[Kabar-indonesia] 4 Articles: Australia-Indonesia Deal May Be Smoking Gun

[Joyo at aol.com]

4 articles:

- The Australian: Downer to sign Jakarta accord 

- Herald Sun: Indon deal may be smoking gun 

- Indonesia, Australia pact aims to smooth prickly ties 

- The Australian: Editorial: Pact underscores era of co-operation

The Australian (Australia)
Monday, November 13, 2006

Downer to sign Jakarta accord

Stephen Fitzpatrick, Lombok

FOREIGN Minister Alexander Downer and his Indonesian
counterpart Hassan Wirajuda are to sign today what both
sides have described as a ''historic'' security agreement
that replaces a treaty torn up by a furious Jakarta in 1999.

The new agreement will be broader reaching than the previous
one, negotiated by former leaders Paul Keating and General
Suharto in 1995 and focusing largely on defence.

Beside security and defence co-operation, the 10-point
document to be signed on the eastern resort island of Lombok
includes agreements on technology sharing, maritime law and
illegal fishing, immigration and border controls, including
a focus on people smuggling, counter-terrorism and
intelligence.

Both countries also agree to co-operate in combating nuclear
weapons proliferation and developing peaceful nuclear
technology, and to respect each others' territorial
integrity -- a clause that has been widely interpreted as
putting the onus on Australia to clamp down on supporters of
Papuan independence.

Mr Wirajuda last week acknowledged his disquiet at the
possibility of ''staging points'' being used in Australia by
non-government groups supporting separatists in Indonesia's
troubled easternmost province.

However he has refused to say whether he expects Canberra to
act against such groups, and Defence Minister Brendan Nelson
was adamant yesterday that was not Australia's understanding
of the agreement.

''If people are in our country and expressing their views
lawfully, of course we're not going to prevent them from
doing so,'' Mr Nelson said on Meet The Press, adding: ''But
the Australian Government is not, has not, nor will not,
encourage actively separatism in Indonesia.''

The agreement contains a specific commitment not to ''in any
manner support or participate in the activities by any
person or entity which constitutes a threat to the
stability, sovereignty or territorial integrity of the other
party'', and key Indonesian leaders have admitted they are
waiting to see how Canberra interprets this.

The treaty does not make specific reference to Papua,
although Mr Wirajuda has conceded that after the asylum
seekers row at the beginning of this year, ''certainly the
main principle will be applicable when talking about
separatism in Papua''.

Mr Downer yesterday deflected criticism that the document
had not yet been made public, promising it would be
available for public scrutiny and comment before being
ratified by parliament.

Mr Wirajuda said last week that there had been ''plenty of
ups and downs'' between the two nations since the previous
agreement was abandoned in the wake of East Timor's bloody
breakaway from Indonesia, but predicted the new document
would better stand the test of time ''because it is a
mechanism that will outlast the officials who created it''.

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Herald Sun (Melbourne)
Monday, November 13, 2006

Indon deal may be smoking gun

Ian McPhedran

AUSTRALIA and Indonesia will sign a landmark security treaty
on Monday that bans either side from supporting rebel
movements and cements links with a brutal Indonesian special
forces unit.

That means Australia will be bound to take a harder line
with West Papuan activists who arrive here seeking political
asylum.

Indonesia made it clear it would not sign any deal with a
clause allowing one side to support separatist causes
against the other.

The Australia-Indonesia relationship was damaged this year
when 43 West Papuans arrived illegally seeking asylum.

The new treaty will also formalise links between counter-
terrorism experts at the Australian SAS and the feared
Indonesian Kopassus special forces.

In the past, Kopassus troops have brutally suppressed rebel
movements inside Indonesia and Kopassus was closely linked
with pro-Jakarta militias in East Timor.

In 1995, the Keating government negotiated a ''secret''
security treaty with the Indonesian dictator General
Suharto. The treaty was signed by then foreign minister
Gareth Evans and his opposite number, Ali Alatas, in the
presence of Paul Keating and his very close friend General
Suharto.

The pact failed its first major test when the Indonesians
tore it up during the East Timor crisis in 1999.

The new treaty, to be signed in Lombok today by Foreign
Affairs Minister Alexander Downer and his Indonesian
counterpart, Dr Hassan Wirajuda, is a much more considered
document that took two years to negotiate.

The treaty will formalise existing arrangements in a variety
of areas, ranging from law enforcement to nuclear
technology.

