Indonesia pre-nup won't lead us to wedded bliss

When the Australian Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, pledges to uphold the territorial integrity of Indonesia he is also pledging to uphold the role of the military and unfortunately its methods.

Were the role of the military to be curtailed the archipelago would break up as there is no strong consensus holding it together. The Indonesian archipelagic state is to all intents and purposes a Javanese empire and as such the military enjoys a privileged position within society including with respect to the law.

The agreement lists as an objective the enhancement of TNI capabilities. Experience has shown that improved skills and hardware will only make the TNI more efficient at repression.

The role of the TNI also has the effect of making the archipelago more unstable, its methods of compliance create dissent.

The break up of the archipelago would be no bad thing for many of the people who live there and would improve Australia’s strategic outlook with the resulting removal of the TNI from its loathed policing role.

It is hypocritical for John Howard to berate tyrants and tyrannical behavior in other parts of the world and to ignore what is happening in our own neighborhood.

The TNI will take what they want from the agreement and ignore the rest. The TNI does not want the ADF chasing terrorists within Indonesian territory and they will apparently achieve that restraint with the agreement. Otherwise the agreement is an exercise in elites engaging in diplomatic denial and is not worth the paper it is written on. The agreement will have a shelf life for as long as the next Javanese dummy spit.

The Indonesian Ambassador has hardly had time to get back into the social whirl since he stormed out of Canberra in March. I would have thought there was a lot to be done before embarking on this agreement.

The Howard Government might begin by showing respect for Islam and its practitioners particularly Australian Muslims, get out of Iraq and begin a process of forging close ties with people throughout the archipelago.