Foreign Affairs (http://www.foreignaffairs.org/)
May-June 2000, (Volume 79, Number 3)

INDONESIA AFTER EAST TIMOR

Will Indonesia Survive?

By Donald K. Emmerson (Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Asia-
Pacific Research Center)

Did East Timor's departure start the dominoes tumbling? Will this
vast, multiethnic archipelago fall apart? Not likely, answers
Stanford scholar Donald K. Emmerson. This hard look at Indonesia's
main candidates for secession reveals that they have little in common
with East Timor and even less with each other. If Jakarta plays its
cards right, curbs the army's abuses, and accommodates legitimate
local goals, the center will indeed hold.

THE CENTER CAN HOLD

ANYONE SKIMMING recent Western reporting on Indonesia could be
forgiven for assuming that the world's fourth most populous country
is on the verge of disintegration. The recent secession of East
Timor is unlikely to cause a chain reaction, however. The
geographic and cultural patchwork of Indonesia may shrink, but it is
not about to unravel.

A vast archipelago through whose waterways pass two-fifths of
world shipping, Indonesia has recently undergone a series of
political reforms that could eventually lead it to become that rare
thing, an Islamic democracy. Its size, location, and natural
resources make it a potentially formidable obstacle to any Chinese
attempt to gain hegemony over Southeast Asia. The scale and
diversity of the Indonesian economy enhance its importance for the
larger region and make urgent its resurrection from the Asian
financial crisis. Whether Indonesia will survive in something
resembling its present form is thus a topic of concern
well beyond the South Pacific.

Since its economy began to fail in 1997, Indonesia has witnessed
several thousand deaths from political violence. This number will
mount as unrest continues. But although the toll is tragic, it is
not enough to destabilize a country of some 216 million people. And
although separatist movements have gained ground in several outlying
provinces, they do not yet command enough resources or support to
impose their will on the government. The country's periphery is
restive, but the provinces remain Jakarta's to lose.

THE YEAR OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY

MANY OBSERVERS who forecast Indonesia's disintegration see East
Timor as both omen and model. Indonesia's 1975 -- 76 invasion and
annexation of the eastern half of the island of Timor was finally
reversed in 1999. The East Timorese voted overwhelmingly for
separation from Indonesia in U.N.-supervised balloting last August,
and Jakarta ratified the divorce the following month. The U.N.
Transitional Authority in East Timor (UNTAET) has been charged with
preparing the territory for independence.

But East Timor is a very small place -- not much more than half a
million people on fewer than 15,000 square kilometers of land.
Excising that territory from the vast eastern underbelly of a
country that is 1.9 million square kilometers large has left but a
tiny scar. Indonesia has not only survived the surgery but emerged
with its prospective health improved.

To be sure, the operation was botched. On September 4, the U.N.
announced the results of the referendum: Jakarta had lost by a four-
to-one margin. Violent reprisals by government supporters quickly
followed, destroying an estimated 70 percent of East Timor's urban
infrastructure. Hundreds of pro-independence East Timorese were
killed, and hundreds of thousands more were intimidated into fleeing
to western Timor. The Indonesian army's role
in the violence ran a short gamut from acquiescence to connivance.

Whether or not the government recognized it as such, however, the
loss of East Timor was actually a net gain for Indonesia as a whole,
because it could only help sustain the latter's two fragile
recoveries -- from authoritarian rule and from economic recession.
Between mid-1997 and mid-1998, Indonesia's per capita GDP shrank by
16.2 percent. Jakarta could ill afford to continue its two-decades-
long repression of the East Timorese. However bloody and belated the
separation was, relinquishing the territory removed an impediment to
crucial political and financial support from foreign donors and
lenders sensitive to human rights.

Indonesians who opposed giving up East Timor feared a "domino
effect" in which other provinces would follow East Timor out the
door. Such a move would set an example for other regions, they
warned. Jakarta needed to stand fast to avoid an exodus that would
destroy the country. Granted, such an exodus could still occur. But
six months after the People's Consultative Assembly in Jakarta
canceled East Timor's provincial status, the rest of Indonesia
remains intact -- troubled (in some places, violently so), but still
one country.

