DATE=11/20/1999
TYPE=ON THE LINE
TITLE=ON THE LINE: WHAT NEXT FOR INDONESIA?
NUMBER=1-00797
EDITOR=OFFICE OF POLICY - 619-0037
CONTENT=
THEME: UP, HOLD UNDER AND FADE
Anncr: On the Line - a discussion of United
States policy and contemporary issues. This week,
"What Next for Indonesia?" Here is your host,
Robert Reilly.
Host: Hello and welcome to On the Line.
The past year and a half has been a time of high
drama in Indonesia, a nation that until 1998 had
been ruled for thirty-two years by the
authoritarian regime of President Suharto.
Indonesia's first free elections led to the
selection in October of Abdurrahman Wahid, a
leading Muslim intellectual, as president. He now
must preside over a nation that is still in
serious economic difficulty, in grave need of
reform, and is facing separatist movements in
several provinces. This month over a half million
people demonstrated in Aceh, demanding
independence, which was recently granted to East
Timor.
Joining me today to discuss the future of
Indonesia are three experts. Paul Wolfowitz is the
dean of the School of Advanced International
Studies at Johns Hopkins University. He is a
former U.S. ambassador to Indonesia. Adam Schwarz
is a consultant and author of the book, A Nation
in Waiting: Indonesia's Search for Stability. And
Mike Jendrzejczyk is director of Human Rights
Watch Asia.
Welcome to the program.
Host: Paul Wolfowitz, in assessing the progress
or lack thereof in Indonesia over the past year
and a half, the Indonesians seem to have
confounded the pessimists who predicted disaster,
yet they still seem to be facing some very serious
problems. How do you assess the situation?
Wolfowitz: Some of the problems are massive, but
I think we underestimate, a lot of people
underestimate, the strength of civil society in
Indonesia and the determination of large numbers
of Indonesian people to see positive change toward
a more democratic government, toward a government
that was based on rule of law and that respected
human rights. We've seen a lot about riots. There
are riots. There are problems. I think President
[B. J.] Habibie did no service to anybody by
hanging on as long as he did and perpetuating the
idea that the old regime could last.
Host: What was the alternative?
Wolfowitz: I think the alternative would have
been to make very clear that he would be a
transitional figure, that he would not run for
election, that he would be the sponsor of a new
era. But frankly, also I think the world
community, including the United States, has some
responsibility in my view for having allowed the
East Timor issue to get ahead of the issue of
democracy in Indonesia -- because we created
expectations about separatism, which now a brand
new democratic government in Indonesia has to deal
with in Aceh, when they ought to be dealing with
the fundamental question of how you get the
economy in that country going again. But until
they can establish the unity of the country, they
cannot do that.
Host: Do you agree that that is the fundamental
problem facing President Wahid at this point?
Schwarz: I do. I think we see it reflected in the
cabinet that he has put together and in his public
statements that what he sees as his number one
priority is trying to restore some sense of
national unity and to try to appease these
separatist movements.
Host: But at the same time he said, almost with
alacrity, that if it's good enough for East Timor,
it's good enough for Aceh.
Schwarz: It is. And I think we need to be bit
careful in how we interpret those comments. It's
not entirely clear precisely what President Wahid
has in mind when he's calling for a referendum --
whether it is a referendum on what sort of
association it has with Indonesia, or rather is
the referendum on whether there is any
association with Indonesia, which is how it is
being interpreted in Aceh. There is bit of a
miscommunication gap, I think, there.
Host: There is also a conflict with the
parliament in the sense that they say, "President
Wahid, you do not have the authority to decide
these things; they are in our purview."
Schwarz: That's another issue. I think President
Wahid has been on a lengthy trip and one of the
problems he has back in Jakarta is that there is a
fair degree of unanimity in the body politic, if
we can call it that, that this is the wrong way to
go, whether it's the military, the parliament, the
People's Consultative Assembly, there are strong
views against having a referendum.
Host: One the other hand, Mike Jendrzejczyk, you
keep touch with the human rights situation. How
deep is the underlying sense of grievance, fed by
human rights abuses, that are driving separatist
movements in Aceh or Irian Jaya, and even other
provinces?
