AN AUSTRALIAN LOVE STORY

BTW: A North-South romance for our times

This column touches issues deep and personal – an account of our courtship which one day might lead to marriage.  Have tissues handy.

We met by chance when I was attracted by the size of her lovely resources. Of course as next door neighbors it was inevitable we’d bump into each other, which we did in East Timor back in ‘99.  It wasn’t love at first sight because the differences at that time seemed greater than the similarities.

For example, we had conflicting religious beliefs, histories, knowledge of the world and the way we see democracy. Our tastes are also strikingly unalike.  Dewi Sri is a rice and chicken woman; I’m a wheat and sheep man.  She’s chilli hot – I’m cold beer.

Despite these problems the relationship warmed along with our language.  I said: “Let’s strengthen ties.” She expressed hopes for closer cooperation.

She claimed that improved support would be mutually beneficial.  I added that the bonds of shared interests could overcome any perceived difficulties.

We agreed that there’d be highs and lows but the future retained significant possibilities.

“Our prosperity will be built on a successful and enduring partnership,” she said. I said: “Working together will provide opportunities to gain greater access to value chains for our needs, particularly if we stay in the ASEAN region.”

Clichés sweeter than wine.  Words so bland the heart beat faster. We were getting closer.

We swapped gifts – meaning I gave and she received.  Although I’m not well off by Chinese standards she said she had even less, though her friends’ Mercedes and their Menteng mansions suggested otherwise.  Some things have to be overlooked for love to prosper.

Her extended family needed help.  We called this an ‘aid package’.  It became our little joke.

Suddenly all went wrong.  Mistranslations, once laughed aside, became serious obstacles.  For example, what she called ‘eliminating drug traffickers’ I labelled ‘judicial murder’.

Her family got nasty saying I had territorial and proselytistic ambitions, and only wanted to get my hands on her assets.  She sent me some overseas visitors by boat. I turned them back. “Keep out of my sovereign space,” she snapped.

“How can such two vastly mismatched people get on, let alone become intimate?” asked my Great Aunt Britannia and Uncle Sam.  “You have so little in common.

“If you must go overseas for a partner pick someone like yourself from Europe or North America.  Better the devil you know.”

But we’re determined to make our bond work, though to be blunt it seems I want it more than she does.  Still, lovers can be fickle and no doubt she’ll come round given time.

We’ve put together a pre-nup.  It’s called Succeeding Together. We are so happy about this that we want to share the joy.  Please download free from http://australiaindonesiacentre.org/

It runs to 102 pages and includes a few pretty pictures.  There are a couple of symbolic bridges to cross and some big trucks; these mean there’ll be heavy loads to carry come the wedding. 

You can see me on page 69 astride a horse, contemplating cows. A man alone in the Ochre Outback, at peace with nature and himself.  That’s the sort of stoic I am.

My beloved is a religious, emotional urban lady. She always wants to be with others, so the page 70 picture has her with lots of friends.  Please tick LIKE. She needs admirers.

To tell the truth much of the document is the work of my banking mates Down Under, though I know my sweet would have wanted to contribute if only we could have paid her more. 

Some say this indicates a lop-sided view of the relationship which doesn’t bode well for a contented marriage – but we know that love conquers all.

Smiling Malcolm Turnbull and jolly Joko’s walkabout has helped.  Likewise the 360 business cheerleaders we invited to Yogya and Jakarta last month.  They’re all expecting an engagement announcement anytime soon.

Don’t worry about all the charts and boring statistics.  Just accept that these mean we’ll get lots of money if everything works out as planned. 

Maybe some will trickle down to you.  Who knows?  Wish us well.  Duncan Graham

##

(First published in The Jakarta Post 13 December 2015)

LEARN INDONESIAN - WHY BOTHER?

So near, so far

The figures on Australians learning Indonesian offer a sad commentary on neighborly respect.
Eight years ago 28 universities were teaching Indonesian. Now there’s only 15. About 99 per cent of children who start learning the language of the people next door quit before they finish school.
One woman is determined to reverse the trend.
Duncan Graham reports from Perth:

It started simply, just a social tennis club outing. Australian Karen Bailey wasn’t keen when her team mates suggested an end-of-season trip to Bali. The primary school teacher thought there were better ways to spend a vacation. She was 28, married with two children, settled in the job she’d wanted since she was five.