Why? Compared to Indonesia's other provinces, East Timor is
unique. A Portuguese colony for nearly 500 years, it was never part
of the Dutch East Indies, the entity that eventually became
Indonesia. Nine out of ten East Timorese are Catholic, whereas nine
of ten Indonesians are Muslim. In 1975, a change of regime in Lisbon
triggered the beginning of the end of the Portuguese empire. Free
from Portugal's control, political rivalries in East Timor spiraled
into civil war. One cannot say how successfully the East Timorese
might have managed their independence had they been left alone, but
it can hardly be said that the Indonesian invasion of December 1975
rescued the East Timorese from themselves. It did make it clear that
Suharto, then Indonesia's president, and his fellow generals had
decided to smash the partition that had long kept separate the two
halves of Timor. The United Nations never accepted East Timor's
absorption into Indonesia. Washington gave only de facto
acquiescence, without approving of Suharto's methods. To the extent
that nationhood is the product of a shared past, therefore, Indonesia
is more Indonesian without East Timor than with it.

WHO'S NEXT?

MORE THAN 3,000 kilometers northwest of East Timor lies the
province of Aceh (pronounced "Atch-eh"), which is widely held to be
the next most plausible candidate for independence. But if Aceh does
leave Indonesia -- more accurately, if it is permitted to do so --
such an outcome will flow not from any East Timor precedent but from
distinctive local conditions and Aceh's interactions with Jakarta.

The Acehnese differ from the East Timorese in nearly every
respect. Both encountered the Portuguese early in the sixteenth
century, but Aceh did so as an expanding sultanate that refused to
succumb to colonial rule. No part of the archipelago that became the
Dutch East Indies took longer for the Dutch to pacify.

Centuries before the Europeans' arrival, Aceh's location on the
northwestern end of the island of Sumatra exposed it to
Islamicization by Muslim traders. Acehnese sometimes call their
homeland "the front porch of Mecca," due to its relative proximity to
Saudi Arabia. Aceh's population is about 97 percent Muslim, a figure
that may actually have risen recently as non-Muslims, fearing
turmoil, have fled.

Aceh's natural wealth is also distinctive. Indonesia is the
world's leading exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG), and two-
fifths of the country's LNG exports originate on Aceh's northern
coast. In contrast, although UNTAET has signed an agreement with
Australia to develop petroleum resources beneath the Timor Sea on
behalf of the future sovereign state of East Timor, the new nation's
share of the eventual annual revenues is expected to amount to only a
few million dollars. As for industry, Aceh's was much more advanced
even before
the torching and looting of East Timor's infrastructure in 1999.

Aceh's autonomous identity as an Islamic state and its natural
resources do make secession more plausible. No regionalist leader
articulates a harder anti-Jakarta line than Tengku Hasan M. di Tiro,
the titular head of the Free Aceh Movement (abbreviated GAM in
Indonesian). Di Tiro avows his fealty to Aceh's past and enmity
toward the "imperialist" Javanese (who account for about half of
Indonesia's population and have disproportionately dominated its
institutions). Seemingly obsessed by history, di Tiro refers
frequently to
the long Acehnese struggle against the Dutch and then the Javanese.
He considers himself a head of state -- the 41st ruler of Aceh since
1500. The 34th through 40th, he notes, all died in the struggle
against the Dutch, but he detests the Javanese more than the
Europeans whom they replaced. More brutally and duplicitously than
their predecessors, he insists, the Javanese repressed and exploited
the real Acehnese nation in the name of an imaginary one. "I
myself," he told me, "am older than this so-called Indonesia."
(Indonesia's first
president, Sukarno, declared the country's independence in 1945, when
di Tiro was 15.) When asked what sort of government an independent
Aceh might have under his leadership, he referred to an Anglo-
Acehnese commercial treaty signed in 1603. He also cited Aceh's
natural-gas reserves as proof of the viability of its independence.

