Jakarta using Singapore, KL as bogeymen?

The Straits Times, March 17, 2007
By Azhar Ghani, Indonesia Bureau Chief


Jakarta using Singapore, KL as bogeymen?
Observers say fierce rhetoric could be a ruse to distract Indonesians from domestic troubles

JAKARTA - OVER the past few weeks, neighbourliness took a back seat in Indonesia as barbs and barely-disguised threats were aimed at both Singapore and Malaysia.

In Singapore's case, the remarks were over the ongoing bilateral friction triggered by Jakarta's ban on sand exports last month.

When Jakarta first banned sand exports, it said the move was to help preserve Indonesia's environment and its maritime boundaries.

But soon some officials said the ban was a move to pressure Singapore into quickly concluding ongoing negotiations for an extradition treaty and a border pact.

Once the link was made, Singapore became a target.

Vice-President Jusuf Kalla, for instance, said in a Financial Times report on Feb 28 that he blamed Singapore for the slow progress in talks on an extradition treaty, and accused it of trying to hang on to allegedly corrupt money siphoned out of Indonesia by fleeing tycoons.

Indonesian Fisheries and Maritime Affairs Minister Freddy Numberi went further, naming Singapore as among foreign countries whose 'mafias' were destroying Indonesia's economy by paying locals to plunder its natural resources.

He was quoted by the online Media Indonesia on March 5 as hitting out at the 'plundering' of marine sand in the Riau islands 'for reclamation works in Singapore'.

He also repeated earlier claims that the alleged smuggling of marine sand for Singapore's reclamation works was against Indonesian economic and political interests.

He went so far as to call Singapore a United States 'puppet', and said reclamation work was meant to enable US warships to call or drop anchor there.

And, at some point, Parliament Speaker Agung Laksono added his two cents' worth, calling for the expulsion of Singapore's envoy.

Other legislators also spoke up, with many alleging that Singapore's reclamation works could affect the delineation of the unmarked parts of the border between the two countries by pushing Singapore's claims further at the expense of Indonesia's.

As for the Malaysians, they were told that they ought to be shot.

'Once in a while, we need to shoot them,' Mr Soeripto, a member of Indonesia's parliamentary commission for defence and foreign affairs, said at a hearing with Defence Minister Juwono Sudarsono and the country's military chiefs at the House of Representatives on March 5.

The meeting was called to discuss the latest flare-up in the border spat with Malaysia over the disputed oil-rich region which the Indonesians call Ambalat, in the sea off Borneo.

It started after Indonesia claimed that a number of Malaysian warships and military planes had entered Indonesian territory around the region several times over two days last month.

Mr Soeripto was not the only one baying for blood.

Fellow legislator Permadi was quoted as saying: 'Don't be afraid if something escalates from the shooting. We have four million volunteers who are prepared to die.'

Whipping up a frenzy

ARE these remarks against its neighbours signs of rising nationalistic sentiments in Indonesia?

Yes and no, said observers.

Indeed, the heated words stemmed from the kind of nationalistic sentiment that Indonesia has plenty of, and one that can be whipped up to a frenzy by shrewd leaders and cunning opportunists alike.

For example, Mr Jusuf's view on Singapore is not just a common one among Indonesians, but also one that is often perpetuated by commentators in the local media.

As for the Indonesian fear of losing more of its territories, many point to the decades-long dispute with Malaysia over the Sipadan and Ligitan islands.

That painful - for Indonesians at least - episode ended in 2002 with the International Court of Justice awarding sovereignty of the isles to Malaysia.

Coming soon after the loss of its former province East Timor in 1999, it was a bitter pill for Jakarta to swallow.

The Sipadan-Ligitan loss has since been used as a rallying cautionary tale whenever Indonesians speak of the need to maintain a presence on its outer islands and protect its maritime boundaries.

The recent flare-up over the Ambalat issue was by no means the first - or the worst.

In early 2005, after Malaysia awarded exploration rights to oil blocks in the region, Indonesia dispatched warships and the only four air-worthy F-16 jet fighters it had to the disputed area, as it hammered home its protest against Kuala Lumpur's perceived presumptuousness.

In Jakarta, Malaysian flags were burnt outside the Malaysian Embassy, and mobs were mobilised under banners that recalled the 'Crush Malaysia' slogan that first Indonesian president Sukarno deployed against Malaysia in the 1960s.

Hundreds of Malaysian websites were also hacked into and defaced by Indonesians upset over the spat.

Things calmed down after a while, but not all was forgotten.

On Dec 29, 2005, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono issued a decree for his country to beef up its presence on its outermost islands to prevent territorial disputes with neighbouring countries.

It led to an ongoing drive to assert sovereignty over these islands - a programme that would cost about 3 trillion rupiah (S$500 million), mostly for the construction of infrastructure, and also to improve the local economies and increase military presence there.

But while the nationalist sentiments are very real, many have wondered if their ebb and flow are not being controlled by unseen hands manning the floodgates.

Looking for a foreign bogeyman to distract the people from trouble at home is an old trick, said observers.

For instance, the anti-Malaysia campaign of the 1960s was used by Sukarno to deflect attention from Indonesia's paralysed economy.

Similarly, there are those who believe that the 2005 flare-up was allowed to play out as Jakarta had just implemented the first of two fuel hikes that year - a move that provoked almost- daily demonstrations against the government.

Another point to note, said a South-east Asian diplomat, is that 'Indonesia's nationalistic tantrums get, or are allowed to get, really bad if there were other associated issues at the time''.

For example, the 2005 Ambalat row was preceded by strained Indonesia-Malaysia ties over Kuala Lumpur's decision to round up and deport hundreds of thousands of illegal Indonesian workers.

In the more recent flare-up with Malaysia, there were no other issues to complicate things, he noted. Sure enough, things did not get quite as nasty.


Navy's involvement

ONE interesting aspect of the recent flare-ups with both Singapore and Malaysia was how the Indonesian navy appeared to have been involved, observed another regional diplomat.

In the Singapore spat, the ministerial meeting to decide on the sand ban was chaired by Coordinating Minister for Politics, Security and Legal Affairs A.S. Widodo, Indonesia's former military chief and a navy man.

It was also a navy man - the chief executive of the Indonesian Maritime Security Coordinating Board, Vice-Admiral Djoko Sumaryano - who was the first to link the sand ban to the negotiations over the other bilateral issues.

Several other naval officers have since also taken it upon themselves to influence policy by calling for a ban on granite exports in addition to the current one on sand.

As Indonesia is an archipelago of some 17,000 islands, the navy sees itself as the main force in maintaining the territorial integrity of the nation.

A change in the country's military paradigm a few years ago had also encouraged the navy and air force to play a bigger role in Indonesian national security.

In the Malaysian case, the diplomat said he found it odd that the Indonesian navy complained about only the two alleged Malaysian incursions last month despite admitting that there were 35 similar incidents last year.

He said: 'The complaints came at a time when the two countries were about to meet again in Penang to discuss the border issue in the Ambalat.

'Apparently, there were several sticking points from the last round that the Indonesian negotiators weren't happy about.'

The diplomat further noted that the military, already humiliated by the loss of East Timor, now known as Timor Leste, was just as unhappy when Sipadan and Ligitan were lost.

The military had blamed Indonesia's Foreign Ministry which took the lead in handling the issue, and had since made it clear that it would not take a back seat in protecting the nation's interests, he said.

He added: 'They probably have their hearts in the right places.

'But they should have no business trying to determine policies.'