The year was 1987 and Bali was already overcrowded with hedonistic young Westerners.
“Everyone went there, so I didn’t want to,” she recalled. “I knew Bali was part of Indonesia but that was all.” However her friends jollied her along.

“After three days of culture shock I noticed one team member carried a little phrase book,” Ms Bailey recalled. “I saw how well he was interacting, and how people warmed to him.
“I thought about this back in Perth and later made a decision: I resolved I would learn Indonesian and I would teach the language. It was a gradual process but I got there.”

In fact much further. Twenty-five years on she’s the Asian Languages Consultant in the West Australian Department of Education and Training, and can even decode sinetron
(TV soap operas using Jakarta slang) though she finds the plots tiresome.

Mrs Bailey has just returned from Denpasar where she supervised a group of Australian teachers building their skills and knowledge. But it’s her voluntary work as founder and project
manager for Balai Bahasa Indonesia Perth that’s helping turn around the declining
interest in Indonesian.

It wasn’t always so.

The golden years were the 1990s. Japanese had been the Asian tongue of choice as Australians sought to interact with their important trading partner. But as Japan’s economic power waned,
so did interest in the language.

Indonesia, about to shake off the shackles of an authoritarian regime, was on the move.
It was time to reposition. Mrs Bailey became the president of the Westralian
Indonesian Language Teachers’ Association in 1994 when the organization had 30
members. Ten years later it had 184. The surge seemed unstoppable.

Sadly, no. The 1999 East Timor Referendum changed
the situation dramatically. Indonesians saw their southern neighbor interfering in the Republic’s internal affairs and assaulting the near-sacred Unitary State.

On the south shore of the Arafura Sea Australians reacted with horror at the brutality of military-backed militias refusing to accept the will of the majority and taking revenge on separatists.

Next was the 2002 Bali bomb, killing 202 people, including 88 Australians. The Indonesian
love affair was over. Who’d want to learn the language of bad losers and abusers of human rights? Never mind only a tiny minority offended and the issues were complex; the poisons of prejudice were swallowed by both sides.

Then came the political and industrial rise of China. Mandarin is now the must-have
language for enterprising students hoping to market their services internationally.

Funds? No worries. The Chinese government-backed Confucius Institute had the cash, following the model of European countries pushing their culture and languages abroad through organizations like Germany’s Goethe Institut and France’s Alliance Francaise.
An Australian government paper described Indonesian as ‘a language without a clearly articulated educational rationale that resonates with students, families and school communities’. It asked:

‘How does a ‘big’ language without a significant advocacy group arrest a steep decline?’
Cometh the moment, cometh the woman. Speaking at the Kongres Bahasa IX (the quinquennial conference on Indonesian language and literature) Mrs Bailey argued that Indonesia’s Balai
Bahasa (language centers) should spread overseas.

At Soekarno-Hatta she bumped into Perth vice-consul Suhendar. Over a coffee he became
infected by the Australian’s enthusiasm and promised consular support.
Balai Bahasa Indonesia Perth (BBIP) was formed in 2008 as a non-profit body to ‘assist Australians and Indonesians to interact more effectively … and strive to foster a positive attitude amongst the people of our two countries.”

BBIP was the first in the Commonwealth. Another has been formed in Canberra – other capitals are interested. Three years later the efforts of Mrs Bailey and her
colleagues have won a two-year Federal Government grant of AUD $ 380,000 (Rp
3.6 billion) to turn the tide.

Getting Australians to reappraise Indonesia won’t be easy. “I’ve been marking essays by students studying Indonesian,” Mrs Bailey said. “Several wrote that asylum seekers are Indonesians. (Refugees board Indonesian craft but are from Afghanistan, Iran, Burma and Sri Lanka.)

“The biggest obstacle is that many of my teaching colleagues don’t acknowledge that Indonesian is important. School leaders develop their perspectives from the media.

