposed military embargoes on Indonesia, says Peter King, for example, those imposed after massacres committed by the Indonesian military in 1991 and 1991.

The US reinstated military sales to Indonesia in 2006, supported by Australia. 

"It wasn't a very good idea because the army has continued to abusive, particularly in Aceh for a time, but Aceh got autonomy and a proper peace deal in 2005."

"In West Papua the human rights violations by the military and the police have continued."

Australia has pursued a strategy of working with the Indonesian military with the hope of improving its record on human rights issues that way. But Mr King says the continuing power of the military in Indonesia is a danger to its democracy. 

"I think it is long term danger for Indonesian democracy that the military hasn't been brought in to line on these human rights issues, particularly in West Papua now," he said. 

"The Government has just been too reluctant to give up its use of military force to get its way in West Papua. It needs to negotiate with the West Papuans rather than use the so-called security approach." Radio Australia

 

Australian-Indonesia relations in a mess

THE Gillard government has made a mess of the critically important relationship with Indonesia. This has been partly concealed by the politeness and pro-Australian disposition of the Indonesian President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, and his Foreign Minister, Marty Natalegawa. But the evidence is there for all to see, not least in the President's visit this week. 

At the same time, Tony Abbott now has a much more pro-active and forward-looking policy towards Indonesia than Gillard does. Labor is being outflanked by Abbott on what it used to regard as a core strength, its relationship with Jakarta.

There were plenty of signs of all this in the presidential visit. First was the extraordinary decision that neither the President nor the Foreign Minister would take questions from the Australian press. Almost uniquely, in this visit there was no joint press conference between Prime Minister and President.

SBY and Natalegawa are the most gracious and urbane of men, both long in office and effortlessly able to deal with questions from Western journalists. SBY and John Howard always had joint press conferences on official visits, even at the height of the West Papuan asylum-seeker crisis.

For a visiting Indonesian president not to accept a single question takes us back to the days of Suharto and his visit to Townsville in 1974. It can only be seen as a big step backwards in the relationship, a partial de-normalising -- a return to a state of institutional fraughtness, so to speak.

This is a decision the Indonesians took and it's fair to speculate on their motives. The government can counter that it has annual heads of government meetings, but SBY's strategic decision that he wants a co-operative relationship with Australia long pre-dates Gillard's prime ministership. In fact, it partly shields Gillard. Almost certainly, Indonesia's next president will not be so pro-Australian as SBY. If we got a president remotely inclined to nationalist exploitation of foreign policy issues, and then repeated a fraction of the litany of mistakes Gillard has made, we could pay for it very dearly.

The media has ignored another big development on this visit, namely Abbott's emergence into the centre of the relationship, just as Kevin Rudd as opposition leader emerged into the centre of the China relationship. SBY held a half-hour meeting with Abbott. He began, in front of the cameras, by praising Abbott's "wonderful speech last night" and said: "I recall working with my good friend John Howard, laying foundations for enhancing our bilateral co-operation".

SBY is the most sophisticated of leaders. He knows exactly what he is doing in everything he says, and he knew what he was doing in publicly praising his good friend John Howard.

The media has also missed Abbott's profoundly important policy moves on Indonesia. It is all very well for the government to characterise Abbott as "relentlessly negative" but too many commentators have swallowed this caricature whole and as a result don't pay diligent attention to the positive policy commitments Abbott makes.

Abbott has committed to making Indonesia his first overseas visit as prime minister, subject only to the president's availability to receive him at the time. This is not a throwaway line by Abbott, nor is it a visit designed to be restricted to, or even primarily about, asylum-seekers.

Abbott told me yesterday: "I want to establish the precedent in the future that incoming Australian prime ministers make Indonesia their first overseas visit, not Washington, not London, not Beijing, not Tokyo, but Jakarta, because in some respects Indonesia is our most important relationship."
This new line of Abbott's, that Indonesia is in some respects Australia's most important relationship, marks a significant breakthrough in his thinking and in opposition policy. It may be an attempt to transcend the boatpeople issue, or specifically the opposition's turn-back-the boats policy, in his maturing relationship with the Indonesians.