Jendrzejczyk: Well, especially in Aceh there have
been years of resentment building against the
military. There are estimated to be about forty
thousand troops now in Aceh. And since the 1970s
there has been a separatist movement that has been
severely repressed. Thousands of Acehnese
civilians have been detained in military camps,
some never to return home. At least a thousand
have been tortured, killed or disappeared. And in
this environment, I think that it was unfortunate
that President Habibie had the opportunity,
perhaps, to defuse some of the sentiment growing
now for independence had he begun to prosecute
those guilty of some of the worst abuses --
perhaps to draw down the number of troops in Aceh.
But I'm afraid the movement for independence now
has moved far past that. I think that if there is
a referendum, there will be increasing demands
that independence has to be one of the options, as
opposed to simply, for example, more autonomy, a
promise that more of the revenue from Aceh will
remain in the province rather than going to
Jakarta. I'm afraid the situation may have moved
past that point. Here you have to wonder, is
President Wahid overestimating his ability as a
prominent Muslim, but a Javanese, not from Aceh,
to negotiate this very complicated situation where
resentments have been building for a long time.
Host: Paul Wolfowitz, you know him. Is he the
right man for this extraordinarily difficult time?
Wolfowitz: I don't think you can find a better
one. I don't know that what Mike said is exactly
true. This situation got to a point where there
may be no solution. I think he's trying to buy
time, I think he's trying to persuade the people
in Aceh that it is a new era. Maybe they woke up
and noticed that half a million people
demonstrated in Banda Aceh and the military wasn't
turned loose on them. They weren't slaughtered.
But it's going to take time. I think it's going to
take more time than the seven months that he has
alluded to, to really convince the Acehnese that
it's a different era. But he's got to negotiate
with the Acehnese, he's got to negotiate with his
own military, he's got to negotiate with his own
parliament. One thing he seems to be good at is
balancing a lot of different interests and
juggling them. I think he understands very clearly
that he's not an authoritarian president like his
predecessors, that what has to come out of this
has got to be some kind of consensus process. And
I think he has as good a chance of doing it as
anyone, but I would not overestimate his chances,
personally, by himself with persuading the
Acehnese that it's a different situation.
Jendrzejczyk: Ambassador Wolfowitz mentioned that
East Timor had led U.S. policy and this was the
problem. I certainly think there was an emphasis
here -- no question -- both at the executive level
and in Congress that Indonesia had to follow
through with its commitments to the U-N for a
referendum once President Habibie made this
commitment and the referendum was organized. At
the same time, I don't think it was a problem that
the U.S. created. You can say, in fact, that
former President Habibie created the problem by
even throwing out this option. Once it was there
and the commitment was made that the referendum
would take place under the U-N auspices, I think
the U.S. in fact did the right thing, as did
Australia, the European Union, and even Japan,
urging President Habibie to take the right action
on the ground --that is, to restrain the civilian
militia that, I should add, are still terrorizing
tens of thousands East Timorese now in West Timor,
being held virtually hostage at gunpoint, fearful
of returning to East Timor, despite the fact that
it is now in the process of transition to
independence. And I do think this has significant
implications for democratization in Indonesia over
the long run -- that the role of the military in
East Timor has to be brought under scrutiny and
there has to be some accountability for what has
taken place.
Host: Well there is a U-N investigation going on
now.
Jendrzejczyk: That's right.
Schwarz: Adding on to what Mike was saying are a
couple of points that could be made. One is that
Aceh is in many ways a different case than East
Timor. East Timor had a different history than the
rest of Indonesia, a different colonial ruler, a
different ethnic makeup, a different religious
makeup. Aceh is very much within the fabric of the
Indonesian nation-state and has played a major
role in Indonesian nationalist lore. So whereas
the argument was made that if East Timor won
independence, this would have a demonstration
effect on the rest of the country, which never
really held up all that well, the argument does
hold up well in Aceh. If Aceh were to go
independent, the consensus view is that this would
have a negative demonstration effect on the rest
of the country and would give a life to other
separatist movements. And because that is the
case, I think one of the risks that we are going
to see going down on the road is that the military
is going to be adamantly resistant to seeing steps
taken that could lead to an independent Aceh.