Despite di Tiro's confidence, Aceh's exit from Indonesia is hardly
inevitable. From 1968 to 1998, when he finally resigned, Suharto's
authoritarian "New Order" transformed the economy and society of the
entire country, including Aceh. By erecting an industrial enclave
near Lhokseumawe, the province's second-largest city, Jakarta
unwittingly stimulated GAM recruitment. Rural Acehnese resented the
disparity in wealth between themselves and the Javanese brought in to
staff the modern complex, and disputes broke out over land rights and
pollution. Above all, the Acehnese objected to having "their"
valuable resources siphoned off to Jakarta. But the answer to these
grievances need not be independence. Jakarta could rechannel
revenues back to a truly autonomous Aceh, possible inside a
federalized Indonesia. So the natural wealth that could make Aceh's
independence more viable could also make the
matter more negotiable -- if Indonesia's political center is willing
to ease its grip on the periphery.

Economic growth during the "New Order" diversified the Acehnese.
A relatively secular and technocratic elite grew up around the
university in the provincial capital, Banda Aceh. Migrants left for
Java to pursue studies or careers. Di Tiro's name still garners
respect in Aceh, but during his decades-long exile in Sweden, parts
of Acehnese society passed him by. Inside the province,
nongovernmental organizations have sprung up to represent social
groups -- students, women, entrepreneurs -- with an interest in peace
and justice as well as sovereignty. Educated, professional, and
commercial Acehnese abhor the Indonesian army, which has abused
citizens with such impunity for so long. But they are also impatient
with GAM's intransigence and violence.

Nor will religious issues necessarily lead to secession. The
Acehnese are devout Muslims, but the overwhelming majority of other
Indonesians are Muslim, too. This should mitigate in Aceh the sense
of alienation that has contributed to unrest among religious
minorities elsewhere in Southeast Asia.

THE OUTSIDERS

AFTER ACEH, the province many observers consider most likely to
secede is Papua -- formerly known as Irian Jaya, but renamed by
Jakarta in a symbolic concession to local identity. Half as populous
as Aceh, Papua sprawls over the easternmost end of Indonesia,
covering the western half of the island it shares with Papua New
Guinea. The province's two million inhabitants are spread across a
territory more than seven times larger than Aceh and nearly 3,500
kilometers away. Some three-fifths of Papua's population is
Protestant, but the potential for political solidarity is limited by
the diversity of a dispersed population. In February, the leaders of
11 Papuan Protestant denominations demanded justice but disavowed
violence, and remained neutral on independence.

Many inhabitants of other islands (notably Java) have migrated
into Papua to exploit its local resources. This has complicated
ethnic Papuans' ability to claim that their interests and those of
the territory are one and the same. Unlike the Acehnese, ethnic
Papuans speak hundreds of distinct languages, and the province's
mountainous terrain further limits the ability of the sovereignty-
seeking Free Papua Organization to mobilize a united front against
Jakarta.

Like Aceh, Papua is rich in natural wealth, but unlike Aceh, its
economy and infrastructure lag far behind those of Indonesia proper.
Here again, the fruits of local resources are tasted mainly in Java,
and the gulf between productive enclaves and backward hinterlands
motivates resentment and secessionism. The rift in wealth and status
is even greater in Papua than in Aceh and thus is potentially more
destabilizing. But the sheer size of the gap in Papua also magnifies
the local allure of Jakarta's attempts to bridge it, thereby
potentially helping Jakarta's agents co-opt and divide pro-
independence elements.

Aside from Aceh and Papua, other provinces on the lengthening list
of potential defectors include Riau and East Kalimantan. All four of
these peripheral regions combine natural wealth with small
populations to generate per capita incomes far above the national
average. This lets local elites believe that their homelands can
make it on their own, but it also enables Jakarta to elicit local
support by returning to these provinces some of the substantial
revenues now taken from them.

Central authorities rightly worry about losing income from oil and
gas reserves in Aceh, Riau, and East Kalimantan. But the
restructuring of Indonesia's economy toward manufacturing and
services has greatly reduced the proportional contributions of oil
and gas to national revenue. By 1996, such receipts accounted for
only 21 percent of central government income. Compared with the
outer islands, Java's larger population, better infrastructure, and
more diversified economy have made it the most important origin of
national revenue.

