How Australia can build a secure region: grow relationships with our neighbours

Conflict and tensions in Fiji, the Solomon Islands, East Timor, Bougainville and Indonesia show just how unstable our region has become. The challenge this presents Australia is the development of a fully integrated policy approach to regional security that is underpinned by sustainable development policies which focus on poverty reduction. This will require closer cooperation between the NGO sector, and the departments of Defence, Foreign Affairs and Trade, Treasury and AusAID. Within the Aid Program cross-cutting approaches to peace building, the protection of human rights, humanitarian assistance, good governance and poverty reduction will need to be strengthened.

This more cooperative approach is reflected in the recent statement to Parliament by Australia’s Foreign Minister. "Australia’s development cooperation stands alongside the defence and diplomatic arms of government in working for regional stability." (Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, Tenth Annual Statement to Parliament on Australia’s Development Cooperation Program, 29.11.2000)

It is clear from Australia’s recent involvement in conflict situations that we can contribute effectively to the prevention of conflict and to peace keeping, but it must be underpinned by sound poverty reduction strategies if it is to be sustainable. The Solomon Islands is a case in point.

Australia’s role in brokering the Townsville Peace Agreement, establishing a peace monitoring force and facilitating the retrieval of weapons has been crucial. However this could amount to little if the root causes of the conflict are not addressed. Support is needed for the resolution of land disputes, establishing employment programs for young people, assisting the efforts of women in reconciliation work and assisting in that nation’s economic and legal reforms which respect and protect human rights.

NGOs play a particularly strategic role in their knowledge of local conditions and through their partnerships with local communities and need to be central in the development of effective conflict resolution and sustainable development programs.

A significant part of any regional security strategy therefore lies in support for poverty reduction and more equitable sustainable development—the key aim of Australia’s development cooperation program. Put simply, aid is crucial for successful conflict resolution.

As the Foreign Minister continued in his parliamentary address: "The linkages between economic growth and development and enhanced prospects for peace and security are clear." ACFOA believes these linkages require a whole of government approach to regional security; one that understands not only the linkages between defence and aid but also the complex interplay of trade and investment flows, financing development, human rights, environmental sustainability and development cooperation programs.

Thus the need to invest in a longer term integrated regional security and sustainable development approach. This approach will require sufficient resources to be diverted into securing long term regional stability and this will depend on political will as well as on budgetary commitments. It means that additional expenditure will be needed not only for defence and peace keeping but also for trade assistance, for debt relief and for sustainable development cooperation programs. A more robust and economically productive region is in Australia’s interest. Apart from the more obvious benefits of increased trade and investment markets, Australia will also benefit from a reduction of claims for asylum, a healthier and more sustainable regional environment; a reduction in the spread of HIV/AIDS; decreased drug trafficking and ultimately a reduced dependence on Australia’s foreign aid budget.

Australia’s concept of regional security must extend beyond planning for conventional conflicts to include measures to reduce the growing regional economic inequality, protect and expand human rights and democracy, and protect the environment. Such a strategy needs to look not only at ways to deal with conflict when it breaks out, but ways in which action can be taken early enough to be able to contain conflict and prevent the slide into violence.

Events over the year 2000 continued to provide graphic proof of just how insecure and unstable Australia’s immediate region has become. But while the situation in East Timor and Indonesia, and now events in the Solomon Islands and Fiji, continue to fire domestic debate on Australia’s defence policy, ACFOA believes much of this continues to take place without a clear vision of the real threats to Australia’s security.

These include:

• PNG, Bougainville, the Solomon Islands, Fiji, Indonesia, and the centrality of ‘horizontal conflicts’, where identity groups conflict, often in the context of social breakdown, increased inequality, lack of human rights and resource scarcity.

• Threats without enemies, such as illegal immigration; people smuggling; drug trafficking; the spread of HIV/AIDS throughout Asia and the Pacific; poaching by foreign vessels; problems originating or made worse by growing economic inequality; as well as natural disasters and complex emergencies.

