JAKARTA - Is Papua about to become another
East Timor? Jakarta is rife with allegations that
Australia implicitly backs Papuan irredentist
ambitions, just as many Australians favored
independence for East Timor a decade ago. Many of
the Jakarta elite have never forgiven Canberra's
peacekeeping role in the province's breakaway from
Jakarta after the 1999 referendum.
The
waters around East Timor are rich in natural-gas
reserves, and since independence Jakarta has
wrangled with Canberra over drilling rights. So
the fact that Papua is one of Indonesia's and
perhaps the world's most resource-rich territories
fuels Indonesia's suspicions about Australia's
possible commercial ambitions for
the
territory. Add to that Australian anxieties over
Islamic terrorism from Indonesia and other
irritants, and one can see how bilateral ties have
reached a nadir.
Australia infuriated
Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono,
Jakarta's political elite and a large
cross-section of the population with its decision
late last month to grant political asylum to 42
Papuans who had floated on a small boat to
Australia's shores in January. They had claimed
they were fleeing state-sponsored genocide in
Indonesia's easternmost province.
Yudhoyono had in January telephoned
Australian Prime Minister John Howard soon after
the Papuans arrived to ask that they be sent home
and personally guaranteed their safety upon their
return. His attempt at hotline diplomacy failed to
persuade Howard - even though Canberra has in
recent years taken a hardline stance on
unauthorized arrivals from Indonesian asylum
seekers. "It's true the president rang the prime
minister to ask him not to give them these visas,
so there's a bit of a face issue here," said
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer.
Among
those granted visas were well-known
pro-independence activist Herman Wainggai, who in
the past spent time in an Indonesian jail on
treason charges. His uncle, Tom Wainggai, also a
leading independence activist, was sentenced to 20
years in prison after raising a Papuan flag in
1988. He died eight years later in a Jakarta
prison amid unsubstantiated claims that he was
poisoned and denied medical treatment. His case
has long been a rallying point for Papuan
separatists.
Jakarta is not buying
Canberra's argument that the decision to grant the
visas was a lower-level administrative decision
made independently by immigration authorities and
not a political decision made at the highest
level. They assume that such a diplomatically
touchy issue could only be made by the prime
minister himself. So it added insult to injury by
causing Yudhoyono to lose face. Partly for this
reason, he recently recalled Indonesia's
ambassador to Australia.
Cartoonists in
both countries vied to see who could reach a new
low. One published in Indonesia depicted
Australia's prime minister and foreign minister as
copulating dingoes lusting after Papua. An
Australian newspaper hit back with a cartoon
portraying Indonesia's president and a Papuan as
fornicating dogs. The episodes demonstrated just
how far the two countries' popular perceptions of
each other have deteriorated. And it appears the
two neighbors could be in for some diplomatic dog
days ahead.
Entrenched
suspicions Australia's sometimes
heavy-handed tactics against suspected Muslim
terror suspects have raised Indonesian criticism
of religious-based discrimination, while
Australians are acutely aware that they are in the
sights of certain Indonesian terror groups, which
in recent years have bombed tourist spots popular
with Australians as well as their embassy in
Jakarta. Howard's brash claim after September 11,
2001, that he reserved the right to strike
preemptively against terrorists who threatened
Australia's national security was seen as an
implicit threat to Indonesia.
Indonesians
view the decision to grant the Papuan
asylum-seekers visas as proof that Australia gives
credence to the still-unsubstantiated allegations
that Indonesian security forces are currently
committing serious human-rights abuses in Papua.
The much more widely substantiated atrocities
committed in East Timor turned Australian public
opinion strongly in favor of independence.
By comparison, Papua's independence
movement remains weak and lacks the compelling
historical narrative or the moral imperatives that
gave life to East Timor's successful drive in
1999. There is one similarity, however: Indonesia
currently bars foreign journalists and
human-rights groups from accessing the remote
territory, so independent verification of
conflicting claims is difficult.
Defense
Minister Juwono Sudarsono has conceded that there
were unfortunate incidents of Indonesian troops
raping and torturing the local population in the
past. But Yudhoyono, speaking last week in
Merauke, the spot from where the wanderers set
sail for Australia, has strongly denied
allegations that the 11,000 or so troops now
stationed in Papua are currently involved in
human-rights abuses.
Underscoring those
assertions, the Indonesian Foreign Ministry said
Australia's decision to grant the asylum seekers
visas justified speculation that there are
"elements in Australia supporting the separatist
OPM" (Organisasi Papua Merdeka, or Free Papua
Movement) - although without providing supporting
evidence to back the politically charged claim.
Amid the furor, Yudhoyono is now left with
few options except to take a tough line with
Australia. Chest-beating nationalists have
mobilized in full force around the incident and
have called for a complete break in diplomatic
ties with Australia. The same nationalistic
elements had recently protested against
resource-extracting foreign investors in the
country, a rallying cry Yudhoyono had strongly
opposed.
