Interestingly, like last week's article, the print version has a different title: "Wikileaks Treasure Trove Contains Many Lessons for Self-Sabotaging
This article also caused a Singaporean diplomat to make a courtesy call, attempting to clarify and straighten things up, just in case there are some ruffled feelings. It is nice to know that your articles are being read very carefully in embassies.
Speaking about readers, this blog attracts readers solely from North America, Europe, and Asia. Most readers come from the United States then Indonesia (duh). The third place surprisingly goes to Russia(!) then Singapore. Maybe I should write something about Russia in the near future....
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Wake Up, Indonesia! Lessons From WikiLeaks
Yohanes Sulaiman | September 02, 2011
Reading the latest US diplomatic dispatches released by WikiLeaks, one tends to focus on the salacious details, such as discussion of corruption among Indonesian elites. It is not surprising, then, that many people immediately latched on a cable that noted Washington’s approval of nine ministers in President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s cabinet. Even though the cable simply suggested that these ministers might be friendly to US interests, critics jumped upon this revelation as another proof of growing US influence in Yudhoyono’s cabinet.
Yet, such knee-jerk reactions to the cables obscured many things more revealing and more troubling in terms of Indonesia’s national interest, notably the short-sightedness of Indonesia’s policies and an inability to anticipate the reactions of its neighbors, which, in the end, undermined the nation.
One of the most interesting revelations in the latest batch of diplomatic cables centers on the strategic Strait of Malacca. On Nov. 19, 2008, the US Embassy in Singapore noted the Singaporean government’s disapproval of Indonesia’s plan to impose more control on navigations in the strait.
What Indonesia planned to do was to launch a “pilotage program [a method of easing navigation] for ships transiting the Malacca Strait” that would be in effect from Iyu Kecil Island to Nongsa Batam in Indonesia’s territorial waters south of the Malacca Strait. Indonesia argued that the program would prevent environmentally damaging accidents and keep international navigation safe in the strait. Indonesia argued that the program had its precedent in the Euro Channel, the Baltic Sea and the Torres Strait.
Nevertheless, the Singaporean government demurred. Singapore is afraid of “mission creep” — the possibility that after Indonesia found its new program to be highly profitable, it would extend the scheme to various parts of Indonesia, which would contravene Singapore’s interest, as it would slow down traffic considerably (e.g. to pick up Indonesian pilots to help guide a ship), not to mention various legal liabilities such as Indonesian pilots entering Singapore’s territorial water.
Even though the program was voluntary due to the lack of trained pilots, Singapore did not fail to notice that Indonesia would collect fees for the service and thus Indonesia had a huge incentive to expand the program and make it mandatory to have Indonesian pilots traverse Indonesian waters.
Unmentioned was the obvious dent on Singapore’s profit as the fees and the slowdown would cut into Singapore’s fast and efficient trade.
Since the program was implemented in Indonesian waters, Singapore could do nothing to stop it. What it could do was to enlist support from various countries that would be affected by this program and create a broad multilateral opposition that would persuade Indonesia to drop its plan.
Not surprisingly, Singapore decided to enlist Australia in its opposition to the proposed plan. A cable from the US Embassy in Canberra dated Oct. 27, 2008, noted that just five days earlier Singapore, which had been opposing Australia’s similar pilotage policy in the Torres Strait, suggested to Australia that it would drop its challenges in an international court in exchange for Australia’s support for “a broader effort to convince Indonesia to back away from its Strait of Malacca proposal.”
Even though Singapore was convinced that the “Torres Strait regime is incompatible with international law” and the regime itself is anathema to Singapore’s interests in maintaining free and unrestricted navigation rights all over the world, the Strait of Malacca is paramount to Singapore’s strategic interests, and thus it was willing to give up its opposition on the Torres Strait in exchange for Australia’s support on Singapore’s position.
The cable also noted that Australia strongly opposed Indonesia’s pilotage program, even though Australia admitted what Indonesia had been doing was simply copying Australia’s own program in the Torres Strait. Australia argued that its regime in the Torres Strait was accepted by Papua New Guinea and it was in accord to international law, unlike Indonesia’s plan, which was opposed by Singapore.
It is unclear what happened next, but it is safe to assume that the program might be discontinued due to several factors, ranging from international opposition to bureaucratic confusion. On June 14 this year in an opinion piece for Batam Pos newspaper, Jasarmen Purba, the Indonesian lawmaker from the Riau Islands, lamented the pilotage program being stalled due to the lack of attention from the Indonesian Department of Transportation and the Indonesian government’s failure to understand the importance of the Strait of Malacca.
