May 26, 2003 WHY THE US MUST BACK MEGAWATI
By TOM PLATE FOR THE STRAITS TIMES LOS ANGELES - What's the country with the largest population that probably the fewest number of Americans have ever heard of? It's Indonesia - an archipelago of more than 13,000 islands and over 230 million people. Most of them are moderate Muslims, and there are more of those in Indonesia than anywhere else. Its leader is Ms Megawati Sukarnoputri, daughter of Sukarno, founder of modern Indonesia. She may not be the second coming of Margaret Thatcher in the steel-nerves department, but she's no dish-rag diplomat when it comes to quashing terrorism and separatism. She has ordered her military - known as the TNI - to contain rebel forces in Aceh, the resource-rich western-most province which is now, by her decree, under martial law. The line in the sand has been drawn: Aceh will not become independent like East Timor because if it does, she and many others believe, Indonesia will violently shatter as one aggrieved province after another disintegrates, in the manner of the former Yugoslavia. Too bad the United States cannot help the mild-mannered Ms Megawati, a democrat, as it once propped up the autocratic and corrupt Mr Suharto, her father's successor. But the Bush administration is encumbered by a well-intentioned but ill-conceived Leahy-Feingold congressional amendment that limits US military aid to the TNI. This bodes to become a dagger in the heart of the budding Indonesian democracy. For at the very time the embattled, democratically chosen Ms Megawati could well use the well-trained American military - so evident in Iraq - in her backyard to modernise and democratise her military, Congress forbids it. The hard-to-follow logic is that because the TNI did so many bad things under the past dictatorship that was greatly supported by US military aid, now that Indonesia is becoming a moderate-Muslim democracy, the US should do relatively nothing for Ms Megawati. This is American do-good-ism at its nightmarish worst. The Western human rights groups which have cowed Congress into this madness will have mainly themselves to blame if Ms Megawati falls and Indonesia reverts to military rule. President George W. Bush knows the deal. Indeed, his administration figured out the strategic vitality of Asia more quickly than its Clinton predecessors. And lately, it has been practically all-Asia, all-the-time at the White House. Two weeks ago, the fresh-faced new South Korean President, Mr Roh Moo Hyun, blew in for a public fence-mending visit that he and Mr Bush handled well. Last week, the glamorous and articulate Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo huddled with America's commander-in-chief and returned home bearing US contracts, official expressions of support for her war on terrorism and a big smile. Mr Bush likes her - why not? Like Mega, she's against terrorism and she's smart. And then it was the Japanese Prime Minister's turn, with a bonus barbecue thrown in. Now, there is a rumour Mr Bush may pop over to Prime Minister John Howard's Australia for the world rugby championship in October, stopping along the way in Manila to see Mrs Arroyo. If he does, Mr Bush should also stop over in Jakarta and see Ms Megawati. She is no obnoxious Jacques Chirac, the French President, taunting the American tiger, but a potential moderate-Muslim ally in a region two key US allies call home: Australia and Singapore. Her Indonesia is positioned to become a successful democratic gem more rapidly than, say, Iraq. Its economy appears to be back on track. Its rupiah, once like the Thai baht a Sars-like currency, is now buoyant against the sagging US dollar. Its stock market has gained 25 per cent in value over the past two months. And, politically, Ms Megawati has benefited not only from revulsion among moderate Muslims against the Bali massacre and other terrorist violence but also from her opposition to the invasion of Iraq as well. Alas, her Indonesia suffers from the indifference of the American public not only because it is far away and, for the time being, has no US troops being shot at, but also because it has but the tiniest diaspora in the US. Contrast that with 800,000 ethnic Japanese, more than a million Koreans, almost two million Filipinos and countless Chinese. The number of Indonesians in the US: barely 40,000. The writer is a UCLA professor. He can be reached at: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Copyright @ 2003 Singapore Press Holdings. All rights reserved. --[YONSATU - ITB]---------------------------------------------------------- Online archive : <http://yonsatu.mahawarman.net> Moderators : <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Unsubscribe : <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Vacation : <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