Abbott has pledged that he will run a "no surprises" policy with the Indonesians, which is a well-earned backhander for the Gillard government's bizarre decision to suspend the live cattle export trade to Indonesia without advance consultations with Jakarta.

In another under-reported initiative, in his speech to the Liberal Party federal council meeting in Melbourne last weekend, Abbott announced he would implement "a new Colombo Plan", but this time it would be designed to send Australians into Southeast Asia to study as well as bringing Southeast Asians to Australia. Abbott said: "We should better appreciate not just how much Australia can give our neighbours but how much they can give us, in cultural insights as well as in trade benefits. That's hard when there are, for instance, 17,000 Indonesians studying here but only some 200 Australians studying there."

Abbott also committed to ensuring that within a decade 40 per cent of Year 12 students study a foreign language, including a big boost to Asian languages, the study of which has declined disgracefully in recent years.

Taken together, these initiatives give Abbott a much more pro-active, constructive and comprehensive policy of engagement with Southeast Asia in general, and Indonesia in particular, than the Gillard government has.

Overall, the SBY visit was a strategic failure for Gillard. Her policy towards Indonesia has been a long series of tactical and strategic blunders, none more so than the live cattle fiasco. In one of the stupidest acts of modern Australian diplomacy, Labor suspended this trade without consulting the Indonesians. When it resumed, Jakarta halved the quota of Australian beef it imported. Since then the Indonesians have looked to increase their domestic industry and find alternative foreign suppliers.

The damage to Australia's reputation as a reliable supplier is grave and probably irreversible. We threatened Indonesian food security and demonstrated that in a conflict between domestic politics and the Indonesian relationship, Gillard will choose domestic politics every time.

To sense how the Indonesians feel, imagine the Chinese reaction if we declared that environmental concerns meant we would suddenly suspend iron ore exports to China. There would be hell to pay, and rightly so.

The reduced quotas have seriously damaged the Australian industry and weakened our links with Indonesia. Gillard got nothing from SBY on this issue on this visit. The quotas will not move. He politely invited Australians to invest in Indonesia's domestic cattle industry instead.

Similarly, Gillard got nothing from SBY on the boatpeople issue. The Indonesians were aghast, and made their feelings plain, at the Captain Emad fiasco. The Indonesians believe, quite rightly, that the Rudd and Gillard governments created the boats problem by abandoning Howard's successful policies. And every episode along the way, from the farcical East Timor solution right through to Captain Emad, has confirmed for them our incompetence, irresolution and hypocrisy. We are in no position to lecture Jakarta on people-smuggling.

We also failed in our consultation with the Indonesians over the plan to regularly rotate 2500 US marines through Darwin. We should have been consulting the Indonesians at the highest levels every step of the way in our thinking on this issue. If we had done that we would not have received the sharp, negative reaction from Jakarta that the move got.

Gillard has done almost nothing to enhance people-to-people links, with the collapse of Indonesian language studies in Australian schools and universities.

SBY's forbearance and good humour should not obscure the magnitude of the government's failures on Indonesia. Greg Sheriden for The Australian

Homegrown Thoughts on Indonesian Politics

There are certain things in the aspirations and local wisdom of the Indonesian people that are sometimes difficult to digest.

On Friday, Golkar Party chairman Aburizal Bakrie confirmed his bid for the presidency while his political stalwarts were pondering whether Yogyakarta’s Sri Sultan Hamengkubuwono X or President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s son Edhie Baskoro could be his running mate.

As usual, the sultan won’t comment on anything that may contradict local wisdom. First, he is not interested and second, his supporters in Yogyakarta would never allow their sultan to run in the 2014 elections.

The latest survey conducted by Soegeng Sarjadi Syndicate indicates that the sultan might be a popular choice for presidential candidate, along with other well-liked personalities such as Prabowo Subianto, Megawati Sukarnoputri, Jusuf Kalla and Aburizal Bakrie.