It is easy to accuse and blame both Singapore and Australia for perfidy in this matter. By doing that, however, Indonesia missed a larger and more important issue, which is the constant inability of Indonesia to pursue its policies effectively. The reasons are many, but two of the most important reasons are the lack of preparation and an overemphasis on image at the expense of results.
As noted by S. Jayakumar in his book, “Diplomacy: A Singapore Experience,” Indonesia’s largest fault lies in the lack of attention to detail on policies, with the nation instead focusing on diplomatic posturing. He used as an example the extradition treaty, which Indonesia desperately wants. Even though Singapore stressed that after the treaty was signed, it did not mean automatic extraditions because there were still many legal hurdles, Indonesia was adamant in getting this treaty signed, for the sake of publicity back home.
In the end, such diplomatic posturing only backfired. Indonesia’s neighbors, worried about the country’s unexpected, erratic and often unratified policies, decided to gang up to thwart Indonesian policies they believed were contrary to their interests or to manipulate the policies to fit their interests. In the extradition treaty argument, Singapore understood that Indonesia was desperate for this treaty, resulting in its demand that Indonesia sign the Defense Cooperation Agreement in exchange for the extradition treaty.
In the end, Indonesian diplomatic personnel would be wise to start reading the WikiLeaks dispatches in order to understand that many of Indonesia’s knee-jerk policies only damages its interests. It is time for Indonesia to take its foreign policy seriously, lest it lose more of its prestige abroad.
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agentmacgyver
12:31pm Sep 2, 2011
The most superficial response was Hikmahanto Juwana's in Kompas, the sole point of which was that the leaker should be disciplined.jchay
2:35pm Sep 2, 2011
We simply have too many distractions to cover the real issues in Indonesia, to many fire-fightings to even think seriously about internal policy.. let alone take foreign policy strategically. hamham
10:21pm Sep 2, 2011
Do people take wikileaks seriously? Why? Intel information from the guys who thought that Iraq owns wmds?marko1
10:52pm Sep 2, 2011
i only care about what Washington is going to do to force the SBY government to clamp down on the FPI. Focusing on anything else is pointless until you have expelled the Satanic warriors from Indonesia.Good,Bad and Ugly
1:39am Sep 3, 2011
Keeping in mind that Iraq at one time DID have WMDs, and DID use them to slaughter at least two different ethnic groups. Yohanes-Sulaiman
4:58am Sep 3, 2011
agentmac: thanks for your comment.jchay: Indonesia can neglect foreign policy at its own peril. While internal politics matters, there is NO EXCUSE for neglecting foreign relations as a nation lives with other states and their conducts influence that nation significantly.
hamham: Wikileaks contains diplomatic cables, reports and analysis that were made by US Embassies all over the world and sent to Washington. The cables can iluminate the basis of conducts of countries all over the world and thus they are VERY important. Feel free not to take wikileaks serioiusly, but you are going to miss many things. As I wrote this, scholars and officials all over the world are poring over the leaked cables because they want to understand the rationale of other states' foreign policies.
Marko1: Good luck waiting as Washington cannot force SBY to clamp down FPI. While FPI are just small fries, their backers are important players in Indonesian politics, thus SBY has no guts in clamping them down.
There are limits in US foreign policy, and you can understand it by reading the Wikileaks cable. Thinking Washington as either very incompetent (like Hamham) or omnipotent (like Marko) will just give you a very distorted and incorrect understanding on how the world works.
DrDez
5:57am Sep 3, 2011
HamThe cables are just what they are - every nation does it - that is a stated purpose ofhaving a mission in the nation. The majority of it is opinion but thats how it works. As far as Indo taking it seriously the people should be asking questions esp where there seems a link - such as in Bank Century or Ahamdi persecution - But being Indo by this time next week the free press *ha - will have moved on to something more pressing like Nuns ribs or ipads - fickle societies get the fickle leaders they deserve mostly
cemf
12:29pm Sep 3, 2011
I liked your article and your response pak Sulaiman. Indonesia has adopted a 'fortress' policy for a long time. Initially bue to perceived enemies after independence. It does need to grow as a nation now. Unfortunately most legislation appears to be for the financial benefit of politicians and their cronies so there is little chance of that happening.Yohanes-Sulaiman
3:14pm Sep 4, 2011
Cemf: Thanks for your nice comments. Please do not hesitate to e-mail me if you have comments/criticisms. I'd love to hear them.
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