Wolfowitz: And this is where having Aceh front
and center on the agenda makes it much, much
harder to do the reform of military that is
necessary, because the first issue is Aceh and
that is an issue on which the military has very,
very wide support throughout society. The right
agenda would be to start with military reform in
places where there is consensus among Indonesians
for reform. And that's where we made a mistake on
East Timor. Habibie was the only man who wanted an
early referendum. Bishop [Carlos] Belo, Xanana
Gusmao, said "give us time," the military said
"give us time," Megawati [Sukarnoputri] said "give
us time." And we encouraged Habibie in a reckless
push toward a referendum. We had many chances, it
seems to me, to change the schedule, including
after the June 7th election. Megawati said to me
that she was ready to meet with Gusmao and talk
about a different timetable. The timetable that we
pushed on was bad for East Timor and now it's
proving to be bad for Indonesia.
Jendrzejczyk: I think, in the end, the U-N, as
you know delayed the vote a couple of times. There
was real debate within the U-N whether the
conditions existed on the ground where you could
have, in fact, a free and fair referendum because
of the role of the civilian militia, backed by
Indonesian army. And in the end, I think it was
the U-N's call to go ahead with the referendum at
the end of August, recognizing, as you say
rightly, that the time frame was all wrong, that
Habibie put this on the agenda and with a very
fast track. However, once everyone was committed
to the U-N process, I think they felt they had to
follow through with it. What's important now is
dealing with the aftermath, because I think it
does have implications for the long-term role of
the military in Indonesia. And this is where
President Wahid is, again, in a very difficult
position, because some of the military people that
may be implicated in what has taken place in East
Timor are precisely those he needs support from
now in this overall transition process, as well as
to move forward an agenda of larger reform of the
military.
Host: Well he's facing a timetable over which he
doesn't necessarily seem to have control now. The
leader of the half-million-person demonstration in
Aceh said, if by December 4th we don't have a
schedule for a referendum that includes, not just
autonomy, but independence, we will go from there.
Now, all of you have mentioned the pressures under
which President Wahid is from the military should
he offer them such an option as independence in
Aceh. If he does, how severe are those dangers
that we'll see a setback for democracy?
Schwarz: I think the dangers are high, I really
do, for the reasons that we have all been talking
about. I think we need to look at Aceh and not be
fooled into thinking that this is a problem that
can be isolated. It has very profound implications
both for democracy in Indonesia and, as Paul was
saying, the relations between the civilian and
military leadership. For me, the risk of going
forward down this path in Aceh is of a
remilitarization of power. The risk is that, if
the civilian leadership goes ahead on this path,
and given the experience in East Timor and given
the military's very dark view of that process and
the fact that they blame the loss of East Timor on
civilian politicians, Habibie in particular, the
risk here is that we have a loss of support by the
military for this fragile, newly democratically
elected government. And given the scope of the
problems it faces, that's a real danger.
Jendrzejczyk: And let's not forget the huge
economic problems, as well, that the new president
has inherited. And as you know, he was in
Washington here recently, meeting with the heads
of the World Bank and the International Monetary
Fund, anxious to get funds flowing again.
Wolfowitz: That's the reason why separatism should
not have been put on top of the agenda, and
pushing the East Timor referendum did that. What
they need now is time. How they can buy time is
not clear. But certainly I think we should be
doing everything we can to help them buy time. One
thing is to be very, very careful about this issue
of war crimes in East Timor. If there are people
who were directly implicated in actually doing
things in East Timor, there are legal processes
that have to be gone through, but there are too
many people, I think, who are eager to try to take
this question as far up the top of the Indonesian
military as they can. And I think that's like
throwing a match on gasoline. What this new
civilian government has got to do is work with
those elements in the military that it can work
with. It can work with them on some issues. East
Timor and war crimes is one of the hardest ones,
and I don't think that we should be injecting that
into middle of this very, very potentially
explosive situation.
Host: Well, you mentioned those elements within
the military they can work with, and you said the
priority should be military reform. The military
has already accepted a diminution of its role, a
halving of its seats in the parliament.