“As educators we shouldn’t be focusing on economics, but these factors are really
important; we tend to look over Indonesia to more distant countries. Yet we are so close and our lives so connected.”

BBIP is now running evening language classes at the Consul General’s office. Most students are adults planning business or adventurers seeking a richer travel experience.

Some teachers of Indonesian in WA are Malaysians, so the organization is bringing in Indonesian graduates to work as teaching assistants. Last year BBIP staged Perth’s first Indonesian film
festival featured with visits by actors like Derby Romero, star of Cinta di Perth (Love in Perth).

There’ll be more. Mid-year BBIP will take Australian principals on a tour of Java to spur their interest, and will sponsor Indonesian artists to work with local schools.

At the same time the unstoppable Mrs Bailey wants sister-city relationships established as bases for cultural exchanges.

“The Australian funding isn’t recurrent so I hope we’ll get Indonesian support in the future,” she said. “We can’t work Indonesia out if we can’t communicate.”
The tennis club trip has become a love-all match with the neighbors.

(First published in The Sunday Post, 19 February 2012)
##

LOMBOK TREATY

">Link
(Treaty concerns)

NO DONE DEAL DOWN UNDER © Duncan Graham 2007

An agreement signed five months ago between Australia and Indonesia is now coming under serious attack by jurists, academics and human rights activists in Australia.

They allege that the wording is vague, open to misconstruction and if implemented in its present form could cripple free speech and further strain relationships. Duncan Graham reports:

…………………………………

Last November the Foreign Ministers of Indonesia and Australia signed a 'Framework for Security Cooperation Agreement' in Mataram. Inevitably this mouthful was chewed down to the 'Lombok Treaty'.
At the time it got fairly benign media coverage with comments focusing on counter-terrorism cooperation. An exception was Professor Hugh White of the Australian National University. He said it would ‘raise unrealistic expectations which will lead to bitter disappointments, making the relationship more, not less, vulnerable to shocks and crises.'
Others saw it as a positive development between two prickly neighbors, a document that might help prune problems before they tangle relationships.

But the agreement cannot become a treaty until it's ratified by the parliaments in both countries.

Prior to this process, the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties (JSCT) in Australia is now scrutinizing the agreement. The committee is made up of 16 politicians representing all major parties and both houses of parliament.

The committee has called for submissions and so far has received 52. It's due to report to the parliament in mid-June.

On the surface the agreement looks tame enough. Although it took two years of negotiations between ministers and bureaucrats it's an elastic document full of warm-fuzzies, like 'mutual respect' and 'closest professional cooperation'.

But when blood pressures are rising on both sides of the Arafura Sea over some real or imagined insult, then definitions are critical, and seemingly innocent words get close scrutiny.

That's what the International Commission of Jurists has been doing in Australia, concluding that the terminology is 'appallingly vague'. Unless the wording is changed, it says, 'the freedom of Australia's right to speak out on matters of international concern will be severely curtailed.'

The Australian Council for International Development – a consortium of 72 non-profit agencies with 36 active in Indonesia – also fears restrictions, including on the activities of aid organizations.

Other submissions note that in the wordy seven-page agreement the term 'human rights' never appears.

Nor does the word 'Papua', yet it's the alleged human rights abuses committed by the Indonesian military in the province (known in Australia as West Papua) that are at the heart of the treaty.

In January 2006 a boat carrying 43 Papuans sailed unnoticed through Australia's northern surveillance system and landed in Queensland.

The men and women claimed asylum, alleging they'd been persecuted in their homeland and feared retribution if returned. Foreign journalists are generally not allowed into Papua, so factual information about events is sparse and often biased.

The Papuans' story was believed and they were given temporary-protection refugee status. The Indonesian government and its citizens were furious, and for a while it seemed the neighbors were heading for a serious falling-out.

Most Indonesians saw Australia's acceptance of the Papuans' claims as a threat to the Republic's integrity, part of a plot to aid separatists and split the Unitary State.

Few Australians understand how critical this issue is in the hearts of Indonesians and how disintegration of the Republic is feared and must be opposed.

