Australia’s new security treaty with Indonesia is heavy on symbolism but light on substance. As President Prabowo Subianto tightens his grip on power, warm rhetoric from Canberra risks obscuring growing democratic regression and human rights abuses.
As head of a democracy Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s duties include praising foreign leaders who despise his views and smile as they shake his hand. That’s one of the pains of high office.
Last week, the proffered palm belonged to Indonesia’s President Prabowo Subianto, 74. He runs the world’s fourth-largest nation (287 million), a former general with an alleged record of human rights abuses. To authoritarians he’s a role model.
Photos of PM Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong signing a ’treaty’ and getting lavish attention in Jakarta last week reinforcedAlbanese’s claim for the “biggest step the countries have taken together in 30 years.”
But the pomp and horsiness is regular hospitality as world leaders pay homage at the Presidential Palace. During his first year in the job Prabowo made 33 state visits, so there’s been much reciprocity.
Earlier, Albanese had said: “Australia’s relationship with Indonesia is based on friendship, trust, mutual respect and a shared commitment to peace and stability in our region.
“This treaty is a recognition from both our nations that the best way to secure that peace and stability is by acting together.''
This is welcome fare, but prepared by Canberra’s cautious word cooks on a slow stove to remove impurities. Australia may have a treaty, but most Indonesian media have seen it has a side dish, not the main course.
For Indonesian academic Hangga Fathana, it’s “an agreement that reassures more than it constrains … the language focuses on consultation and coordination without requiring concrete action.
“The placebo effect is not that the treaty will do nothing. It’s that it may generate reassurance out of proportion to its real obligations.”
Prabowo’s language was more sober and accurate, just a deal with “good neighbours” though greatly outnumbered – one of us to 11 of them.
“Watershed” is Albanese’s description of the deal’s importance – an insensitive metaphor as flooding and landslips across the archipelago have killed and displaced thousands so far this wet season.
The speech notes call the inking a “bilateral security treaty”. If recent history is an indicator, it could be kindling come the next cold snap.
That’s what happened to its model predecessor. In 1995, then PM Paul Keating and Prabowo’s father-in-law, the second President Soeharto, signed a secret Agreement on Maintaining Security.
Soeharto’s successor, the mercurial Bacharuddin Jusuf (BJ) Habibie, stuffed the splendid hopes and perfectly structured pars in a shredder. This was to show his anger at the Australia-led 1999 INTERFET international peacekeeping force in East Timor after residents voted 80 per cent against staying with Indonesia in a referendum.
Resentment of Australia was at one stage intense and may linger still in the military.
Indonesians are quick to take umbrage, aka an inferiority complex, so the ’treaty’ may last only to the next outrage, whether real or contrived. In 2017, all military cooperation, including joint training, was suspended when Indonesians alleged that teaching materials were insulting.
Despite enormous disparities in income, religion, culture, language and values, our leaders erase these facts by asserting we are “good neighbours”. The image has a respectful couple thrown together by geography who respect each other.
To Australian Indonesianists, this hurts: the plaudits are nonsense.
When General Soeharto ran Indonesia for 32 years in the last century and before social media gripped our lives, young Western backpackers were hungrily questioned by student activists about events outside the archipelago.
To be an Australian was to be considered a friend, a representative of democracy, a sustainer of the rule of law and human rights values. Those were the days.
After Indonesia declared independence in 1945, Dutch troops tried to regain their former colony. But Australian wharfies boycotted the Europeans’ ships, defied Canberra’s pro-Netherlands policy, and actively supported the freedom movement.
An ANU exhibition, Struggle, Solidarity and Unity, recalled the Armada Hitam (Black Armada) union campaign, “one of the largest boycotts ever organised in Australia.”
That history is now little known in Indonesia. Instead, youngsters speed read about today’s celebrities on their mobile phones: like almost everywhere else on the planet, Australia has racists and is currently wriggling to slough its skin of Islamophobia which was growing even before the Bondi shootings and has been hardening since.