Mr Downer promised transparency but few details were
released until a few days ago.

The deal does not include any formal military ties, but
commits both sides to closer military co-operation and
intelligence sharing. That will include closer counter-
terrorism links and stronger police co-operation.

Immigration and border protection ties will also be
strengthened.

Mr Downer was highly critical of the Labor agreement, which
focused on threats from third parties, such as China.

''We don't think the Chinese honestly are going to launch an
attack on us,'' Mr Downer said this week.

The Howard and Yudhoyono governments agree the key threats
are terrorism and the potential ''Balkanisation'' of
Indonesia through separatist movements in West Papua and
Aceh.

The separatist-causes element of the agreement, which is
known as the Indonesia and Australia Framework for Security
Co-operation, may have repercussions for West Papuans
seeking refugee status in Australia.

Prime Minister John Howard said the treaty showed the
relationship between the two countries had moved on from
difficulties ''arising out of East Timor and more recently
out of the 43 asylum-seekers''.

The seven-page treaty covers 10 key areas including defence,
law enforcement, terrorism, intelligence, aviation and
maritime security, weapons of mass destruction, people-to-
people links and emergency relief.

One element of the agreement that will raise hackles here is
the joint pursuit of nuclear technologies for peaceful
means.

Mr Downer said the treaty would draw together the threads of
the security relationship and denied it had anything to do
with providing asylum to refugees.

He said the clause about non-nuclear proliferation was aimed
at stopping the proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction.

''It's not about Australia establishing a nuclear power
program in Indonesia. We don't have the technology or the
corporations to do that.''

He said the agreement would not encourage the export of
uranium to Indonesia.

''Well, if we were to sell uranium to Indonesia, we would
negotiate a nuclear safeguards agreement.''

Australian National University terrorism expert Clive
Williams said his major reservation with the agreement was
the closer ties with Kopassus.
The Indonesian special forces have a history of violence
against the Indonesian people. ''Their past record is very
bad,'' he said. ''Dealing with them carries a lot of risk.''

He said there would be major issues down the track involving
West Papua.

IAN McPHEDRAN is defence reporter

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Indonesia, Australia pact aims to smooth prickly ties

By Ed Davies

SENGGIGI, Indonesia, November 13 (Reuters) - Indonesia and
Australia will sign a treaty on Monday aimed at smoothing
ties through greater security cooperation, and underlining
support for Jakarta's sovereignty over restive provinces.

Indonesia tore up a defence pact with Canberra seven years
ago when Australia led an international force into East
Timor to restore order after the territory voted to break
from Jakarta.

The new security treaty was almost scuppered earlier this
year when Canberra granted protection visas to 43 Papuan
asylum-seekers who claimed they were being persecuted at
home.

Australian opposition politicians and non-government groups
fear the pact, which requires both countries not to support
separatists, will give Indonesia a free hand to suppress
groups seeking Papuan independence, something Canberra has
denied.

Jurgen Haacke, an expert on security and politics in
Southeast Asia at the London School of Economics, said the
drawn-out negotiations indicated sensitivities on both
sides.

"I see it as an important development to the extent it is
likely to highlight and reinforce existing security
cooperation, while also serving to reassure Indonesians that
Australia fully supports its neighbour's territorial
integrity."

Australian Defence Minister Brendan Nelson pledged on Sunday
the new agreement would not lead to his country's
intelligence being used against Papuan separatists.

He said the treaty, due to be signed by Australian Foreign
Minister Alexander Downer and Indonesian Foreign Minister
Hassan Wirajuda at a resort area on Indonesia's Lombok
island, would bring stronger anti-terrorism cooperation and
joint naval border patrols, and would formalise military
exchanges and training.

The document also opens the door to cooperation in civilian
nuclear research and Australian sales of uranium to
Indonesia.

BOMB ATTACKS DRIVE COOPERATION

Concern over bomb attacks by Islamic militants has already
been driving greater police and intelligence cooperation.

Bomb attacks on nightclubs in the Kuta area of the island of
Bali in 2002 killed more than 200, including 88 Australians.

Australia has also courted Indonesian support to discourage
asylum seekers and sees cooperation as crucial in its
efforts to stop people-smugglers sending crowded boats to
Australia.

Arief Budiman, professor of Indonesian studies at Melbourne
University, said it was a sensible move by Canberra to seal
the pact despite some reservations over the Papua issue.

"At present, if Australia is concerned about the way Jakarta
treats the Papuan people, it is better that Australia raises
it as a human rights issue, not as a justification to
support an independence struggle of these Papuan people."

