FAITH IN INDONESIA

FAITH IN INDONESIA
The shape of the world a generation from now will be influenced far more by how we communicate the values of our society to others than by military or diplomatic superiority. William Fulbright, 1964
Showing posts with label Richard Marles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Richard Marles. Show all posts

Thursday, August 22, 2024

SORRY IF OUR NEEDS OFFEND

 ALLOW US TO INGRATIATE 

All is forgiven - who cares about the past?  Jokowi reinstates Prabowo


There’s a seething and brutal guerrilla war underway in the Indonesian provinces closest to Australia. Thousands have been killed but little is known because foreign journalists and UN inspectors are banned.

At first it was arrows against AK-47s, but the independence-seeking rebels are now better armed and more lethal.

 A just-concluded security deal with Jakarta gives Canberra a chance to offer mediation,  let observers in  and help secure the human rights we uphold in other  conflicts.

Though not this one. Instead we get closer to an antagonist, ignore the abuses and agree to be gagged under the Agreement Between Australia and the Republic of Indonesia on the Framework for Security Cooperation.

 The deal was ticked while Indonesian Defence Minister and President-elect Prabowo Subianto was briefly Down Under.  Defence Minister Richard Marles is reportedly heading to Jakarta soon for the big final inking.

Australians keen to understand what international handshakes are happening  in their name might want to know who we’re dealing with and scrutinise the language.

An ‘agreement’ may be a synonym for a ‘pact’, ‘alliance’ or ‘arrangement’ in casual talk, but it’s not a formal ‘treaty’, whatever Anthony Albanese suggested in a joint media statement on Tuesday.  (20 Aug).

Treaties around the world are big time, the most notable being the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, a military alliance of 32 states founded in 1949. Members agree to defend each other against attacks by third parties. 

The ANZUS Treaty with the US has been our supposed defence bedrock since 1952.

Staged bonhomie is essential in diplomacy - and collaboration better than confrontation. Unfortunately in our dealings with Indonesia straight talk is the casualty.

The PM's office calling Prabowo 'HE General (rtd)' may be polite but untrue. The career soldier was cashiered in 1998 for disobeying orders, then fled into exile in Jordan for seven years.  

Men under his control were allegedly involved in the disappearance of activist students.  Their families have staged Aksi Kamisan (Thursday action) demonstrations outside the Presidential palace in Jakarta every week since 2007 wanting to know what happened to their sons.

Prabowo's record as a commander in East Timor last century is allegedly grim.



Australian researcher Pat Walsh, who was involved in the new nation's Reconciliation Commission (CAVR) has called Prabowo  ”a person with demonstrated disregard for the rule of law, of both the domestic and international kind, and regarded by many as a war criminal.”

Prabowo denies wrongdoing and has never been charged in court. He becomes president in October having decisively won (58 per cent) of the February election.

Understandably, Australian ministers dealing with the world's fourth-largest nation with a population eleven times bigger prefer to dodge historical facts and sell out upholders of human rights.

Before the Tuesday announcement Daniela Gavshon, the local director at Human Rights Watch wrote that Australian government leaders should “raise concerns about the deteriorating human rights situation in the Indonesian provinces of West Papua”.  

She alleged “ongoing abuses against indigenous Papuans include killings, enforced disappearances, torture, and mass displacement of people.”

According to four Australian academics including a former AFP investigator, "hundreds of thousands" have died since 1965 when Indonesia took over the territory.

There's no indication HR issues have ever been discussed during the negotiations.  Though the final text hasn't been released The Australian gave the show a page one paean, imagined multiple benefits, hinted China was a  common threat and  praised all participants.  

Prabowo would be delighted getting homeland-style  treatment in  a nation with a media reputation for tough reporting.

It's understood one article in the agreement bans Australian support, participation or encouragement in activities "including separatism".

There's no mention of West Papua but this is what the words are about - effectively gagging any Australian government from voicing distress and lobbying for resolution.

Far from being outraged Minister Marles has embraced the ban.  In February in Jakarta, he said:

 “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.”

This week’s announcement dubbed by the ABC as an  "upgraded defence agreement",  hardly seems worth bedecking the halls. Yet the PM called it  "the deepest, the most significant agreement that our two countries have ever made."

 Marles likes the adverb ‘profoundly’ using it twice to describe the dealings.

The Australians' glee was not reflected in Prabowo's comments or demeanour. The best he could manage  was to call the deal a “good neighbour relationship.”

Instead, he spoke about the Olympics and illegal drugs,  notably  hosing down his host's ardour and extinguishing any hints of policy change:

"As you know we are, by tradition, non-aligned. By tradition, our people do not want us to be involved in any geopolitical or military alliances or groupings. I myself am determined to continue this policy."