Here’s an awkward truth that annoys myopic nationalists: we think we’re important and admired in Indonesia. Once, yes. Now, no.
As Melbourne University Professor Tim Lindsey has written: “The countries seem to be moving further apart when it comes to freedom of speech and respect for civil society.
“Indonesia’s vulnerable democratic system has been under repeated attack from the government for most of the last decade. This could complicate matters for Albanese, particularly as Prabowo ramps up his crackdown on critics of his administration.”
There are more than 800,000 Muslims in Australia (about 120,000 are Indonesians, but not necessarily followers of Islam), and fewer than 120,000 Jews. The minority have great commercial, political and cultural clout.
Suggestions that the ‘treaty’ with Indonesia could lead to the two nations’ armies working together would require us to abandon many principles. The military continues to oppress independence fighters in Papua.
Allegations of human rights abuses in the provinces are commonplace; 132 reportedly died in clashes last year. The armed separatist movement has been running for more than 60 years and taken at least 100,000 lives.
As in Gaza, independent journalists are banned, so confirmation of casualties is impossible. Albanese made no public comments on this issue.
Since his 2023 election, loud-mouth Prabowo has been bashing democracy, a sport played a little less vigorously by his soft-spoken predecessor Jokowi.
Lindsey underlines the President’s “nepotistic appointments, stacking the Constitutional Court, bringing the army into civil affairs, and banning elections for local governments.”
The President’s political party Gerindra (Great Indonesia movement) states publicly that it wants to go back to last century’s Orde Baru (New Order) authoritarian rule. (The government is a coalition of mainly small right-wing parties; there’s no real opposition in the legislature, so NGOs fill the gap.)
Lindsey continued: “Recent developments suggest the dismantling of democratic freedoms is speeding up.
“Opposition is routinely met with repression, and censorship prevails. Australia’s role as a hub for open dialogue, free speech, analysis and criticism of Indonesia will become even more important.”
A “xenophobic new law” is being hustled to “prevent, detect, and counter disinformation and foreign propaganda” – a blame-all phrase that could snare academics and journos, and kill funding from overseas aid agencies.
So read this while you can. The Prabowo-Albanese love-in may not last if democracy gets in the way of Orde Baru. Security and trade are important, but people ties are vital for future harmony.
Head of Operations of the Cartenz Peace Task Force Brig. Gen. Faizal Rahmadani said on Saturday that the group reportedly emerged from a lodging house located near the airport before opening fire at the aircraft, prompting passengers and crew members to flee.
"The shooting involving the Smart Air aircraft with flight number PK-SNR occurred as the plane was preparing to continue its flight to Dekai, Yahukimo, on February 11," he stated.
Rahmadani said the alleged perpetrators were members of the KKB group led by Elkius Kobak from Yahukimo.
The crime scene investigation found 13 bullet holes in the aircraft's fuselage. Investigators also documented 23 pieces of evidence at the scene.
Witnesses said the shooting began shortly after the aircraft landed at around 10:30 a.m. local time at Korowai Batu Airport and was preparing for departure to Dekai.
"The KKB group suddenly appeared and opened fire while the pilot was starting the engine, forcing passengers and crew members to disembark for safety," Rahmadani noted.
The armed group then allegedly pursued and shot pilot Captain Enggon Erawan and co-pilot Captain Baskoro Adi Anggoro, who later died from their injuries.
Rahmadani said witnesses reported they were unable to identify the perpetrators and believed the suspects were not residents of Korowai.
He added that the investigation and law enforcement process is being conducted in a measured and professional manner. Security personnel are deployed not only to pursue the perpetrators but also to protect residents, restore order, and ensure public safety.
"The safety of residents remains our primary concern. Joint security forces are working to ensure that Korowai returns to a peaceful condition," he emphasized.
Related news: Police step up security at Korowai Airport after Smart Air shooting
Related news: Separatist group KKB battalions behind Smart Air shooting in Papua
Translator: Evarukdijati, Resinta Sulistiyandari
Editor: Anton Santoso
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