The jurists do. They've told the JSCT: 'It is absurd to suggest that we should arm and train Indonesian armed forces which are largely going to be used internally and not for matters of defence and abandon and indeed preclude proper comment as to any abuses.'

Many Indonesians still believe the independence referendum that saw East Timor (now Timor L'Este) break away from the Republic in 1999 was a plot engineered in Canberra.

Likewise few Indonesians appreciate that in a mature democracy a government can give genuine assurances that it will keep its official nose out of its neighbor's affairs – but it can't censor the words or curb the agitations of non-government organizations that might urge freedom for Papua as they did for East Timor.

Eventually the Papuan refugee issue cooled down, and the determination to get something onto paper was revived to avoid tensions re-igniting.

The critical clause in the agreement commits both sides to avoid doing anything that 'constitutes a threat to the stability, sovereignty or territorial integrity of the other party'.

In its submission the jurists claim this could mean the Australian government couldn't criticize any cross-border incursions by Indonesian troops into Papua New Guinea or Timor L'Este.

Dr Malcolm Cook of the Lowy Institute for International Policy has told the JSCT that the agreement 'will do little to address (the) deep-seated bilateral problem that undermines the national interest of both countries.'

He defines this as the lack of knowledge, understanding and a general wariness on both sides. He highlighted ignorance among Australians of the way democracy has advanced in Indonesia.

Last year the Institute published results of a poll that showed most Australians feel uncomfortable about their heavily populated neighbor, seeing it as a military state and source of Islamic terrorism. For every Australian there are 12 Indonesians – and ten are Muslims.

Many submissions focus on these mistrusts. Like Professor White they argue that much more work needs to be done at the grassroots to improve public perceptions before a treaty can get widespread acceptance.

An earlier agreement negotiated in secret in 1995 with former president Soeharto was ripped up by his successor Habibie when Australia led the international peacekeeping force into East Timor.

A positive side revealed in the Lowy poll is that a majority on both sides reckons there should be closer relationships.

This is an election year in Australia, and foreign affairs will feature in the scramble for votes. Although policies of the present Liberal-Coalition government on Indonesia differ little from those of the opposition Labor Party, neither side will be willing to aggravate voters by promoting an unpopular treaty.


##

MUTUAL COOPERATION

WHAT FOLLOWS THE GRIEVING? © Duncan Graham 2007

The tragic crash of the Garuda jet in Yogya has rightly fired up all the usual critical concerns in Australia (and here) about safety, training and maintenance in Indonesia's airline industry.

But it has also highlighted the close cooperation between the two neighbors.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono sent his personal sympathies (five Australians were among the 21 fatalities), and Prime Minister John Howard has offered medical and other help.

Australian air transport investigators have been working alongside their Indonesian colleagues. Data from the Boeing's flight recorder (the so-called black box which in fact is oval and orange) has been analyzed in Australia and the US.

These gestures seem genuine - no conditions attached. When it was suggested in a TV interview that the Australian specialists would only be treating their fellow nationals, Howard was adamant that the aid was for every burned body, whatever the color of their passport.

This is all as it should be – neighbors helping neighbors in a time of strife – no questions asked.

In Indonesia it's called gotong-royong, in Australia it's mateship. Sure, there's the Lombok Treaty signed last year to formalize such cooperation – but as an Aussie in Indonesia I like to think this instant generosity is heartfelt and needs no signatures and stamps.

How sad that these get-togethers only seem to happen when there's a tragedy.

This reinforces the image of Indonesia in the minds of ordinary Australians as a mire of chaos, crises and corruption.

The Indonesian ambassador to New Zealand, Amris Hassan, recently complained to The Jakarta Post that coverage of his country in the local press was rare and miniscule.

He shouldn't worry. No news is good news.

Next door to the Shaky Isles, in the bulky continent that stands as the Great Antipodean Wall between Southeast Asia and the South Pacific, Indonesia is seldom off the TV bulletins and broadsheet pages.