Canberra continues to struggle to
determine the precise gravity of the issue. Downer
said at first that it had "generated a certain
amount of heat and light amongst politicians in
Jakarta, and the wise thing for Australia to do
was to play this calmly and see what happens".
Later he described Australia's relationship with
Indonesia as a "crisis".
Howard prefers to
believe that much of what has been said in Jakarta
is intended for "domestic political consumption",
and he is careful to say nothing bad about
Yudhoyono. He recently described Indonesia's first
directly elected president as "one of the most
capable, moderate Islamic leaders in the world",
and "the best president Indonesia has ever had".
He has reiterated Australia's support for
Indonesia's territorial integrity - although
critics in Jakarta note that Canberra made similar
pronouncements related to East Timor just before
its controversial military intervention there in
1999.
The backlash threatens to take a
heavy economic toll on both countries. The
Association of Indonesian Importers has called on
its members to boycott Australian products and
asked all dock workers across the country to
refuse to unload goods from Australia-flagged
ships. Groups of Islamic students have begun
"sweeping" hotels in provincial towns looking for
Australian citizens, a campaign of intimidation
that will likely hit the tourism industry hard.
Both sides stand to lose from an
escalating conflict. Bilateral trade has continued
to expand and reached US$5.2 billion in 2005,
making Indonesia Australia's 13th-biggest trading
partner. Some 400 Australian enterprises have
operations in Indonesia's mining, construction,
banking, food-and-beverage, and transport sectors.
More than 18,000 Indonesians study in Australia,
and even after the terrorist bombings Bali remains
a prime tourist destination for Australians.
Not another East Timor One can
make too much of the East Timor analogy, of
course. East Timor's independence stemmed from
then president B J Habibe's cavalier approach to
the territory in the heat of a presidential
election campaign. "We don't want to be bothered
by East Timor's problems anymore," Habibie
famously said. "If someone asks me about East
Timor, my suggestion is, give them freedom. It is
just and fair."
Habibie's plan, of course,
met with fierce opposition, and the military was
furious that it had not been consulted. The
military deliberately undermined Habibie's policy
by channeling money and arms to pro-Indonesian
militias, which promised to wreak havoc if the
Timorese voted for independence. In the aftermath
of the referendum, militia violence swept across
the province, with the armed forces denying any
responsibility.
East Timor had long been
in the international spotlight, beginning with the
Indonesian invasion in 1975, shortly after
Portugal abandoned its empire, and the continued
official abuses committed thereafter. Papua, on
the other hand, became Indonesian territory in
1969 peacefully as part of a United
Nations-ratified referendum after the Dutch
withdrew. Pro-independence forces now say that the
pro-integration referendum was undemocratic and a
sham.
Jakarta has reacted viscerally to
any attempts to rewrite history. In a State of the
Nation address last year, Yudhoyono noted: "There
exist no manipulations of history that must be
revised. The world bore witness to every
negotiation on returning West Irian [as Papua was
known under the Dutch], under the conduct of the
Act of Free Choice. The United Nations has also
recognized the outcome and, up to the present,
never questioned it."
And Indonesia has
warned foreign allies to steer clear of the issue.
During a state visit to China last July, the
president warned the US not to interfere in his
country's domestic affairs, especially in relation
to Papua. On the same day the US State Department
issued a statement reaffirming support for the
territorial integrity of Indonesia and reiterating
that it does not support or condone any efforts to
promote the secession of Papua from Indonesia.
As the United States gears up to forge a
stronger strategic relationship with Indonesia as
a counterbalance to China's growing influence in
the region and for Jakarta's cooperation in the
"war on terror", US interference over Papua is
unlikely. However, this could change if Congress
takes up the Papuans' cause: A bill now before the
Senate would require the State Department to
report back on Papua and, significantly, also
review the 1969 Act of Free Choice.
This
year has seen heightened frustrations in Papua
over Jakarta's failure to implement autonomy laws
and anger at foreign companies exploiting the
region's resources. Jakarta insists that the 42
asylum seekers in Australia were nothing more than
economic migrants. Papua's new governor, Barnabas
Suebu, the first directly elected by Papuans, has
contradicted that account, saying they left in
response to their feelings of injustice. "The
Papuan people are still poor, despite their rich
natural resources," he said.
Similarly to
Aceh, independence will never be considered for
Papua, no matter how successfully its separatist
leaders internationalize their aspirations,
Indonesian officials assert. Yudhoyono, whose
efforts to end the 30-year conflict in Aceh won
him praise at home and abroad, last week conjured
up the spirit of unity in Merauke, telling
Papuans: "Let's respect the unitary state of the
Republic of Indonesia. We fight for it, we defend
it, we nurture it in our nationalist spirit."
For now, that nationalist call has more
resonance in Jakarta than in Papua.
Bill Guerin, a Jakarta
correspondent for Asia Times Online since 2000,
has been in Indonesia for 20 years, mostly in
journalism and editorial positions. He has been
published by the BBC on East Timor and specializes
in business/economic and political analysis
related to Indonesia.
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