The havoc done to Indonesia's economy by the East Asian financial
crisis in 1997 -- 98 steeply increased Jakarta's need for income.
Indonesia's public obligations now equal its GDP, and some three-
fifths of its national budget is earmarked to servicing this massive
debt. But if the current economic recovery can be sustained, the
urgency will decline. So, too, will the efficiency of currently
exploited hydrocarbon fields, including the shrinking reservoir of
gas that has bolstered the economic hopes of the Acehnese.

In Riau and East Kalimantan, pro-independence moves and views have
thus far been relatively mild. The prospect of autonomy within
Indonesia is much more popular in these places than in Aceh.

Horrific violence in a fifth province, the outer island of Maluku,
has led observers to warn that it too might break away. But the
waves of killing and destruction there have not been directed against
Jakarta. They stem mainly from the collapse of a delicate balance of
economic and political power between Muslims and Christians. In
Maluku, resentments have been fierce, but they have been aimed not so
much "vertically" (against national authority) as "horizontally," in
deadly, escalating exchanges between local communities. People in
Maluku had many reasons to be disappointed with faraway central
authorities, but one chief grievance was in principle entirely
resolvable: Jakarta's failure to intervene impartially and
effectively to help end the violence.

ENTER GUS DUR

WHAT ALL THESE FACTS imply is that the fate of Indonesia's
troubled periphery remains in the hands of Jakarta. By late 1999, in
contrast, many analysts still believed that part of the periphery was
about to leave. They were especially perturbed by an incautious
remark made in November by Indonesia's new leader, Abdurrahman
Wahid. Wahid had been elected president in October by the People's
Consultative Assembly -- itself largely a product of the country's
democratic national election five months earlier, the first such
contest in 44 years.

After East Timor's vote for separation, Wahid said it would be
unfair not to let Aceh have a referendum, too. Wahid's comment
shocked people by seeming to endorse the domino theory. If Jakarta
felt obliged to treat all the provinces similarly, whatever one of
them gained would have to be granted to the others. Consistency would
scuttle the country even if diversity did not. But this fear proved
groundless. Not even the liberally minded Wahid -- let alone other
Indonesian leaders -- was prepared to apply the East Timor precedent
to the
rest of Indonesia. Wahid soon explained that in the referendum that
he envisioned, the Acehnese would be allowed to decide only whether
to apply Islamic laws inside their province, not whether to withdraw
from the republic.

In the few months since his presidency began, Wahid (better known
by his nickname, Gus Dur) has often made off-the-cuff comments that
have required backtracking and clarification. He "has been very
skillful in solving problems created by himself," wryly noted one
Indonesian newspaper. Assembly Chair Amien Rais, a possible
successor to Wahid, has said that for Indonesians, "there are three
mysteries in life: when they are going to die, the weather, and what
their president is going to say or do next."

The more Wahid changes his mind -- or at least his words -- the
less Indonesians will believe anything he says. So his presidency
could self-destruct, and disarray in Jakarta might then stoke
separatism in the regions. But Wahid's inconsistency can also be an
asset. Indonesia has only recently emerged from decades of deadening
autocratic consistency. Throughout his long rule, Suharto refused to
give power to the regions. In this context,
many Indonesians find Wahid's policy shifts refreshing -- if only
because they evoke possibilities of change after stasis.

There is also more than a little method in Wahid's madness. His
headline-grabbing unpredictability keeps his enemies off balance and
the spotlight on himself. Media attention magnifies his influence,
and he uses self-deprecatory humor to advance his views. In the end,
those views reflect Gus Dur's sense of himself not as a commander but
as a teacher -- engaging his people in a dialogue that will move the
country toward tolerance, pluralism, and democracy. In the meantime,
he has begun addressing the army's intrusive and
repressive habits -- but he has not stopped security forces from
cracking down hard on GAM in Aceh. The first policy wins him points
in regions where the army is hated; the second sends a clear
antisecessionist signal to the one region where such hatred may be
greatest.

MAGNA JAKARTA

KEEPING the country together will require more than counter-
insurgency and civilian control of the army. Jakarta will also need
to meet a third challenge: decentralization. In mid-1999, new
legislation shifted political and economic power from the center to
the regions. But these laws still have not been put into practice,
and the regions are impatient. Wahid's skills are political, not
managerial, and differences between his ministers have corroded their
ability to work as a team. Now, bold steps are needed. If Indonesia
is to retain its present borders, it may even have to reinvent itself
as a federal state.

