NEITHER TREATY NOR PACT, JUST TROUBLING FACTS
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| Deal makers - or just chatting ? Marles and Prabowo in his ego nest |
ABC foreign affairs reporter Stephen Dziedzic’s ’exclusive’ claim that "Australia and Indonesia are on the brink of sealing an upgraded defence pact" hasn’t been refuted by Defence so is probably right.
This is a distressing idea practically and morally for a nation that claims to respect the rules of warfare and human rights. That’s us.
The first stumble is the dates: August in Indonesia rivals late December in Australia when key people leave their phones wrapped with the beach towels.
Across the archipelago it's not just preparations for the Proklamasi national day on the 17th that's preoccupying all from kerb-painters to strutting generals.
The following week will also see back-to-back Karnival celebrating the shedding of colonial rule 79 years ago - though the Dutch hung on for another four years of fighting.
Unless he’s a fan of fireworks and flags it’s not the best time for Defence Minister Richard Marles to be in Jakarta expecting full attention to what he wants.
Arguing that the signing is too important to miss just because it's one nation's birthday wouldn’t resonate with the incoming right-wing ministry suspicious of its pro-Washington southern neighbour.
Jakarta is also hard set against defence deals with any country - a strategy poured in policy concrete mid-last century.
The language needs to be handled with care. Australian bureaucrats toss around cliches like "milestone" deal, and "streamlined cooperation".
However, the ABC report claims that whatever gets agreed won't be "a formal military alliance or a mutual defence treaty of any kind and neither country is expected to offer security guarantees to the other."
So what's the point? The intent is to get in first and disarm disquiet. Although Northern Australia is loaded with US weapons and bristling with marines we're really harmless peace-lovers. Our missiles will head over - not into - the Republic.
The other aim is to soothe incoming President Prabowo Subianto’s fears of foreign interference in the West Papua conflict. He needs to know that we don't care a damn what his soldiers are doing next door, whatever awful things a few loose peaceniks are saying on social media.
A side benefit is the polite rubbishing of Prabowo's crazy claims (based on the US sci-fi novel Ghost Fleet) that Australia (population 25 million) plans to seize the mineral riches of the Republic (population 275 million) by 2030.
In that time we couldn’t even launch a nuclear-powered submarine.
Apart from August being a lousy month to talk business, the idea of a "defence pact" between equals is ridiculous when one side is secretly crushing dissidents - and the other is a democracy where counter-views and peaceful activism are still tolerated.
There have been five agreements signed between the neighbours since 1995. One was ripped apart in 1999 by Jakarta when Australia backed the East Timor referendum with citizens voting 8-2 to escape Indonesian control.
The other deals passed quietly - except for the misnamed ‘Lombok Treaty’, negotiated on the island next to Bali.
The ABC report says the update is being touted by the Australian government "as the most strategically significant bilateral agreement" since the original was signed in 2006 by the then Foreign Minister Alexander Downer.
Properly known as the Agreement (not treaty) Between Australia and the Republic of Indonesia on the Framework for Security Cooperation it’s worth dissecting Article 2.
This bans support, participation or encouragement in activities “including separatism”.
There's no mention of West Papua but this is what the words are all about - undermining our claim to be an independent fearless nation speaking out on human rights abuses.
The fitter guy is the civilian Ozzie
Instead, it's allowing a plaster to be slapped on our values so there’s no official damning of the atrocities allegedly going on next door.
It’s left to NGOs like the Adelaide-based Australia West Papua Association and progressive Western churches to shout alarms for our conscience failures.
Defence wants to ensure the new pro-military administration led by General Prabowo (cashiered in 1998 but his title reinstated this year) gets a clear message: A few Okker activists sympathetic to the guerrillas’ cause don't speak for the government.
According to four Australian academic researchers including a former AFP investigator, “hundreds of thousands” have died since 1965 when Indonesia took over the territory
This month West Papua independence-fighters allegedly killed Kiwi chopper pilot Glen Conning; he was flying for an Indonesian company ferrying local health workers into a remote region. The six passengers were reportedly unharmed.
Another NZ pilot Phillip Mehrtens was seized early last year by the West Papua National Liberation Army. He's reportedly alive and being held hostage. The group denies murdering Conning and has hinted at military involvement.
We hardly have a gnat's idea of what's happening in the jungles as Western journalists are banned. Rarely verifiable reports from church and community leaders tell of torture and atrocities allegedly committed by ill-disciplined Indonesian forces in the four largely Christian provinces of Papua.
Marles wants to assure Jakarta that whatever its feral gunmen do we'll hear nothing and look elsewhere, a position also embraced by the Opposition.
Earlier this year Marles embellished his tough-guy credentials in a Jakarta media conference: At the joint event, Prabowo said straight after the Australian's opening comments: "I don't think there's any need for questions."
Not all journos were intimidated, giving Marles the chance to roll up his sleeves:
“There’s no support for any independence movements … we support the territorial sovereignty of Indonesia and that includes those provinces being part of Indonesia, no ifs, no buts, and I want to be clear about that.”
So no succour from Down Under. Indonesia is too frighteningly large to upset.
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First published in Pearls & Irritations, 13 August 2024: https://johnmenadue.com/neither-treaty-nor-pact-just-troubling-facts/
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