While Albanese and Marles used ‘security’ to spruik the agreement as a defence deal, Prabowo only spoke of  ‘food security’.  No ’treaty’ on his lips, only Albanese’s:

“This historic treaty will bolster our strong defence cooperation by deepening dialogue, strengthening interoperability and enhancing practical arrangements.”

Using the term suggests that the local deal comes  within Coo-ee of NATO or ANZUS.  That’s ridiculous.  There's no suggestion we'll dash into the archipelago to help should anyone invade, or the other way around.

So what’s going to happen?   The PM again: “It will be a vital plank for our two countries to support each other's security, which is vital to both countries, but also to the stability of the region that we share.”

The best interpretation is that the Australian military will continue joint exercises with its Indonesian counterpart (the TNI) currently busy in West Papua.

 Indonesian HRW researcher Andreas Harsono told Michael West Media that any bilateral agreement  should include  defending the rights of all people:

 “I guess Indonesian officers will not be happy if Australian soldiers, involved in atrocities in Afghanistan are to take part in a military training program in Jakarta.

“Vice versa. Australian officers might not feel comfortable to train with abusive Indonesian soldiers who tortured indigenous Papuans.”

It hasn’t all been one-sided: This month guerrillas 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 rebel group denies murdering Conning and has hinted at military involvement.

The PM said the agreement will see us working together in the global commons to support the rules-based order and, importantly, it will allow us to operate from each other's countries."

Though not West Papua.

First published in Michael West Media, 22 August 2024: https://michaelwest.com.au/when-is-a-treaty-not-a-treaty-the-marles-and-prabowo-canberra-love-in/

 

##

 

 

 

 

 

Tuesday, August 13, 2024

TREATY, YES? TREATY NO!

NEITHER TREATY NOR PACT, JUST TROUBLING FACTS

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.

##

 First published in Pearls & Irritations, 13 August 2024:  https://johnmenadue.com/neither-treaty-nor-pact-just-troubling-facts/

Saturday, March 02, 2024

HAVE WE GOT GOODIES FOR YOU

WE’RE HERE TO HELP -  TRUST US


Photo:  DeTik.com

Defence Minister Richard Marles telling Indonesians of “shared collective security” is irony rich. In February neither nation saw basic fishing craft sail 800 km here, drop passengers and head home.

Indonesians worry about their confrontational neighbour Down Under.  It points missiles in our direction and invites foreign nuclear-capable bombers to use nearby airfields.  The Aussies are also shopping for warships and submarines to sail in seas that lap our  shores. Alarming?

Relax folks.  These weapons are meant to smash someone else far away;  they'll just fly overhead and sail past.  She’ll be apples.

This was the comforting message carried last week by Marles in his two-day dash to Jakarta to meet counterpart Prabowo Subianto and offer congrats.  He’d just had a major but delayed promotion to President of the Republic.

The official results of the 14 February election won’t be available for another three weeks.  The two losing candidates’ teams have combined, alleging “fraud, meddling and favouritism" and demanding an inquiry.  

These  issues didn’t bother Marles or another in-and-out visitor to Jakarta, Defence Force Chief General Angus Campbell, also scrambling to shake Prabowo's hand.




This led  to a flurry of mainstream media stories on a detail-free but adjective-heavy "very significant defence cooperation agreement within the next few months.”

Most Indonesians paid little attention; as in Oz, domestic issues top their concerns. The price of rice has risen 20 per cent in the past few months.  

Biggest fleet coming

Marles reportedly told Prabowo his government plans to build the largest naval fleet since World War II for "mutual security … the single deepest and most significant defence cooperation agreement in the history of the two countries.

"Australia and Indonesia have a shared destiny and a shared collective security and that is the basis on which we are moving forward with our own defence planning."

The bureaucratic hype sounds bracing but the words are bullshit. The “collective security” was exposed when an Indonesian fishing boat or boats carrying 39 mainly Pakistani asylum seekers crossed an open sea, beached their human cargo, and then zipped  away undetected

Either the fishers are extraordinary skilled seafarers, or shared surveillance is a nonsense. As a footnote to his talks Marles added the ministers are “discussing the issues of people smuggling and people trafficking.”

Then there’s the issue of acceptance. Prabowo won’t take over till October when he’ll have to fill a Cabinet of disparate Ministers.  Not all will like their neighbour or its prezzies.

Thanks, but no thanks

 As ANU Professor Hugh White has pointed out, Indonesian “economic growth is driving it towards a position of political and economic influence that it seems both uninterested in and incapable of exploiting.”