After World War II, the Dutch experimented with federalism as a
way to retain influence in the East Indies and isolate Sukarno's Java-
based republic. Many Indonesians still shun the "F word" because it
smacks of colonialism. Wahid nevertheless hopes to introduce much of
the substance of federalism without using the name.

Wahid has kept up a punishing schedule of travel abroad, partly to
solicit aid and investment but also to line up support for keeping
Indonesia whole. He has tried especially hard to mobilize
neighboring and Muslim states against Acehnese independence. The
success of this campaign so far has enabled Jakarta to ask GAM, in
effect, Why seek sovereignty if it will only isolate you?

In Southeast Asian international relations, realpolitik has
traditionally trumped moralpolitik. Neighboring states dependent on
the region's biggest and potentially most powerful country will think
twice before risking its ire by supporting its dismemberment. One
might think that China would encourage provincial defections to cut
the republic -- a potential rival -- down to size. But China's
leaders have so far been more concerned about upholding in Indonesia
the principle of single-state sovereignty so crucial to how they view
their own country. Accurately or not, they worry that the dominoes
from an Indonesian
collapse could tumble northward: Aceh or Papua today, Xinjiang or
Tibet tomorrow.

Jakarta would be wrong, however, to think that foreign governments
will always be allergic to secession. Washington has assured Jakarta
of U.S. support for Indonesia's territorial integrity, arguing that
East Timor was a special case. But the more brutal Jakarta's
attempts to hold Indonesia together, the less enamored of Indonesian
sovereignty Washington will become. Moralpolitik can be sidelined,
but it will never go away; human rights activists and their allies in
Congress will make sure of that. Wahid's minister of regional
autonomy, Ryaas Rasyid, is especially sensitive to this prospect. He
actually ranks Papua above Aceh as a candidate for exit. The Papuans
are Christians, he reasons, and thus more likely in the long run to
garner Western sympathy than the Muslim Acehnese.

Papuan history may be cited to back Rasyid up. Compared with
Aceh's participation in the Indonesian Revolution, the circumstances
of Papua's entry into Indonesia were more controversial -- indeed,
more like East Timor's. The western half of New Guinea was not added
to the Republic of Indonesia until 1962 -- 63, when diplomatic
pressure and a military campaign mounted by Jakarta obliged the
Netherlands to turn the territory over, so long as this was
eventually shown to be an "act of free choice." In 1969,
Jakarta "kept" this promise by manipulating selected tribal leaders
into agreeing, without a vote, to affiliate with Indonesia. Other
things being equal, this history will make it harder for Jakarta to
resist giving the people of Papua a new and truly free choice between
futures.

Indonesia's future in the near term depends partly on the survival
of Wahid. At 59, he is comparatively young for a head of state. But
although his stamina is impressive, he suffers from high blood
pressure, diabetes, and the aftereffects of two strokes. He is blind
in one eye and has only 20 percent vision in the other. Wahid's
presidency is scheduled to run to 2004, but if he becomes
incapacitated, Vice President Megawati Sukarnoputri is slated to
replace him. She lacks Wahid's political skills, however, as well as
his Muslim credentials and possibly his willingness to experiment
with federalism by another name. Her chief rival, Assembly Chair
Rais, is a committed Muslim who clearly favors decentralization. But
just as Sukarnoputri's presidency would worry some Muslim
politicians, Rais' would disturb many non-Muslim leaders.

Indonesia, then, will survive. Aceh and Papua may not remain
inside it, but their farewells, if they happen, are unlikely to set
in motion a process that reduces the republic to the island of Java.
Adaptations to differing localities and demands can still usefully be
made, even at some cost in consistency. Barring another economic
collapse, co-optation by Jakarta can be effective. Revenues from
resources can be shared. Decentralization can be adopted. A pseudo-
federal system can be tried. Centripetal diplomacy can work. But
these "cans" cannot be turned into "wills" without sustained,
focused, and adroit behavior by a central government that is weak,
divided, and embattled on many fronts at once.