The 2nd ASEAN Reader

27. Neighbourhood Watch and the East Timor/Aceh Crises

132 Khoo How San By: ROS Size: 7.5" x 10.25" J/No: 03-14474 Fonts: New Baskerville 27. NEIGHBOURHOOD WATCH AND THE EAST TIMOR/ACEH CRISES KHOO HOW SAN Reprinted in abridged form from Khoo How San, “ASEAN as a ‘Neighbourhood Watch Group’ ”, Contemporary Southeast Asia 22, no. 2 (2000): 279–301, by permission of the author and the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Indonesia is clearly a linchpin in the ASEAN neighbourhood watch grid. Its geopolitical importance to regional states and to the major powers stems from the location of several key straits — transit passages and choke points — within its waters. It is a littoral state, together with Malaysia and Singapore, of the Malacca Strait. During the latter part of the Soekarno era (1945–66), the neighbourhood was rendered unstable because the Indonesian leader chose to meet the challenge from domestic political forces by invoking ultra-nationalism, an anti-Western foreign policy, and eventually a campaign of Confrontation against the newly formed Malaysia. In contrast, during the Soeharto era (1966-98), Indonesia — the world’s most populous Muslim country — became a stabilizing factor in the neighbourhood. In a recent interview, Singapore Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew, when asked to comment on how important a stable Indonesia was to the stability of the whole region, said: “Indonesia was a great stabilizer and encouraged investments throughout the region because President Soeharto concentrated on economic development and that created the climate of confidence for the whole region.”1 The fall of Soeharto in May 1998 amidst the Asian economic crisis and growing domestic challenges to the institutions of authority, including the armed forces, led to a leadership vacuum and a spiral of unrest throughout the 13,000-island archipelago. In terms of the ASEAN dynamic, suddenly, this “great stabilizer” of the past three decades was deeply wounded, and the ability of ASEAN to function effectively as a neighbourhood watch group was being tested severely. Economic prosperity is, of 027 AR Ch 27 22/9/03, 12:43 PM 132 Neighbourhood Watch and the East Timor/Aceh Crises 133 By: ROS Size: 7.5" x 10.25" J/No: 03-14474 Fonts: New Baskerville course, a key ingredient in political stability. Moreover, “post-Soekarno” Indonesia under Soeharto provided a leadership of sorts to the grouping and, more importantly, was able to keep in check tensions within the Indonesian polity. However, renewed separatist activism in several parts of Indonesia became alarming only after President Habibie had decided in May 1999 to allow East Timor to have a United Nations-supervised referendum which offered the option of either autonomy or independence. By then, other ASEAN leaders were visibly alarmed, and their fears seemed justified by the killing rampage by anti-independence militia that followed the referendum. But while the East Timor crisis was significant in clearly exposing ASEAN’s vulnerability as a collective institution, it need not have represented a threat to Indonesia’s unity if only it had been more carefully managed. Domestic and international opinion then was that East Timor had never been Indonesia’s sovereign territory, unlike the other provinces. But Jakarta’s unwillingness to rein in the military-backed militias led to international demands for external intervention. Faced with a fait accompli, Jakarta relented and allowed the Australianled International Force East Timor (INTERFET) to restore order and stability. A further deterioration in Indonesia’s role as a “great stabilizer” within ASEAN cannot be ruled out, given the clamour within Aceh for independence. Importantly, it has finally prompted “positive” corporate interference by ASEAN (“positive” in the sense that it was welcomed by Indonesia) in support of the neighbourhood watch objective of regional political stabilization. This “positive” interference was initiated by Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong at the third informal ASEAN plus Three summit in Manila, in November 1999. Goh had wanted the ASEAN foreign ministers to issue a statement in support of Indonesia ’s territorial integrity. Although what eventuated was a single paragraph in the statement issued by President Estrada as summit chairman, the message was conveyed to would-be separatists in the ASEAN region that there was likely to be no support from the ASEAN-10 or China, Japan and South Korea, regardless of, say, pressure from the West (which would not be forthcoming in any event). On the other hand, the paragraph only sanctioned “peaceful and conciliatory means” to resolve the dispute, thus signalling that violations of human rights by the central authority would be held to...