But to the elitists, the sultan is regarded as feudal, absurdly outdated and old-fashioned, although the majority still believe he is a born leader, a king who will serve his people. On paper, Yudhoyono and Megawati are far above him in popularity, although the two have not shown themselves to be the good leaders people expected. The sultan, who is known to put morals and ethics first, believes that with the right cultural strategy, not just by using imported or foreign models, the nation could rise from poverty, economic backwardness and separatism. But that too has to be tested. Perhaps he should give it a try by mediating a dialogue with the Papuans.

Edhie Baskoro is a rising political star who is the secretary general of his father’s ruling Democratic Party. But the time is not ripe for him to run. He still needs to prove himself in public office. Local wisdom says he won’t get the votes. Prabowo, whose popularity ratings surpass those of Megawati and Aburizal, could be the next president if he is able to soften some of his harder stances and keep control of his emotions.

Dig deep into the attitude, character, ethics and morality of Indonesian politics and you will see they face a dead end when it comes to challenging voters’ attitudes. People are now realizing their potential to create a “culture of competition.” They are fed up with the same old people running for office and the same old parties that have failed to improve the welfare of the people.

Indonesia is blessed with a powerful economic machine and a population of more than 230 million. It is now the third-largest democracy in the world and its economy is booming. But the problem is the government is sleeping. Very little progress in things such as infrastructure development has been made. Elections are often dominated by people who have been in politics since the New Order. Regional elections, which are dominated by incumbents, are slowing the real democratic process. If people do become leaders, they often end up disappointing because popularity doesn’t always equal good leadership.

People believe in the local wisdom “Gusti ora sare” (“God never sleeps”). During former President Suharto’s rule, Indonesia was fertile ground for violations of human rights, huge foreign debt, corruption, collusion and nepotism. Although macroeconomics, inflation, currency stability and share prices have fared well under the current administration, corruption is rampant and there are questions about the sincerity of efforts to solve the big cases.

The past couple of weeks have seen donations collected for the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) to build a new headquarters, which allegedly corrupt lawmakers have refused to approve a budge for despite the Finance Ministry signing off on the project. Then came the government’s decision to loan money to the International Monetary Fund. Poor people shouldn’t have to donate money to the KPK and indebted countries shouldn’t have to loan money to the IMF. It all contradicts the local wisdom people believe in.

Yanto Soegiarto is the managing editor of Globe Asia, a sister publication of the Jakarta Globe.

For Whom the Bell Tolls Indonesia Moving to Reduce Death Row Population by Increasing Rate of Executions

The Bali Post quoted the National Chief Prosecutors office as confirming that prosecutors in Banten (West Java) and Jakarta are making preparations for a suden surge of executions of prisoners now under sentence of death in Indonesia.

A Junior Chief Prosecutor, Hamzah Tadja, (photo) confirmed steps are in play that will soon bring 20 people on death row in the two locales before a firing squad.

The numbers slated for death are 3 in Banten and 17 in Jakarta. While confirming the preparations are ongoing, Hamzah refused to give a time or a place for the coming executions.

“I am not allowed to tell you (the time of the planned executions). Later, when it’s time, you’ll know,” Hamzah explained on Monday, June 25, 2012.

He added that he was unable to provide complete data on the total number of people now sitting on death row across Indonesia, because local prosecutors have yet to file formal reports on the actual number of those under a sentence of death who have exhausted all possible avenues of appeal.

“(But), We have this data from prosecutors in Jakarta and Banten,” he said.

Earlier, Chief Prosecutors had reported that through October 2012 there were 100 people on death row, down from an earlier figure of 116. The decline was due to remission of sentences (7), escapes from prison (6) and death by natural causes (3).

According to prosecutors, from the original 116 on death row nationwide, 58 were convicted of narcotics violations, 55 for premeditated murder and 2 for terrorism. (sic)

Included among those who have exhausted the appeal process and are now close to execution are:

• Merika Pranola from Tangerang, Banteng who was convicted of smuggling 3.5 kg of heroin.
• Harnoko Dewantoro in Jakarta convicted of premeditated murder.
• Gunawan Santoso, also known as Acin, in Jakarta convicted for premeditated murder.
• Iwan Darawan Mutho, also known as Rais, and Achmad Hasa, also known as Agung Cahyono, convicted or terrorism.
• Yuda Akang, Sastra Wijaya, Tjik Wang also known as Akwand or Ricky Candra, Federik Luttar, Lim Jit Wee also know as Kim, Jet Lie Chandra also know as Cece, Hunphrey Ejike also known as Doktor, Gap Badia also known as Papa, Euge Ape, also known as Felixe or Ek, Fere Dike Ole Kumala also known as Samuel, Tham Tuck Yun also known as Atjay (Malaysia), Seck Osman (Senegal) and Marhin Anderson also known as Belo (Ghana) – all convicted of narcotics violations.
• Marco Archer Cardoso Moreira (50) from Brazil. A former Bali resident arrested in Jakarta in 2003 with 13.4 kg of cocaine concealed in a hang glider.

Indonesia has recently formalized the appeal process for those under sentence of death in order to shorten the time between sentencing and actual execution. In the past, the appeal process could consume decades.

The last execution before a firing squad in Indonesia occurred in 2008 when the three Bali bombers were shot.

An Arab Spring for Southeast Asia?

Malaysia’s electoral reform movement, known as Bersih (clean), succeeded in mobilizing tens of thousands of people in the streets last April. According to organizers, this year’s Bersih was the biggest political rally in the modern history of Malaysia. The government has disputed this claim, but the political impact of Bersih in terms of reinvigorating the ranks of the opposition can’t be denied.   

Bersih proved that it’s more than just a coalition pushing for electoral reforms. Its popularity among the masses, and its brave assertion of its politics through rallies, made it into an important political force in Malaysia. Among the participants of the recent Bersih were opposition personalities, students demanding free tertiary education, civil libertarians, free press advocates, and community activists.

Bersih continues to be Southeast Asia’s shining example of a grassroots initiative, one that has made a huge impact on national politics. In many aspects, it has the potential to spark the region’s “Arab Spring.”
Meanwhile, Indonesia’s debate over fuel subsidies triggered widespread citizen condemnation across the country. Protests turned into riots in some cities, and at one point some analysts feared that the situation might degenerate into a full-blown political crisis similar to the 1998 riots that led to the downfall of the government. 

Earlier this year, a “sandal protest” became a popular citizen movement in Indonesia after many people reacted to the arrest of a minor accused of stealing a pair of slippers. Thousands of people “donated” sandals to police stations across the country as a form of protest over the harsh penalty handed the young sandal thief.

Some protests received limited public support, such as the religious riots that erupted several times this year. Sectarian violence has damaged Indonesia’s image as a Muslim-dominated nation that still promotes interfaith harmony and tolerance. 

Recently, street protests sprouted up after Indonesians objected to Malaysia’s “stealing” of their country’s cultural heritage.  

But the most surprising citizen protest of the past half year took place in Burma. Residents who had grown weary of daily blackouts went out in the streets last month to protest the ineptitude of their local officials. Candle lighting events spread to big urban centers where young protesters demanded the resignation of energy officials. The spontaneous gathering of Burmese in the streets showed that a growing number of citizens are prepared to defy the iron grip of the military-backed government. 

On the other hand, the communal violence in western Burma that displaced thousands of poor villagers was a big blow to the country’s democratic transition. The riots between the Rohingyas and Arakanese exposed the lingering ethnic tension in the country. But peace assemblies and interfaith dialogues in Rangoon and other cities rose up in response to the violence in Arakan State.

Cambodia’s recent election was relatively peaceful, but it shouldn’t overshadow the continuing eviction of residents from their homes because of the land concessions given by the government to local and foreign companies. In many towns, residents have successfully barricaded their homes. Sadly, the defense of the people’s right to protect their land has led to the rise of killings and arrests of land rights activists in the past six months.

Vietnam’s development projects also generated intense resistance from local residents and anti-mining activists. But the protests against China’s “invasion” of Vietnamese islands received more global attention. Another prominent protest, although online, is related to the continuing detention and persecution of the country’s democracy bloggers. 

Thailand’s Red Shirts also went back to the streets last month. The rally highlighted the division in the country and the unresolved bickering of various political forces. But the rise of protests against the Lèse Majesté law gave hope that citizens are more inspired to fight for democratic reforms. 

