Australia and indonesia: Rebuilding relations after east timor

Contemporary Southeast Asia

Volumn 23, Issue 2, 2001, Pages 233-253

  Chalk, Peter ^a  

^a RAND CORPORATION   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84937338755     PISSN: 0129797X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1355/CS23-2C     Document Type: Article

References (63)

1. See Patrick Walters, “Australia and Indonesia”, in Australia and Asia, edited by Mark McGillivray and Gary Smith (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 173; Gareth Evans and Bruce Grant, Australia’s Foreign Relations (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1995), pp. 202–3; Nancy Viviani, “Australia and Southeast Asia”, in Seeking Asian Engagement, edited by James Cotton and John Ravenhill (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 155–56; and Bob Lowry, “Australia-Indonesia Security Cooperation: For Better or Worse?” Strategic Defence Studies Centre Working Paper 299 (1996), pp. 31–32.
2. “Fixed Relations”, Weekend Australian, 15–16 March 1997.
3. Gary Smith, “Perspectives on Australian Foreign Policy, 1998”, Australian Journal of International Affairs 53, no. 2 (1999): 194–95; and “We’re Solid in a Crisis”, The Australian, 27 April 1998.
4. Alexander Downer, “Australia — Stability in the Asia Pacific” (Address to the Australian-American Association, Harvard Club, New York, 8 June 1998), accessed via http://wwwww.dfat.gov.au/pmb/speeches/fa_sp/stability-asia_jun98.html.
5. See James Dunn, Timor. A People Betrayed (Milton, Queensland: Jacaranda Press, 1983), pp. 22–26; Michael Salla, “Australian Foreign Policy and East Timor”, Australian Journal of International Affairs 49, no. 2 (November 1995): 207; James Cotton, “East Timor and Australia – Twenty-Five Years of the Policy Debate”, in East Timor and Australia, edited by James Cotton (Canberra: Australian Defence Studies Centre, 2000), pp. 1–2.
6. In the post-Cold War period, Australia has consistently defined its overall foreign policy orientation as consistent with the norms and assumptions of good international citizenship (GIC). This asserts an aspiration towards the development of a new type of international order where state behaviour is regulated and contained within a system of common rules and universally upheld, transnational values. GIC affirms the need to implement and abide by such global activities as international law, human rights, and justice. For further details, see Evans and Grant, op. cit., pp. 8–12; David Goldsworthy, “Australia and Good International Citizenship”, in The New Agenda for Global Security: Cooperating for Peace and Beyond, edited by Stephanie Lawson (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1995), pp. 171–89; and Geoffrey Stokes, “Aus-tralians as Global Citizens: A Review”, Curriculum Corporation (1996), pp. 1–10.
7. Tentara Nasional Indonesia. This name was officially adopted in 1999, replacing the older acronym ABRI, for Angkatan Bersenjata Republik Indonesia, translated as the Armed Forces of the Republic of Indonesia.
8. Interview at the Australian Embassy, Jakarta, October 2000. See also Alan Dupont, “Indonesia, Australia and the Problem of East Timor”, AUS-CSCAP Newsletter No. 8 (1999): 2.
9. These accords essentially envisaged an extended period of localized self-rule (10–15 years) to allow for the development of viable political institutions and confidence-building so that an eventual consultation on self-determination could be held in an atmosphere of trust and honesty.
10. Interview at the Australian Defence Force Academy (ADFA), Canberra, December 2000. See also James Cotton, “`Peacekeeping’ in East Timor: An Australian Policy Departure”, Australian Journal of International Affairs 53, no. 3 (1999): 238–39.
11. Known as Operasi Sapu Jagad (Operation “Clean Sweep”), this campaign led to the execution of hundreds and possibly thousands of East Timorese, the displacement of an estimated 660,000 civilians from their homes, and the destruction of as much as 70 per cent of the territory’s physical infrastructure. See Jarat Chopra, “The UN’s Kingdom of East Timor”, Survival 42, no. 3 (2000): 27; East Timor. Report of the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade. References Committee (Canberra: Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, December 2000), pp. 92–95; “Thousands Flee in Homes in E. Timor”, Washington Post, 20 July 1999; “E. Timor Rivals Plan for War, Peace”, Washi ngton Post, 25 August 1999; and “Violence-Torn E. Timor Put Under Martial Law”, Washington Post, 7 September 1999.
