SBY still an enigma - Indonesia in review

During this period Australia-Indonesia relations had continued on their familiar bumpy way. Prime Minister John Howard attended the SBY inauguration, and was quick to announce a massive aid package after the tsunami struck. The visit of SBY to Australia in 2005 was considered the most successful an Indonesian president has ever made.

Yet by the following year the Indonesian Ambassador had been recalled amid a hail of angry rhetoric from Jakarta over the granting of temporary visas to a group of Papuan asylum seekers. Ward’s view is that there are still many Indonesians who believe Australia is secretly working towards Papuan independence.

“The lesson from this is that we have to be patient,” he says. “As long as eastern Indonesia is regarded as unstable by the Indonesian Government there will be a suspicion that Australia has evil intentions there. I think we will have to live with that situation.”

It seems that halfway through his term, SBY remains an enigma. Ward agrees, saying he has found SBY one of the most difficult of Indonesia’s six presidents to fathom. “In particular, I find it hard to understand to what extent he enjoys the exercise of presidential power,” he says.