Malaysia’s Bersih, Indonesia’s fuel protests, Burma’s “power revolt,” Indochina’s resistance to development aggression – more and more people in Southeast Asia are starting to express their sentiments by organizing and participating in street demonstrations. This is a positive development that should be encouraged by democracy advocates. But it should be sustained by a more definite plan of action and agenda on how citizen engagement can effectively lead to substantial reforms in governance and policymaking. The Diplomat, Tokyo

Vietnam's trade with China

Fellow travellers, fellow traders

AS MUCH as their official media tend to extol grand friendship between a pair of great nations, Vietnam and China have a long and tumultuous history as neighbours. More recent friendly manoeuvres between Vietnam and America are understood to comprise a kind of diplomatic bulwark against a certain unmentioned giant to the north. Vietnam’s relationship with China is complicated on a number of fronts, not least of which is trade. 

At the beginning of the month America’s defence secretary, Leon Panetta, dropped in at Cam Ranh Bay, a deepwater port that was controlled by America’s navy during its war with Vietnam. He was there to exchange artefacts from the war with its victors, in Hanoi. Which set minds to wondering at the strengthening of ties between these “former-foes-turned-unlikely-allies”, as the American press tends to style them. 

Was it all part of a containment policy for China? Vietnam’s and America’s defence ministers have been exchanging visits annually since 2003. The previous secretary of defence, Robert Gates, supplemented that routine in coming to Vietnam for an ASEAN-sponsored summit of defence ministers in 2010.

Certainly Vietnam is suspicious of China, and has been for centuries, if not millennia. For hundreds of years at a stretch China’s emperors ruled over parts of Vietnam; today the names of the country’s biggest boulevards commemorate heroes who fought against foreign invaders, including the Chinese. Though hardliners within the Communist Party leadership might prefer to look to China for inspiration before turning to the America, especially when it comes to issues of internal security, post-revolutionary Vietnam is not always happy with its neighbour. Last year 12 weeks of essentially government-sanctioned protests against China’s actions in the South China Sea were a vivid demonstration of that. 

Carlyle Thayer, a Vietnam specialist at the Australian Defence Force Academy, wrote that “Secretary Panetta must be at pains to ensure that any form of stepped-up defence co-operation is not construed by Vietnamese Party conservatives as an attempt to enlist Vietnam into an anti-China containment policy.”

All is not mutual suspicion however. Throughout recent years Vietnam and China have excelled at trade. China is Vietnam’s largest trading partner. Last year their two-way trade stood at $36 billion, while trade between America and Vietnam was $22 billion. Their two-way trade however is a bit more one-way than the Vietnamese would like. Their trade deficit already stands at $1.85 billion for the first two months of 2012, according to Vietnam’s General Statistics Office. 

This doesn’t even take into account for the huge black-market border trade at places like Mong Cai, in the north of the country, or Lang Son, which is known, among other things, for its large sex-toy market (dildos being technically illegal in Vietnam). 

Jonathan Pincus, an economist at Harvard, reckons part of the problem comes down to the export industry itself. Vietnam must import the raw materials for many of things it makes for export from China. Leather for shoes, fabric for the huge garment industry, and so on. Possibly the state-owned companies should focus on this and not, say, utterly unrelated industries. (To be fair, in the face of their huge financial losses, the government has tried to wean the SOEs from their penchant for excessive diversifying). 

Le Dang Doanh, a Vietnamese economist, sounded frustrated when speaking at a conference more than a year ago. Vietnam, he said, “exports coal and then imports power. It exports rubber and then imports car tyres. As for the garment industry, if China were to stop supplying materials, the industry would face big difficulties.” 

It is the spectre of dependency that has many of Vietnam’s leaders feeling cagey; no one wants to be reliant on China. In fact, it was the fear of becoming a captive market that fuelled protests against the development of bauxite mines in 2009 and 2010. The mines, which were to be run by Chinese companies, attracted huge criticism from a number of areas. Environmental concerns were paramount. But so was the fear Vietnam would be stuck exporting its relatively cheap alumina yield to China. “Containing” China is a crowd-pleasing goal in some quarters, but containing the trade imbalance might prove to be the more popular achievement.

By Banyan for The Economist