In other words, Jakarta hasn't been keen on being courted by the US (via postmen from Canberra) or China, but falls back on old cliches about treating all equally, staying midstream and not joining pacts.

Australian defence funding for this financial year is AUD $50 million (US$33 billion). Indonesia, eleven times larger than Australia in population, wants to spend US$25 billion.  

Despite the archipelago’s intense religious-based hostility to the godless Communists, the government has no desire to confront Beijing.  The PRC is buying megatonnes of Indonesian resources - particularly coal and nickel - and lending billions for infrastructure projects like high-speed rail.

Indonesia has already been caught  in a ‘debt trap’ say some economists, owing more than US$27 billion according to reported Bank Indonesia data.

China has 55 people to every Australian and an economy that could devour Oz and its neighbours without belching.  It already has a nuclear-armed inter-continental ballistic missile that could reach and vaporise Canberra.

Curiously the idea that buying lots of ordnance from Western countries and signing pacts might help Australia in a stoush with a monster has merit for some, like Marles and Campbell.

Though they argue they're concerned with defence and not aggression, it's hard not to see otherwise.

The arms trade is far more important than the educators, civil engineers, climate scientists, inventors of better ways to provide peace, medical workers who want to find cures for nasty diseases - and just about everyone else who’d like to be close to Indonesia and help the people.

In a statement ahead of his trip Marles said  the two countries have a long history of close cooperation on maritime security and would "share an ambition to further broaden and deepen our defence relationship.

 “This is a shared challenge for both of our countries and we need to be working cooperatively. 

Villainy nearby

To placate edgy nationalists he signaled to journalists that “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.”

If "we" means himself and a few senior conscience-cauterised Cabinet members he may be right. Otherwise, he's wrong. Politicians, NGOs and churches distressed at reports of brutality, evictions and killings are backing the Free Papua movement, well-embedded in Australia.  

Indonesian human rights activist and lawyer Veronica Koman lives in Oz though she's wanted in her homeland for alleged incitement and spreading of fake news online about West Papua.

Jakarta took over West Papua from the Dutch after a staged referendum in 1969 when the hand-picked local ‘leaders’ voted unanimously to accept Indonesian control.

Since then the issue of independence has bubbled along more like a hot spring than the cool pool of Marles’ rhetoric, at times erupting into heated confrontations. In 2006 then PM John Howard turned up the heat by giving 43 asylum seekers from West Papua refugee status.

Seven years later the Australian Signals Directorate clumsily bugged the private phones of Australophile President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his late wife Ani. The couple and their country were furious.

In 2017, Indonesia parked military cooperation following an alleged mocking of  the national ideology of Pancasila by an Australian language teacher.

Last year a US-dominated multi-nation defence exercise dubbed Super Garuda Shield was held, prompting this comment from China:

“The US needs to earnestly respect regional countries’ effort to uphold peace and stability … stop meddling in South China Sea issues, stop sowing discords and creating trouble.”

The real challenge is bringing the people on both sides of the Arafura Sea closer and less distrustful.  Not so easy when the tip of a Tomahawk missile looms just over the horizon.

## 

First published in Michael West Media 2 March 2024: https://michaelwest.com.au/richard-marles-indonesia-australia-relations/

Thursday, March 09, 2023

ASEAN, ANZUS, B52s AND OTHER OBSTACLES


Warm fuzzies, blizzards of bland but no treaty           










Marles, Prabowo, Wong, Retno




Are Australia and Indonesia heading towards a security agreement / treaty much like the one recently signed with Japan? Not until Indonesia abandons a policy as sacred to the Republic as recognising Anzac is to us.

Statements following the Eighth Australia-Indonesia Foreign and Defence Ministers’ 2+2 Meeting earlier this month have spurred speculation that more goodies are to come..

But like supermarket signs when cleaners are at work, consumers should take care, pause awhile and move slowly before filling the shopping cart.

The two-day meeting between Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto and his counterpart Richard Marles plus the two FMs, Retno Marsudi and Penny Wong generated a swag of cliched statements with only one carrying clout.

This ‘confirmed our intent to elevate the 2021 Defence Cooperation Agreement (DCA) to an agreement thats binding under international law.

In reality they won’t get far.The Jakarta Post editorialised: As the Indonesian political world is setting its sights on the Feb. 14, 2024, elections, it is unlikely that the House of Representatives will review, let alone ratify, any incoming bilateral cooperation pact.