12. James Cotton, “The Emergence of an Independent East Timor: National and Regional Challenges”, Contemporary Southeast Asia 22, no. 1 (2000): 5–9; Wade Huntley and Peter Haysel, “East Timor and Asian Security”, Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars 31, nos. 1–2 (2000): 5, accessed via ftp://ftp.nautilus.org/napsnet/ special_reports; “U.N. Security Council Approves East Timor Force”, Los Angeles Times, 15 September 1999; “As Timor Smolders, Australia Expands Its Role”, International Herald Tribune, 6 May 1999; and “UN Plans for E. Timor Authority”, Washington Post, 16 September 1999.
13. Cotton, “East Timor and Australia — Twenty-Five Years of the Policy Debate”, pp. 13–16.
14. Interviews with Australia and Indonesia experts in Jakarta, Singapore, and Canberra, October and December 2000.
15. Interview at the U.S. State Department, Washington D.C., September 2000.
16. Interview at the Australian Embassy, Washington D.C., September 2000. See also Huntley and Haysel, “East Timor and Asian Security”, p. 5.
17. “Indonesia Scraps Security Treaty over East Timor”, Australia Associated Press, 16 September 1999; “Jakarta Severs Security Ties with Canberra”, The Australian, 17 September 1999; “It’s a Blow to Lose the Pact We Had to Have”, The Australian, 17 September 1999; “Pattern of Dangerous Escalation Takes Hold”, Australian Financial Review, 17 September 1999.
18. “History Binds Indonesia and Australia”, Jakarta Post, 13 October 1999; and “Howard Sets Back RI-Canberra Ties”, Jakarta Post, 9 December 1999.
19. “Indonesian Protesters Attack Australian Ambassador”, Sydney Morning Herald, 22 November 2000.
20. Interview at the ADFA, Canberra, December 2000.
21. East Timor. The Report of the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee, 1995–96. See also “Jakarta’s Simmering Anger Over Timor”, Australian Financial Review, 10 August 2000; “Howard Sets Back RI-Canberra Ties”, Jakarta Post, 9 December 1999; and “Indonesia–Australia Ties: What Went Wrong?”, Jakarta Post, 1 December 2000.
22. Comment made during the Indonesia–Australia Forum (IASFOR) Meeting, Canberra, 22 November 2000.
23. Interview at the Australian Embassy, Washington D.C. and Jakarta, September-Octo-ber, 2000. Similar views were also expressed during interviews conducted at the National University of Singapore (NUS), October 2000.
24. It should be noted that Howard never actually made the “deputy” remark — it was, in fact, a comment made by a journalist who was interviewing him. However, the fact that it took the Prime Minister more than five days to distance himself from the quotation was widely interpreted throughout Southeast Asia as an implicit endorsement of its substance.
25. Interview at the Australian Embassy, Jakarta, October 2000.
26. See, for instance, Evans and Grant, op. cit., p. 204.
27. “Ambivalence Serves Only to Marginalise Us”, The Australian, 30 October 1996; “When Change Calls for Consistency”, The Australian, 30 October 1996; and “A Case of Regional Identity”, The Australian, 1 November 1996.
28. Interview at the Melbourne Hyatt, Melbourne, December 2000. See also Donald Emerson, “Will Indonesia Survive?” Foreign Affairs (May/June 2000), pp. 103–4; “Talking About a Devolution”, The Economist, 6 January 2001.