• Continued population growth and the pressures this is placing on natural resources and the environment.

Together, these problems not only confront Australia with a long-term problem of human suffering in the region, but have far reaching implications in the areas of trade, tourism, migration, aid policies, budgetary policy and intergovernmental relations.

ACFOA welcomes the increased role the Australian Defence Forces (ADF) are playing in areas like peace keeping and humanitarian assistance and humanitarian de-mining operations. ACFOA acknowledges some of the positive aspects of the Government’s defence white paper, in particular, the need for a more flexible force structure to be able to quickly respond to the need for peace keeping in the region. But ACFOA believes the concept of security it adopts continues to remain too narrowly defined and too reliant on purely conventional military means.

In addition to the multiplicity of sources of instability is the changing nature of conflict. With the exception of only two interstate wars, most of the world’s conflicts are now within states or have resulted from collapsed or disrupted states. Apart from a small naval presence in the Gulf War, all Australian military deployment since Vietnam has been on peace keeping missions. The scenarios posed by East Timor, Bougainville, and the recent deployment of an unarmed International Peace monitoring team to the Solomon Islands, none of them conventional interstate wars, are representative of the sort of military and police actions which Australia will be confronted with in the future.

ACFOA urges the Australian Government to recognise that ADF deployments are now more likely to be for peace keeping or emergency responses than conventional war or defence requirements. As such, while the defence consultation may have highlighted arguments for greater operational and procurement needs these cannot take place without strengthening the ADF's peace keeping and conflict resolution capabilities.

The objectives for Australian involvement in these local conflicts are more likely to halt the spread of violence and to re-establish peace, rather than to militarily defeat the enemy. While the conditions and needs generated by these conflicts will vary, most will involve deliberate targeting of civilians, displacement of large numbers of people, the destruction of state infrastructure and services, and massive pressures on social systems and culture. The examples of East Timor and Bougainville both demonstrate the necessity of taking a broader, more proactive strategy towards Australia’s defence and security policy. East Timor required the mobilisation of almost the entire armed forces of Australia to provide sufficient resources for INTERFET. Bougainville requires a continual peace monitoring presence and over $100 million in Australian aid.

ACFOA stresses the need for an integrated policy approach that not only looks at increased cooperation between the NGO sector and the Departments of Foreign Affairs and Defence, but cross-cutting approaches within the Aid Program, involving peace building, the protection of human rights, and the development of appropriate legal and state systems. The Government must include the provision of humanitarian assistance as part of a coherent peace building strategy, utilising the appropriate range of organisations and their comparative advantages, that is cost effective, as well as preventing duplication, waste and inefficiency on the ground.

This requires a multiplicity of responses: not just medical attention, but community health strategies; not only peace keeping or enforcement, but long-term peace building and conflict resolution strategies. In other words, relief and development programs in which local civil society, and their NGO counterparts in Australia have a great deal of experience in. There are already a number of conflict zones where Australian NGOs are involved in such activities, including Sri Lanka, Indonesia (Maluku and Aceh), and Africa (the Horn, Sudan, Angola, the Great Lakes region, Sierra Leone and Zimbabwe).

The current strategic environment also increases the importance of the NGO sector and the Defence Department continuing to dialogue about peace keeping issues and improved civil-military cooperation, based on lessons learned from East Timor and acknowledging the important role NGOs play in sustainable peace keeping.

ACFOA stresses the contribution the Aid Program makes to the economic security of Australia, the region and other areas such as the Middle East and Africa. A robust Aid Program not only prevents social breakdown and reduces poverty, but delivers economic returns in the form of increased procurement opportunities for Australian companies. In addition, it contributes to an increased Australian economic and diplomatic profile, allowing us to take advantage of emerging trade opportunities. It also underpins Australia’s diversifying trade relations, helping to create more balanced relationships.