The stories usually feature terror and trauma. Unlike NZ, the Australian media treats Indonesia seriously by maintaining news bureaux in Jakarta. One of the Yogya crash fatalities was award-winning journalist Morgan Mellish from the Australian Financial Review, one of those seriously injured is Cynthia Banham of the Sydney Morning Herald. Both were based in Jakarta.

Foreign reporters don't have to go far to find copy in the Republic. Indonesia isn't just one of the most fertile agricultural countries in the world, it's also rich in resources and stories.

Many are tragic. In a nation of 240 million that's been cruelly plundered and neglected by past administrations, where democracy is a toddler and where the rule of law is a farce, there are bound to be tales of evil deeds, neglect and maladministration.

Inevitably these events eclipse the stories so many of us try to write focusing on the good and great things that are happening across the archipelago. For every loony packing nails into a crude pipe bomb in Poso there are thousands of decent folk agitating for understanding and tolerance.

While one crazed cleric condemns the unity of humanity, thousands more preach peace, love and a common heritage.

These stories also need to be told, but they're getting shoved aside by the hard stuff, the bangs and the blood.

Although politicians and the media set the public agenda, it's the ordinary people who form opinions. Word of mouth is the most powerful advertising of all.

The leaders of the splendidly professional Batak dance group Suarasama that has performed overseas regretted that they'd never played in Australia "because it's too hard to get visas."

When such concerns are published the official response is that most applications are granted. Maybe – the government controls the figures – but the perception is that Indonesians aren't welcome Down Under.

This street-talk has to be undermined so the goodwill created when we come together in grief can flow through to other issues. Just meeting the people next door on a personal basis can help wash away the stains and prejudices to inspire the comment:

"Why, they're just like us, worried about their kids and jobs, wondering how to make ends meet and what the future holds."

Vice President Jusuf Kalla wants more tourists to visit Indonesia. A good call – but it needs to extend beyond Bali so outsiders can get a better idea of the marvels of this complex land and the robust resilience of its people.

Any Indonesian campaign to boost visitor numbers also requires a broader knowledge base and a radical re-education about modern tourism. Not all potential visitors are surf-crazed hedonists wanting to doss-down with a keg of Bintang.

A theme in the worthy Indonesian film Long Road to Heaven is that the blinkered bombers were inflamed by the sight of young people dancing, drinking and enjoying themselves. That was their cardboard-cutout view of foreigners – evil unbelievers to be damned for their misdeeds.

If only those deranged haters had a broader and more mature knowledge of the multicolored universe they might not have seen things in monochrome.

Indonesia is more than landslips and runway skids. It's not just tsunamis and the shuffling of tectonic plates. This country holds no copyright on corruption – just google the devious doings of the Australian Wheat Board in Iraq for proof.

A few Australian nutters may see themselves as part of the deputy sheriff's posse in Southeast Asia, but most of us are just humble folk trying to learn more of the world beyond the tragedies and wanting to do more than help and grieve in troubled times.

Nations that share together stay together.

(First published in The Jakarta Post 14 March 07)
##










">Link

BALIBO FIVE

THE HAUNTING RETURN OF THE BALIBO FIVE
© Duncan Graham 2006

It’s a pity radical Islamic cleric Abu Bakar Ba’asyir was cleared of wrongdoing by Indonesia’s Supreme Court during Australia’s Silly Season.

This is the normally slow-news period just before Christmas and into the New Year. Politicians, PR hustlers, ambitious academics and other column poachers and airtime thieves are at the beach taking a break from feeding the media with their pontificating and posturing.

The press and TV heavies are also hitting the surf and sand, so minor events often get a run beyond their normal value.

So it has been with the toothy whitebeard skilled in needling his neighbors, even recommending that Prime Minister John Howard take the Haj.

Now that would be news. But in the absence of the Protestant Howard heading for Mecca swathed in white - or any other solid stories - reporters have been asking and getting the predictable responses from victims of the Bali bombs. These are the outrages that Ba’asyir allegedly engineered as spiritual head of the militant group Jemaah Islamiah.