29. Cited in Emerson, “Will Indonesia Survive”, p. 103.
30. For a good overview of many of these problems, see Emerson, “Will Indonesia Sur-vive?”; Tan Sri Zainal Abidin Sulong, “The Regional Impact and the Role of the Region in Indonesia’s Transformation” (Paper presented at the seminar on “Indonesia’s Future Challenges and Implications for the Region” organized by the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific [CSCAP], Jakarta, 8–9 March 2000); Kerry Collison, “Indonesia: Disintegration of the Last Great Colonial Power?” Defense and Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy 28, no. 10 (2000); and “Indonesia is in Danger of Coming Apart”, The Australian, 12 August 2000.
31. Interview at the National University of Singapore (NUS), Singapore, December 2000.
32. Interview at the ADFA, Canberra, December 2000.
33. E-mail correspondence between the author and Dr Leonard Sebastian, Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies (IDSS), Singapore, October 2000. See also Alexander Downer, “East Timor — Looking Back on 1999”, Australian Journal of International Affairs 54, no. 1 (2000): 9–10; and Robert Klitgaard, “Unsolicited Thoughts on Helping East Timor Succeed”, unpublished brief (RAND Graduate School, Santa Monica, 4 February 2001).
34. Interview at the ADFA, Canberra, December 2000.
35. Alan Dupont, “East Timor’s Future: Penury or Prosperity?” Pacifica Review 12, no. 1 (2000): 91.
36. “Australia’s Acid Test at the Bottom of the Timor Sea”, Financial Review, 14 October 2000.
37. Interview at the Department of Defence, Canberra, December 2000. See also Klitgaard, “Unsolicited Thoughts on Helping East Timor Succeed”, p. 5; “Square One”, Washington Post, 29 March 2000; and “Timor’s Troubled Waters”, The Economist, 2 December 2000.
38. This point was specifically emphasized by Professor James Cotton during interviews conducted at the ADFA, Canberra, December 2000.
39. Klitgaard, “Unsolicited Thoughts on Helping East Timor Succeed”, p. 5.
40. See, for instance, “Perky Future”, Far Eastern Economic Review, 18 February 1999; and “Economy of Scale”, Far Eastern Economic Review, 11 February 1999. Estimates of the value of oil below the Timor Gap vary. However, the three main reserves at Sunrise-Troubadour, Bayu-Undan and Elang-Kakatua are projected to contain a total of 500 million barrels, which is worth roughly US$17 billion at today’s prices. Under the existing provisions of the Timor Gap Treaty, 50 per cent of this would go to East Timor (the remaining half going to Australia). Dili is attempting to renegotiate the agreement to allow for a 90-10 split with Canberra. See “Australia’s Acid Test at the Bottom of the Timor Sea”, Financial Review, 14 October 2000; and “Timor’s Troubled Waters”, The Economist, 2 December 2000.
41. Dupont, “East Timor’s Future: Penury or Prosperity?” p. 91.
42. “$26m Fund for Timor Rebel Force”, The Australian, 24 November 2000; “East Timor to Raise Army”, Border Mail, 24 November 2000; and “Timor’s Troubled Waters”, The Economist, 2 December 2000.
43. Interview at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre (SDSC), Canberra, December 2000.
44. Comments made by Indonesian delegates attending the IASFOR Meeting, Canberra, November 2000.
45. Interview at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, December 2000, and March 2001.
46. See, for instance, Robert Manning, “Security in East Asia”, in Asian Security Hand-book. An Assessment of Political-Security Issues in the Asia-Pacific Region, edited by William Carpenter and David Wiencek (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1996), p. 25; and Desmond Ball, “Arms and Affluence: Military Acquisitions in the Asia-Pacific Re-gion”, International Security (Winter 1993/94), pp. 88-89.
47. Interview at the Department of Defence, Canberra, December 2000. See also “Rebel Says Australian Stance a Terrible Mistake”, Sydney Morning Herald, 15 December 2000. With regard to Irian Jaya, Australia has even gone to the length of dropping all references to “West Papua” in official statements emanating out of Canberra.
