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Malaysia, Indonesia stir the
friendship pot
By Ioannis
Gatsiounis
KUALA LUMPUR - The last news to
come from Malaysia and Indonesia was that the two
countries were working hard diplomatically to
resolve a border row in the Sulawesi Sea in which
both sides sent warships to the contested area to
stake their claims. There's good reason to believe
they'll find a way. Both nations are economically
dependent on each other - Malaysia on Indonesia
largely for migrant labor, Indonesia on Malaysia
for capital investment - and waging war over two
putatively oil-rich islands isn't thought to be in
the long-term interest of either country.
Conversely, this outlook neglects to
consider the resentment and mistrust that have
quietly been building between the two nations in
recent years, especially among the citizenry, and
the danger that could arise should both
governments ignore public sentiment in their
attempts to defuse the matter.
Many
observers point to the Malaysian government's
recent decision to send packing an estimated
million-plus illegal Indonesian migrant workers as
a catalyst to noisy public protests in Indonesia
over the territorial dispute, which saw
flag-burning and calls to "crush Malaysia".
But some Indonesians were responding to
much more: what they feel is a persistently
callous and disrespectful attitude of economically
stable Malaysia toward its "big brother"
Indonesia. Indonesians haven't forgotten the last
go-round, in 2002, when then-Malaysian leader
Mahathir Mohamad sent back 400,000 Indonesian
workers (many to the country's poorest and most
volatile regions), and threatened to jail and cane
those who stayed behind. Hundreds died during the
journey. More recently, the Malaysian government
has refused to accept refugees from the war-torn
Indonesian province of Aceh. Meanwhile, in
race-sensitive Malaysia there is a widely held
belief that Indonesian migrant workers pose a
criminal threat, which the state-controlled media
have routinely played up to divert attention from
government abuse and mismanagement surrounding
other domestic issues.
"All this talk that
Malaysians and Indonesians share a common identity
[linguistically, racially, religiously] doesn't
add up to that much," said K S Nathan of the
Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore.
In Malaysia, the public has been known to
acquiesce to the government's draconian
legislation and press machine in the name of
"national interest"; thus the government here
looks to have more leeway in how it deals with the
border row. Indonesians, on the other hand, have a
long tradition of standing up for causes. For
instance, they fought for their independence from
the Dutch (whereas the British handed Malaysians
theirs). And recent history shows that Indonesian
dissidents can be a thorn in the side of the
ruling elite. Public outcry helped end despot
Suharto's 32-year rule in 1998, pressured
Abdurrahman Wahid to step down from the post in
2001, and caused the Indonesian government to
think twice about aggressively prosecuting
convicted Islamic terrorist Abu Bakar Ba'asyir for
fear of retaliation.
"The young in
Indonesia know what they can achieve," said
Nathan. And in the time since September 11, 2001,
more and more dissidents have found convenient,
efficient and potent means of bypassing their
governments to get their message across. The
border dispute, for instance, has seen Malaysian
and Indonesian hackers damage some 80 websites in
the two countries.
This invariably raises
the question: To what extent are nationalists
willing to go? Might they employ terrorist means
to weigh in on the border row?
Morten
Hansen, a military and security analyst with the
Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies (IDSS)
at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore,
considers the possibility "highly unlikely,
because this crisis is simply territorial and very
traditional in essence". But, he warned, "regional
conflicts can resurface if these are not addressed
through confidence-building measures and bilateral
and multilateral cooperation."
Confidence-building is lacking between
Indonesia and Malaysia, despite attempts by
leaders to play down the border dispute. Indonesia
plans to build 25 lighthouses on remote islands
bordering neighboring Malaysia, Singapore and the
Philippines in an effort to assert its control
over outlying islands, while the Malaysian navy
recently confirmed that it had dropped elite
troops from an aircraft into the Sulawesi Sea.
In Indonesia suspicion is particularly
high and far-reaching.
"There is a genuine
belief on the part of key elements in the army,
some politicians in Jakarta, and a substantial
part of the Indonesian public that Indonesia's
territorial integrity is in danger, from
separatists within and from foreign parties
without," Sidney Jones of the International Crisis
Group noted in a speech in 2003.
Malaysian
and Indonesian leaders began negotiations on
Tuesday in Jakarta to settle the maritime dispute,
but few predict quick results. "There will be many
more meetings until both parties are able to agree
[to a solution] through diplomatic means,"
Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar was
quoted as saying.
Finding a diplomatic
solution would be in keeping with the Association
of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) way. But what
might make it tricky in this instance, said Ralf
Emmers of IDSS, "is public pressure on both sides
not to make any concessions to national
sovereignty". As well, Emmers said, ASEAN
diplomacy has usually entailed managing rather
than resolving disputes.
Management isn't
necessarily easy when oil is involved,
particularly at a time when global competition for
oil is ever more fierce and Indonesians have been
protesting almost daily over a government-imposed
fuel-price hike. Management also becomes less
certain considering that both countries are under
new leadership.
In the past, relations
between Malaysia and Indonesia were aided by the
rapport between strongmen Suharto and Mahathir.
And while newly elected Indonesian President
Susilo Bamabang Yudhoyono and Malaysian Premier
Abdullah Badawi don't have the iron-fisted
reputations of their predecessors, their
relationship is a work in progress. Moreover,
their assumed positive attributes haven't always
worked in their favor, as most had predicted. The
soft-spoken Abdullah for one was tagged as "gentle
but tough" when he took over from Mahathir in late
2003, and it was widely thought that this would
help Malaysia patch up relations with neighboring
countries, which Mahathir had left undone. But
dealings with at least two of Malaysia's
neighbors, Thailand and Indonesia, have arguably
gotten worse under Abdullah's leadership. In
recent months, Thai Prime Minister Thaksin
Shinawatra has vociferously charged the Abdullah
administration with negligence in pursuing in
northern Malaysia Islamic terrorist elements that
Thaksin said were fueling unrest in Thailand's
restive south. Now comes the border row with
Indonesia. Could it be that Abdullah's soft style
is indirectly encouraging Malaysia's neighbors to
test his mettle and see what they can get away
with?
Abdullah does seem to possess a
spirit of compromise, and that can't hurt at the
bargaining table. Nor will Yudhoyono's calls for
"self-restraint". But neither gesture will
necessarily help these countries, unless both
sides address their entrenched wariness of each
other and discuss how that wariness will dictate
official policy, from the ground up.
Ioannis Gatsiounis, a New York
native, has worked as a freelance foreign
correspondent and previously co-hosted a weekly
political/cultural radio call-in show in the US.
He has been living in Malaysia since late 2002.
(Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online Ltd.
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