Wolfowitz: And a civilian defense minister. Yet
there are people who want to target General
Wiranto as a war criminal. Wahid said when he was
here that in 1994, when Suharto tried to have him
removed as head of N-U [National Awakening party],
Wiranto came to him and said, Suharto is trying to
do this, I can't oppose him, but I'm not going to
help him. In effect, I will tacitly help you.
There is a debt to be paid there. And I think we
need to be careful in the very, very delicate
balance that he has to work out, that we create
major issues of survival for these people to
change the whole calculation.
Host: What else ought the United States be doing
to help President Wahid who, as you mentioned,
recently visited with President Clinton here.
Jendrzejczyk: Well, a couple of things. I mean, I
agree with Ambassador Wolfowitz that the changes
in the cabinet and the lineup of the cabinet, are
to some extent encouraging. On the other hand,
there are still important military players, the
navy commander, who's now the head of the
military, is still very close to General Wiranto.
I think it's a mistake to discount the army in any
case. I also think it's important, though, that
the idea of accountability for what happened in
East Timor not be lost. Bishop Belo has recently
criticized the U-N, in fact, for being very late
in even getting people into East Timor to do the
kind of basic forensic investigations that are
necessary to have a credible investigation, which,
I think, frankly helps the new government
establish its credibility and inspire confidence
from the larger Indonesian population. But in
terms of what the U.S. should do, I certainly
think that giving the kind of economic support,
private investment, all of that, is crucially
necessary in the short term. In addition, I think
the administration does have a responsibility to
be sure that human rights and democratization
concerns generally don't get lost in the shuffle.
I think this is where the administration and
Congress are very much on the same wavelength.
Host: I want to just raise one last issue and
that is, Paul Wolfowitz, you mentioned many people
underestimated the strength of civil society in
Indonesia, which is carrying it through this
extraordinary transformation. On the other hand,
this nation of thirteen-thousand islands and two-
million people, now have being riven by separatist
tendencies, what constitutes the Indonesian
identity today? The state ideology or civic
religion of Suharto is gone. What's there today in
Indonesia?
Schwarz: I'm not sure it has gone. I mean, in one
sense, the state ideology has been discredited
because of the way it had been manipulated and
abused and used as a pretext for crushing dissent.
But if we go back before that, and the ideas that
are incorporated in that, which are basically the
core of Indonesian nationalism and what holds them
together and a sense of an appreciation of the
diversity and the pluralism of society and to a
desire to seek the views of these various groups
in making policy, this actually has survived. In
fact, it seems surprising in a way that, given how
this state ideology had been so manipulated and
abused, that it survived and that people still
hold to it and think it has some value for them.
Host: And is that a source of optimism, Paul
Wolfowitz?
Wolfowitz: I think it is. There is, I think,
still a very strong sense of common history,
which, I suppose, hopefully -- it may be too late
by now, but Aceh was, after all, one of the
leading parts of the country in initial revolt
against the Dutch and very proud of that role.
There is a common language, which is a remarkable
achievement. The Soviet Union never really
achieved that. And I think there is this genuine
respect for diversity, and in that respect
actually Wahid, as a Muslim leader who embraces
other religions and goes and prays in other
churches and in Hindu temples, I think symbolizes
what the country needs. Unfortunately, he's got to
deal first and foremost with this terrible,
terrible knotty problem of Aceh. It is very
unfortunate.
Jendrzejczyk: He also has the advantage of
having real credibility in the Chinese community
which, of course, is also important for restoring
investment and bringing funds back in. And I very
much agree that civil society, despite the ravages
of thirty years of the new order under former
President Suharto, has survived intact and, in
fact, is flourishing. I think this is one of the
most important elements for ongoing
democratization in Indonesia.
Host: I'm afraid that's all the time we have
this week. I'd like to thank our guests - Paul
Wolfowitz from the School of Advanced
International Studies at Johns Hopkins University;
Adam Schwarz, author of A Nation in Waiting:
Indonesia's Search for Stability; and Mike
Jendrzejczyk from Human Rights Watch Asia - for
joining me to discuss the future of Indonesia.
This is Robert Reilly for On the Line.
Anncr: You've been listening to "On the Line" - a
discussion of United States policies and
contemporary issues. This is --------.
18-Nov-1999 13:28 PM EDT (18-Nov-1999 1828 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
|
Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list
|
|
|