The Australian applauded a ‘crucial new defence treaty’ after the talks with Indonesia.The term morphed into an ‘arrangement’ and then a ‘defence pact’, but a ‘treaty’ has to be  ‘binding under international law’ . That hasn’t happened and won’t if Indonesia stays on the foreign policy track its trodden since 1948.

In reality the pledges cover basics, like ‘reciprocal access to training ranges and streamlined entry and exit processes .. working together on military medicine, military technology (and) defence industry.’

Don Rothwell, Professor of International Law at ANU, predicts many challenges  negotiating of the proposed new agreement. I suspect it will be a very dynamic process.

 

He told this column the Japan agreement could be a precedent for an equivalent agreement with Indonesia  … and (that’s) what Australia may have in mind.’

 

Indonesia would not share that thinking.  Its mendayung antara dua karang (rowing between two reefs) policy means it doesnt side with world powers …(which) ‘would be incompatible with the country’s national philosophy.’

 

Rothwell foresees a lengthy process and multiple difficulties: ‘One  sticking point – as it was in the Australia / Japan RAA  - is whether ADF personnel and associated civilian components visiting Indonesia would be subject to the death penalty if convicted of certain crimes.’

Also significant is what apparently wasn’t discussed.  In this case the whales in the pond are US plans to rotate up to six nuclear-capable B-52 bombers through the Tindal air base south of Darwin.  The ‘squadron operations facility’ proposal was revealed by the ABC Four Corners programme last October.

The Global Times run by the Chinese Communist Party quoted Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Zhao Lijian saying ‘the US move has escalated regional tensions, seriously sabotaged regional peace and stability, and could trigger a regional arms race.’

This is not to suggest collusion because Indonesia hates Reds and fear’s China’s expansion, but these concerns were also expressed by Jakarta when the AUKUS deal was announced in 2021. The plan is for eight nuclear-powered submarines.

Since then we’ve learned through a Senate estimates hearing  that the B-52s may fly nuclear weapons. However both sides fell back on the old ‘warhead-ambiguity’ formula, neither confirming nor denying that they carry 32-tonnes of megadeath. This appears to satisfy Canberra though Jakarta will not be so appeased.

Back in her homeland FM Marsudi was reported as saying she wanted ‘transparency and the commitment [to stop] nuclear proliferation.’  But, and most curiously, she was referring to the AUKUS sub deal which won’t see craft slip underwater for a decade, not the Stratofortresses soaring overhead now.  

There are 35 US bases in Australia according to an anti-base organisation which includes seismic and weather stations. The government says these are not foreign bases but facilities. Whatever the language and partisan the source, Uncle Sam has no problem taking a kip in Oz, but would stay sleepless in Indonesia.

Then there are the marines on rotation in the Top End, a deal struck by Labor in 2011.The latest known figure is 2,500 soldiers.

 Imagine the terror across our wide brown land if Chinese H-20 stealth bombers (range 8,500 km) were in Flores, distance to Canberra and back 8,200 km.  

Indonesia’s ‘no-sides’ policy negates that scenario even though China is already well embedded in the archipelago. It’s Indonesia’s biggest trade partner - import and export - the third largest investor (after Singapore and HK) and a ‘Belt and Road’ partner.

Also seemingly off the ministers’ table were people smugglers.  Australia has upped sea patrols  following visa changes.  It would deepen the much ballyhooed cooperation if Indonesia’s navy helped prevent illegal departures.

There are around 14,000 asylum seekers stranded in Indonesia.  Your correspondent has interviewed skilled English-speaking professionals from Afghanistan and Iran stranded in East Java.  They’re wasting in a legal limbo - some for a decade - as Indonesia hasn’t signed the 1951 UN Refugee Convention.

Even if people smugglers came knocking the families are broke.  They’ll eventually have to be relocated which could relieve Indonesia and benefit Australia.

Indonesia lacks the access Australia has to large overseas groupings, like the Anglosphere, the Quad and the Commonwealth. As a Muslim-majority nation it’s a member of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation along with 56 other states, though this is more concerned with devotion than defence.

Indonesia is the key member of ASEAN and Australia says it wants to work with the bloc. But the 55-year old organisation is seen as slow, ineffective and incapable of dealing with recent developments’ according to a Singapore study with its members at ‘risk of becoming proxies’ to the major powers.’

That’s a primeval fear across Indonesia. There’ll be more platitudes, a tinkering at the edges of policy and happy-snaps though no join-us treaty.  But at least everyone’s talking, and will have personal numbers on speed dial when things go bad.


 First published in Michael West Media, 26 February 2023: https://michaelwest.com.au/akus-and-b52s-in-way-of-treaty-with-indonesia/