48. Interview at the ADFA, Canberra, December 2000.
49. Interview at the Department of Defence, Canberra, December 2000.
50. Interview at the Melbourne Hyatt, Melbourne, December 2000. Similar points were raised by defence analysts during interviews at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Canberra, December 2000.
51. Michael Scrafton, “East Timor Hearings”, Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee Hansard, 11 November 1999, p. 854; Deputy Secretary (Strat-egy) Hugh White, Department of Defence (DoD), “Estimates Hearings”, Legislation Committee Hansard, (3 May 2000), p. 88.
52. East Timor. Report of the Senate Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade References Com-mittee, pp. 201–7. See also “New Military Ties with Indonesia in Sight”, Canberra Times, 11 December 2000; and “Australia Cancels Military Training with Indonesia”, Associated Press, 10 September 1999.
53. Interview at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Canberra, December 2000.
54. Interview at the Australian Embassy, Jakarta, October 2000.
55. Major General Peter Cosgrove, cited in “Indonesian Defence Ties Helped in Timor Crisis”, Associated Press, 3 March 2000; and “Ties with Indonesian Military Pre-vented Bloodshed: Cosgrove”, Canberra Times, 17 May 2000.
56. Indonesian officials concede that internal security operations in Aceh and Irian Jaya, as well as other outlying regions such as Kalimantan and the Moluccas, remain issues of concern, particularly in terms of arbitrary detentions, torture, and the use of live ammunition to disperse protest crowds. Interview at the Center for Political and Area Studies, Indonesian Institute of Sciences (PPW-LIPI), Jakarta, October 2000. See also Human Rights and Pro-Independence Actions in Papua, 1999–2000, Human Rights Watch 12, no. 2 (2000); Samantha Ravich, “Eyeing Indonesia through the Lens of Aceh”, Washington Quarterly 23, no. 3 (2000): 13–15; and Peter Chalk, “Aceh: Indonesia’s Continuing Headache”, Jane’s Terrorism and Security Monitor (December 2000), pp. 1–2.
57. Comments made during the IASFOR Meeting, Canberra, 22 November 2000.
58. It should be noted that several defence officials reject the argument that the SAS was involved in internal security training for Indonesian SFs. Testifying before the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee in November 1999, for instance, Michael Scrafton, head of the Department of Defence’s (DoD) East Timor Policy Unit, affirmed: “In terms of the Indonesian army and specifically the most contentious element, Kopassus, the training has been very specific. The intention of the training with Kopassus and the Indonesian army has been in two major areas — primarily about basic military skills training. It is nothing to do with insurgency training or managing internal security issues, but primarily in the areas of basic training and infantry skills”. See East Timor. Report of the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee, p. 203.
59. See, for instance, Harold Crouch, “East Timor Hearings”, Senate Foreign Affairs, De-fence, Trade and References Committee Hansard (20 September 1999), p. 583.
60. East Timor. Report of the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Com-mittee, p, 207. It should be noted that some important changes and reforms are now beginning to occur within the TNI with respect to civil-military relations. Among the most significant are: • The separation of the police from the armed forces. • Reduced military representation in Parliament (which is theoretically to be phased out altogether by 2009). • Increased civilian control over the military (through the appointment of two non-TNI Defence Ministers, Juwono Sudarsono and Mohamad Mahfud). At the time of writing, however, the TNI territorial structure remained very much in place, with 17 regional commands, down to the village level, still in existence. Comments made by Lieutenant General Agus Widojo, during an informal roundtable, RAND, Washington D.C., March 2000. Many of these points were also raised during the IASFOR Meeting, Canberra, 22 November 2000.
61. Interview at the Australian Customs and Coast Watch, Canberra, November 1999. See also Peter Chalk, Non-Military Security and Global Order (London: Macmillan, 2000), pp. 70–71; Alan Dupont, “Unregulated Population Flows in East Asia: A New Security”, Pacifica Review 9, no. 1 (1997); and “Australia Targets the Boat People”, Age, 15 November 2000.
62. Interview at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, March 2001.
63. Observations made during the IASFOR Meeting, Canberra, 22 November 2000.