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Indonesia FOREIGN POLICY
Political Considerations
The internal dynamics of Indonesian politics in the
last half
of the twentieth century was linked to an external
environment
that both the Old Order and the New Order perceived as
inherently
dangerous. Foreign policy had as its most important goals
security of the state and territorial integrity. The
jurisdictional boundaries of the state were greatly
expanded with
the incorporation of the "archipelago principle" into the
new
international law of the sea regime. This new regime was
codified
as the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea in 1982. The
"archipelago principle" effectively territorialized all
ocean
space inside straight baselines drawn from the farthest
points of
the most distant islands of Indonesia, thus giving new
sanction
to the Indonesian doctrine of the political and security
unity of
archipelagic land and sea space (wawasan
nusantara), first
promulgated in the 1950s
(see National Territory: Rights and Responsibilities
, ch. 2). Sukarno's response to challenge
was to
attack the status quo--to "live dangerously," to cite his
1964
National Day address, "A Year of Living Dangerously." The
Suharto
government's approach, on the other hand, was one of
cooperation
and accommodation in order to gain international support
for
Indonesia's political stability and economic development
while,
at the same time, maintaining its freedom of action.
Whereas
Sukarno relished leading the New Emerging Forces against
the Old
Established Forces, the Suharto government turned to the
Western
developed economies for assistance. These countries were
consortionally organized in the Inter-Governmental Group
on
Indonesia
(IGGI--see Glossary),
and along with the World Bank and the
Asian Development Bank (see Glossary),
gave massive economic
assistance, amounting in the 1992 budget to more than US$4
billion a year. Although Suharto's pragmatic, low-profile
style
was a far cry from the radical internationalism and
confrontational anti-imperialism of Sukarno's foreign
policy,
there was continuity in a nationalism that colored
Indonesia's
perceptions of its role in the region. The promotion of
Islamic
international political interests was not high on the
Indonesian
foreign policy agenda, despite Indonesia being the world's
largest Muslim nation. Indonesia was a member of the
Organization
of Islamic Conference (OIC) but as of 1992, unlike
Malaysia, had
not aspired to a major role in that organization.
Following two decades of post-Sukarno "low profile"
foreign
policy, by Suharto's fourth term (1983-88), a more
assertive
Indonesian foreign policy voice was heard as Jakarta began
to
reaffirm its claim to a leadership position, both
regionally and
worldwide, corresponding to its geographical vastness,
resource
endowment, population, and political stability. After an
international rehabilitative period, Indonesia rejoined
the
community of nations, broke the
Jakarta-Hanoi-Beijing-P'yngyang
axis, ended the Indonesian-Malaysian Confrontation
(Konfrontasi-- see Glossary),
worked to establish ASEAN, forged
cooperative
nonthreatening links with its neighbors, and became a
moderating
voice in Third World forums. By the early 1990s,
Indonesia, which
American scholar Donald K. Emmerson could still describe
as
"invisible" in 1987, had become more visible both as a
regional
power and a major Third World voice in the global
political and
economic arenas. In 1992 Indonesian foreign policy
reflected a
proud national identity and what British scholar Michael
Leifer
called its "sense of regional entitlement."
Indonesia's full reemergence on the world stage was
signalled
in April 1985 when it hosted a gathering of eighty nations
to
commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of the Asian-African
Conference in Bandung and to reaffirm the relevance of the
Bandung principles
(see Independence: The First Phases, 1950-65
, ch. 1).
This conference projected Indonesia as a leading
voice in
the nonaligned world and provided it with an
extra-regional
platform from which to assert its new self-confidence and
claim
to proper international standing. Suharto, secure
domestically in
an environment of political stability and economic growth,
and
backed by his energetic and clever Minister of Foreign
Affairs
Mochtar Kusumaatmadja, prepared to assume the mantle of
statesman.
In October 1985, Suharto represented the developing
nations
of the southern hemisphere (French president François
Mitterrand
spoke for the developed nations of the northern
hemisphere) at a
Food and Agriculture Organization
(FAO--see Glossary) of
the UN
meeting in Rome. This meeting recognized Indonesia's
considerable
accomplishment in achieving rice self-sufficiency
(see Agriculture
, ch. 3). Suharto also undertook an East
European tour
to balance the close economic ties that had been
established with
the West and the general anticommunist orientation of
Indonesia's
foreign policy.
A major foreign policy initiative begun in 1985 sought
for
Indonesia the chairmanship of the Nonaligned Movement, a
position
that would acknowledge Indonesia's credentials to speak
authoritatively in the Third World. Indonesia had been a
founding
member of the Nonaligned Movement and its adherence to and
promotion of the ideals of nonalignment had been one of
the few
consistencies between the foreign policies of the Old
Order and
New Order governments. At the same time, Indonesia was the
only
founding member that had not hosted a Nonaligned Movement
summit.
At summits in Harare, Zimbabwe, in 1986, and in Belgrade,
Yugoslavia (later Serbia), in 1989, Indonesia lobbied hard
but
without success for the chair. A number of factors seemed
to be
working against it in an organization marked by geographic
and
ideological differences. Radical socialist regimes were
not
sympathetic to Indonesia's domestic anticommunism. African
nationalist regimes mobilized in the former Portuguese
colonies
in Africa rejected Indonesia's incorporation of East
Timor.
Indonesia's solidarity with ASEAN on the Cambodian issue
lost
favor with friends of Vietnam. Finally, the absence of
normal
relations with the Nonaligned Movement's largest member,
China,
weakened Indonesia's position substantially. By the end of
the
1980s, however, many of the objections no longer seemed as
relevant in the changing global political economy as
adroit
Indonesian diplomats continued to pursue their country's
goal.
At the Nonaligned Movement's thirtieth anniversary
meeting in
Accra, Ghana, in September 1991, Indonesia finally won its
coveted role as chair of the movement and host of the
September
1992 Jakarta summit. But as Indonesia grasped the prize,
its
political worth was questionable in a post-Cold War world
without
superpower rivalries. To set the scene for the Jakarta
summit, as
incoming chair, Suharto undertook the longest foreign tour
of his
career--a twenty-three-day trip to two Latin American and
three
African countries--in November and December 1991. At
meetings of
the
Group of Fifteen (see Glossary)
in Caracas, Venezuela, and
the OIC in Dakar, Senegal, as well as bilateral meetings
in Latin
America and Africa, he began the effort of shifting the
Nonaligned Movement agenda from its traditional concerns
to the
economic and social issues confronting the developing
world. This
changed agenda was the focus of Suharto's address to the
May 1992
Bali ministerial meeting of the Nonaligned Movement
Coordinating
Bureau, setting the agenda for the Nonaligned Movement
summit. At
the same time, however, Indonesia rejected suggestions
that the
Nonaligned Movement and the
Group of Seventy-seven (see Glossary)
should be merged because the goals of the two groups
differed.
Whereas the Nonaligned Movement had a "special commitment"
to the
eradication of colonialism, racism, and apartheid as well
as a
duty to prevent the UN from being dominated by any one
country,
the Group of Seventy-seven fostered economic cooperation
among
its members.
The summit took place on schedule and without
disruption the
first week of September 1992. The Jakarta Message, the
summit's
final communiqué, reflected Suharto's call in his opening
speech
for a constructive dialogue between the developed and
developing
nations, warning that North-South polarization loomed as
"the
central unresolved issue of our time." In an expression of
Indonesia's pride in its own development, Suharto offered
Indonesian technical assistance to countries with food and
population problems. As chairman of the Nonaligned
Movement,
Suharto brought the Jakarta Message to the 1992 session of
the UN
General Assembly.
Data as of November 1992
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