Michael Vatikiotis: Washington's turnaround on Indonesia
FRIDAY, JANUARY 6, 2006
SINGAPORE
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's visit to Indonesia on Saturday is the
first sign that the Bush administration has come to its senses on policy
toward Southeast Asia. Not only does Rice's stop in Jakarta, on her way to
Australia, send the right signal to Indonesia's new government, it indicates
that her absence midway through last year at an important regional security
forum was an aberration.
Rice was almost too late. This time last year,
senior Indonesian officials were muttering sotto voce about not really
caring how the United States played its cards - Jakarta had other options.
At the same time, Indonesian defense officials went off to China and Russia
in search of arms.
Then, in a rare stroke of policy brilliance on the
part of the Bush administration, a five-year ban on military sales to
Indonesia was fully lifted in November. Despite lingering concerns in the
U.S. Congress about Indonesia's human rights record, the administration in
Washington correctly determined that allowing Indonesia's armed forces to
languish without U.S. aid was hardly a boon to fighting the war against
terror.
Now the state department is talking about a
"developing strategic partnership" with Indonesia. President George W. Bush
has gone out of his way to praise President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono for
"building democracy and fighting terror and strengthening the economy in
Indonesia." According to U.S. officials, Rice is going to Jakarta to praise
Yudhoyono and his government for consolidating democracy, combating terror,
making peace in Aceh and managing the reconstruction of the tsunami-hit
province. Few governments anywhere in the world can claim a record like this
in 14 months - fewer still gain attention from a distracted U.S.
administration.
Indonesia needs the United States to secure the
spare parts for cargo planes vital for disaster relief and the technology to
help tackle internal security threats from Islamic extremists. But the
United States also needs Indonesia.
Perhaps in a world where support for the U.S.-led
war on terrorism is shrinking, Indonesia, which has also been a target of
terrorist attacks, is considered a more useful ally. Deputy Assistant
Secretary of State Eric John said as much in a speech in Washington on Jan.
2.
"The fact that we have both been targeted by
extremist Islamic terrorists," John said, "has led us to increasingly
recognize Indonesia's strategic importance to the United States and the need
to work together to overcome difficult challenges."
One of those challenges is the notion that Islam and
democracy are compatible. "The Indonesian experience confirms that democracy
is not an exclusively Western value that may sometimes be transplanted to
the Orient - it is universal," Indonesia's foreign minister, Hassan
Wirajuda, said recently. The fact that Indonesia also happens to be the
world's largest Muslim country makes it an important standard-bearer for
Muslim respectability in a world that has come to regard Islam as a threat.
For Washington, a closer relationship with a
democratic and moderate Muslim nation is an important confirmation that the
war against terrorism has not turned into a crusade against Islam, which is
how many Muslims see it. The fact that Rice will address the Indonesian
Parliament, which includes elected representatives from Islamic parties with
conservative agendas, could serve as a useful precedent for dealing with
other conservative Islamic parties in places like the Palestinian
territories and Iran.
In a regional context, the developing relationship
with Indonesia helps repair a damaged U.S. profile in Southeast Asia. Rice
opted to skip the important security meeting of the Association of Southeast
Asian Nations in Laos last July, sending her deputy instead. Regional
leaders took this as a snub. Now Rice is making her first visit to Indonesia
and helping to overcome perceptions that she is delegating management of
ties with a collection of important allies.
In return, let's hope Washington helps to provide
Jakarta with the capacity to participate in world affairs. No democracy as
important as Indonesia can afford to allow capacity issues and domestic
concerns to stand in the way of a principled and active foreign policy.
At the same time, Indonesia needs to stand firm by
its principles. Wirajuda is proud of the way that Indonesia has handled its
own war against terrorism.
"Indonesia responded in the way a democracy should,"
he said, "balancing security needs, the democratic process and respect for
human rights. Our police authorities brought the perpetrators to justice
through patient investigation and without any violation of human rights. We
could not have done less than that, as it was demanded by our people."
With luck, he will say the same things to Rice when
she meets him in Jakarta.
(Michael Vatikiotis is a visiting
research fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore.)