Bickering does Jakarta no good

The Straits Times, November 8, 2007
By A.M. Hendropriyono, For The Straits Times

IT IS with sadness that one watches the recent round of barbs being thrown by the Indonesian national assembly, or Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat (DPR), at the stillborn Defence Cooperation Agreement (DCA) with Singapore.

Back on April 27, when the defence ministers of Indonesia and Singapore signed the nine-page DCA with their respective heads of state looking on, few would have guessed that this legislation would become such a magnet for criticism. Indeed, during the run-up to the signing, the press had predicted Indonesia-Singapore ties were on the verge of a renaissance.

Such optimism was fully understandable. After all, the DCA, envisioned to extend over the next quarter of a century, was not unlike a similar 10-year pact that expired in 2005. Also, it was negotiated alongside a bilateral extradition treaty - something Jakarta had eagerly anticipated.

But the ink on the DCA had barely dried when problems began to surface with its implementing arrangements, a set of four annexes that provided technical details to the master document's 13 articles. By mutual consent, these annexes were to be signed by the armed forces' commanders and three service chiefs from both nations on May 7. But when that date came, no signatures were forthcoming.

Shortly after, with the implementing arrangements still pending, the DCA was turned over to the DPR for review. From then on, the document became a political football.

That the DCA has become fodder for debate by the legislative branch is no bad thing. The Defence Commission, after all, is charged with scrutinising such treaties. In the United States, the Senate takes a similar attitude towards treaties and pacts; witness the arguments during the Clinton administration prior to ratification of the North American Free Trade Agreement. The fact that the DPR is debating in a similar, spirited manner is a sign of Indonesia's maturing democracy.

That said, one can take exception to some of the lines of argument in the DPR debate. More than a few legislators, for example, have claimed that the DCA encroaches on Indonesia's sovereignty because Article 3 states that Singapore can train in specific sectors of Indonesian airspace and territorial waters with the armed forces of other countries. But this criticism is a non-starter: Article 3 also clearly states that other armed forces can participate only with Indonesia's consent. If Jakarta feels its sovereignty is at stake, it merely has to withhold permission for the third party to participate.

Other legislators, meanwhile, have condemned the pact because they claim it does not grant Indonesia access to Singapore high technology. Again, such criticism rings hollow. Scores of Indonesian airmen, for example, have trained in F-16 flight simulators run by the Singapore Air Force for the past few decades. Such cooperation is to continue under the DCA.

The pact also calls for mutual access to naval training facilities and the provision of naval technical aid - both areas where the Indonesian navy is far more likely to benefit than its Singapore counterpart.

I am therefore stumped when one prominent legislator - a member of the President's ruling coalition, no less - argued that the DCA must be scrapped because it benefits only Singapore. This is wrong on so many levels. As just noted, the high-tech benefits from the agreement are far more likely to flow in Indonesia's direction.

On a less tangible level, the DCA is in the interests of both nations because it encourages the professional development and inter-operability of two neighbouring states. For this reason alone, Indonesia would be so lucky as to have similar treaties with its other bordering nations.

But more than all this, the failure to implement the DCA is cause for other, more fundamental concerns. First, it underscores the fact that Indonesia's national politicians are often too mercenary in their behaviour and appear to have no party discipline. That opposition legislators have thrown brickbats at the DCA is understandable. But members of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's own coalition have been just as verbal - if not more so - in their attacks.

Indonesian politicians, obviously, have not quite grasped the concept of party loyalty, especially when their party is ostensibly expected to fall in line behind the policies advocated by the President. There is a desperate need for the DPR to discover the role of the party whip: a senior party member whose role is to encourage attendance and voting according to the wishes of their respective party leaders.

Those party leaders, in turn, must realise that being part of the President's coalition carries with it the expectation of support for the executive branch. Failure to do so will ultimately doom the party to irrelevance, something that some observers already see occurring.

Second, the Cabinet must show unity. Before a major policy decision is made, dissent behind closed doors among Cabinet members is permissible, even desirable. But after a decision is made, all ministers must speak with one voice - one that is directly in line with the President's wishes.

In the case of the DCA, Indonesia's ministers should be its most vocal cheerleaders. They, after all, had been negotiating the pact - albeit at a glacial pace - since October 2005. Instead, they waffled, backtracked and showed little backbone when it came to backing what, apparently until April, was the policy supported by the President.

Third, President Yudhoyono should not have allowed the government to sign a pact unless he was virtually sure that ratification was assured.

When a foreign nation signs a bilateral treaty with Indonesia's leaders, it should have reasonable expectations that it will come into law. Part of that expectation is that the executive branch, including the Cabinet, will do all in its power to make this happen, as will the president's party allies in the legislative branch. If the President cannot do this - as proven by the DCA - the administration should refrain from signing other agreements so as to spare the other country further embarrassment on the world stage.

Diplomats from both nations, of course, have been quick to say the DCA has not been consigned to the rubbish bin. But there is little reason for Indonesia to cheer, with Singapore indicating it has little interest in re-negotiating the treaty.

For their part, Indonesian defence officials have privately stated that the treaty probably will not come up again for serious consideration until next year. But by then, President Yudhoyono will be focusing too much on his re-election campaign to expend the necessary political capital to push through what has now become a controversial bilateral agreement.

Meantime, Singapore's military will likely look for partners elsewhere. Singapore no doubt preferred cooperation with Indonesia because it was convenient and it was what neighbours normally seek to do. But just as with the sand controversy earlier this year, Singapore will find alternatives in the neighbourhood.

Far from being a treaty stacked unfairly against Indonesia, Indonesians in fact stand to be the losers now that it has fallen short of implementation.

The writer was head of Indonesia's state intelligence agency, the Badan Intelijen Negara, from 2001 to 2004. He is a retired general from the Indonesian Special Forces, Kopassus, and a former minister of transmigration and manpower in the Habibie administration (1998 to 1999).