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April 27, 2006
We in Australia commonly view Indonesia through fear of it being an Islamic nation. The lens through which we view Indonesia is also constructed from a history of Indonesia's occupation of East Timor after 1975, the rough handling of internal conflicts in Aceh and the ongoing repression in Papua. All three have involved tough military crackdowns on irredentism and widespread human-rights abuses by the Indonesian military (TNI) for which no one in the military or the government has really been held responsible.
Although Washington and Canberra have recently restored military-to-military ties, US officials are still waiting for Jakarta to prosecute the military officers culpable for the horrific violence that attended East Timor's separation from Indonesia in 1999.Is Australia?
Do we see a newly democratic Indonesia forming out of the totalitarian (fascist) past? Do we recognize that Indonesia has a more independent foreign policy than Australia?
It has. Michael Vatikiotis says that the Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda recently stated that:
Indonesia is a party to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty... The treaty supports the rights of NPT parties to develop nuclear technology for peaceful uses he added... Then he reminded Rice that he had recently visited Tehran and that the Iranian foreign minister had just visited Jakarta. On both occasions he had told the Iranians that Indonesia "would be among the first to tell Iran not to put their peaceful nuclear uses to developing nuclear weapons".
The Indonesians are standing up to the Americans on Iran. Australia should take note. Maybe it is the Indonesiasn who will mediate between India and Pakistan as they step onto on an arms-escalation trajectory as a result of the US -India nuclear deal. Maybe it will be the Indonesians who endeavour to prevent a scenario of more bombs being added to the inventory every year, and more intermediate-range ballistic missiles steadily roll off the production lines.
It won't be Australia wil lit? We will be to busy selling unanium to India to help the US contain China, won't we?
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Gary.The government of Indonesia is the military,and has been since the demise of the Dutch influence..Any so called inclusion of a civilian flavour is nothing but window dressing.The Australian government is well aware of this and its whole diplomatic approach to the Indonesian government,is based on this premise.
In my opinion Australia does not fear Indonesia for its Islamic proclivity's,East Timor,Papua,or Aceh, etc..It is the huge population that inhabits this group of islands to our north,who are looking for some "lebensraum"and some time in the future,not in my life time I hope, they will in great numbers inhabit Australia with out a shot being fired.This will be done under the auspice of the U.N. and the major powers. Australians are well aware of this scenario.One only has to look to the encroachment of our borders by Indonesian fisherman,they treat our coastline like it is their own,and why wouldn't they?they have been coming here for hundreds of years,.Long before Botany Bay,and yes some time in the future their village may well be on the coast of the Northen Territory we are all going to have to deal with it.Phill.