Innocent according to the new legal decision, but guilty in the court of public opinion Down Under. Understandably the badly wounded jurors tend to be deaf to the opinions of more learned commentators. These people, including Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty, remain unsurprised at the court’s decision because the circumstantial evidence used for the conviction was tissue thin.

All this was said before and at length when Ba’asyir was released in June after serving part of a 30-month sentence. But that hasn’t stopped the anger and accusations being recycled when there’s been little else to report apart from sport and bushfires.

Then another Christmas goodie with Foreign Minister Alexander Downer again warning holiday-hunting Aussies to steer clear of the archipelago because they might get bombed.

The State Intelligence Agency BIN reckons no problem, leaving us to think the Aussie spooks know more than the locals – or Australia has another agenda in maintaining travel alerts and talking about unspecified and uncheckable ‘credible threats’.

So here at the end of 2006 we have our long-suffering patient Ms AusIndo Relations sick yet again, with her condition likely to worsen in the next two months.

That’s because a coronial inquest is scheduled early next year to examine the deaths of the Balibo Five.

Many outside the Antipodes will be bemused by this shorthand term that refers to the deaths of five Australian newsmen covering Indonesia’s 1975 invasion of what was then Portuguese Timor.

The unarmed TV crews were allegedly shot dead by the Indonesian military at the border village of Balibo. Their bodies were then burned.

This is an issue that the Australian media has never abandoned. Nor have some of the victims’ families – particularly Shirley Shackleton widow of reporter Greg.

After more than 30 years and numerous inquiries you might expect no new evidence could be forthcoming. Wrong. Information has now become public that didn’t make it into the media during earlier closed-door investigations.

It’s claimed that two Australian officials knew of intercepted radio messages transmitted by the Indonesian Army during the fighting. These allegedly ordered the journalists to be killed.

Till now it has been argued that the men died in crossfire as TNI troops and Fretilin fighters confronted each other – in other words a tragic accident. Few in the Australian media believe this version.

Some of the TNI commanders involved are still alive and likely to be named at the inquest. Not the sort of coverage that will refresh Ms AIR.

In November Australia and Indonesia signed the so-called Lombok Treaty that’s supposed to make sure we all stay mates. Ms AIR’s wounds started to heal – but as many observers have pointed out soothing sounds among politicians doesn’t mean the hearts and minds of the electorate will follow the same song sheet.

Why should Australian taxpayers continue to help Indonesia when some of its military elite allegedly ordered the murder of our young men (all were in their 20s) who were just trying to do their job as neutral observers? (Indonesia ranks number two in Australian aid, behind Papua New Guinea).

And why should voters accept the Australian government’s present intentions when past administrations allegedly knew the killings were willful but put appeasement ahead of confrontation with its overcrowded neighbor?

There’ll be calls for the assassins to be prosecuted if the inquiry finds against them, but of course nothing will happen. If the masterminds behind the September 2004 Garuda airline slaying of local human rights activist Munir are untouchable, there’s no chance the executioners of foreigners three decades ago will ever see the inside of a courtroom.

For Indonesia this is a closed volume. For Australia the page is heavily book marked and the edges dog-eared.

We don’t expect the polygamous Ms AIR to expire – she’s being lavished with lots of top-level care from her two lovers. Unfortunately she doesn’t have too many friends elsewhere to wish her well, and they’re the ones that matter.

So here’s a New Year’s resolution we can all undertake: Let’s make 2007 the year we tone down the slander and make the effort to try and understand each other. In brief – behave like good democratic neighbors, explore a bit of reconciliation and take a breath of fresh air.

(First published in The Jakarta Post 5 January 2007)
">Link

AUSTRALIA-INDONESIA TREATY

WHAT’S NOT SAID IN THE LOMBOK TREATY
© Duncan Graham 2006

There’s a critical five-letter word absent from the Framework for Security Cooperation agreement signed Monday 13 November in Lombok between Indonesia and Australia.

The missing word is ‘Papua’.

Despite its invisibility this is at the heart of the seven-page document dubbed the Lombok Treaty by Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and his Indonesian counterpart Hassan Wirayuda.

Discussions leading to the pact have been running for two years. But the decision by Australia to give asylum to 43 Papuan refugees who sailed to Australia last January put fuel in the negotiators’ tanks.

The document is full of motherhood terms and rubbery words – diplomatic delights like ‘reaffirming’, ‘recognising’ and ‘emphasising.’ If these help establish trust then quibbling is out of place.

Inevitably the Lombok Treaty is short on what will actually be done in real terms, although Article 6 includes an ‘implementing mechanism’. This commits the two countries to ‘take necessary steps’ and ‘meet on a regular basis’.

When there’s a dispute – which is certain given the great gulf between the two countries’ values and cultures – this shall be ‘settled amicably by mutual consultation or negotiation.’ There are no sanctions.

One issue has already been determined: If there’s any strife about interpreting the bi-lingual document then the English text will prevail.

Although the emphasis is on security this isn’t a military alliance. Such a treaty is prohibited under Indonesian law. The issue here is terrorism and just seems to reinforce already existing arrangements with the police and the military.

Nor is the treaty a law. Ahead lies ratification by both governments. In the wash-up only mutual goodwill will make this agreement work.

As anticipated there’s a clause on drug trafficking. Watch out if death penalties are enforced against Australian drug runners and the talkback radio vitriolic shock jocks start slandering Indonesia again, demanding Canberra intervenes. Then the lines on ‘good neighbourliness and non-interference in the internal affairs of one another’ will get a real acid test.

There’s no doubt the Australian government and opposition fear the ‘Balkanisation’ of the Republic and want a unified and stable Indonesia.

Canberra, the region’s perceived deputy sheriff, is facing multiple crises among the alleged ‘failed states’ of the Pacific, along with problems in Timor Leste and Papua New Guinea. It certainly doesn’t want more regional hassles.

The key point on Papua is Article 2, Item 3 – a black-letter lawyer’s gem:

“The Parties, consistent with their respective domestic laws and international obligations, shall not in any manner support or participate in activities by any person or entity which constitutes a threat to the stability, sovereignty or territorial integrity of the other Party, including by those who seek to use its territory for encouraging or committing such activities, including separatism, in the territory of the other Party.” (‘Party’ means nation.)

Does this mean that any future boat people who dig their toes into Australian sand won’t have claims for refugee status recognised?

The answer will come when and if that happens. But any careful reading of the words above – particularly the phrase about ‘domestic laws and international obligations’ - doesn’t score out a repeat of this year’s successful bids for asylum.

At that time the Australian government said it was powerless to act under law once an administrative decision had been made. It also knew the electorate was backing the Papuans.

When the government tried to buttress immigration law this was interpreted as an attempt to appease an inflamed Indonesia. The bid failed in August when Prime Minister John Howard withdrew the Migration Amendment Bill once he foresaw defeat. Even a few members of his own coalition were barracking for the Papuans.

If that same Papuan refugee scenario is rerun in the months ahead, the Indonesian outrage that led to ambassador Hamzah Thayeb being recalled for three months could erupt again.

Indonesians who recall with pleasure the Suharto New Order administration still find it difficult to understand that in a democracy governments are not all powerful.

The shrill lobby groups in Australia seeking a free Papua (which they call West Papua) are unlikely to be muzzled by this treaty. They won’t get any taxpayers’ money. Their demands will be ridiculed and rejected by the government - and probably the Labor Party opposition that has so far given the treaty its cautious blessing.

Yet none of this is likely to quench the determination of the NGOs, church groups and minority party politicians. In fact it could help their cause. In the court of Australian public opinion where ‘getting a fair go’ rules debate, being the underdog is always the favored position.

So the more the Papua separatists are rubbished and their statements undermined, the more their allegations of human rights abuses will get an airing and an audience. These claims will infuriate the Indonesian government and people, and ensure Papua remains the new pebble in the shoe of relations between the neighbors.

Unless serious political and administrative reforms are made to the satisfaction of the locals, effectively neutering the Australian agitators.

It happened in the most western province of the Republic – so why not in the most eastern part?

(First published in The Jakarta Post 17 November 06)

##

">Link