Indonesia's foreign minister told reporters last week the
pact did not specifically say Australia rejected Papuan
independence, but that the issue was implicit in its
wording.

Wirajuda described in July ties between his sprawling,
developing nation and its Western-style southern neighbour
as having "a great deal of calm beneath a stormy surface".

Reflecting how importantly Canberra rates ties, Australia's
embassy in Jakarta is now its biggest mission in the world.

But Fachry Ali, an Indonesian political analyst, questioned
the need for a bilateral security agreement at all, even
with concerns on both

sides over terrorism and the Papua issue.

"The main issue should be on economic cooperation, but why
is this on security cooperation?"

(Additional reporting by Diyan Jari in Jakarta)

---------------------------------------------------

The Australian (Australia)
Monday, November 13, 2006

Editorial: Pact underscores era of co-operation

Canberra and Jakarta are back on the same wavelength

WHEN Alexander Downer and Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan
Wirajuda sign the new security treaty between Canberra and
Jakarta on the island of Lombok today, they will be
cementing a relationship of tentative co-operation that has
been building since the Bali bombings of 2002. Australia's
relations with Indonesia reached a low point in 1999. In
September that year, Australian troops in Darwin were
preparing to lead a multinational force in restoring order
in East Timor. Before they left Australian shores, Jakarta
vented its anger over Canberra's role by tearing up the
security pact then-prime minister Paul Keating negotiated
secretly in 1995 with Indonesia's authoritarian president
Suharto. Coming after years of tensions over East Timorese
independence, the terrorist bombs that tore apart two Kuta
nightclubs transformed relations between the neighbours and
prompted a new era of co-operation in countering terrorism
and people smuggling. The outpouring of Australian sympathy
and aid following the Boxing Day 2004 tsunami that cost
220,000 Indonesian lives and the humanitarian work of our
defence forces in the disaster's aftermath marked a
psychological breakthrough for the two countries reflected
in the document being signed today.

The Indonesia and Australia Framework Agreement for Security
Co-operation finally repairs the rift. Two years in the
making from Mr Downer's broaching the subject with a
receptive President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in 2004, this
is a very different treaty to its predecessor. Rather than a
mutual defence pact obliging the parties to come to the aid
of each other in the event of external aggression, the new
agreement outlines key areas for bilateral co-operation
including defence, law enforcement, counter-terrorism,
intelligence sharing, aviation and maritime security, border
protection, illegal fishing, avian flu and nuclear power
generation. Negotiated in a transparent diplomatic process
between two democracies, the treaty must be ratified by both
nations before it can come into force. In Australia, that
means a public inquiry by the parliament's Joint Standing
Committee on Treaties. Overall the agreement is a welcome
development in what has been a fraught period for Australian
relations with the region, most recently expressed in
Canberra's ban on PNG Prime Minister Sir Michael Somare
visiting Australia over the Moti affair, the ongoing strife
in East Timor and the threat of a military coup in Fiji.

The Australian's support for the pact is tempered by caution
over the provision for respecting territorial integrity. One
clause in the treaty demands a commitment that neither side
will "in any manner support or participate in activities by
any person or entity which constitute a threat to the
stability, sovereignty or territorial integrity of the other
party". Steeped in bureaucratic language, the provision
plainly reflects the deeply felt suspicions among Jakarta's
political and military elite about Australia's bona fides in
the wake of the East Timor crisis, new secessionist
pressures in Papua and Australia's decision to grant refuge
to 43 Papuan asylum-seekers earlier this year. The Howard
Government shares this newspaper's view that an independent,
unstable Papua would be a disastrous outcome both for the
region and our national interests. Indonesia is mistaken,
however, if it sees the treaty as a weapon to discourage
Australia from exercising its sovereign power to decide who
it will shelter. Nor must it be used to limit freedom of
speech in Australia. Statements from a former Indonesian
presidential adviser suggesting that the treaty demands
suppression of private support for Papuan independence are
completely out of place and must be rejected without delay.

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CHRONOLOGY-Key dates in Indonesia-Australia relations

Nov 13 (Reuters) - Indonesia and Australia will sign a new
treaty on Monday aimed at smoothing prickly ties through
greater security cooperation, and underlining support for
Jakarta's sovereignty over restive provinces.

Following are some key dates in bilateral relations:

1962 - Australia criticises Indonesia's takeover of former
Dutch colonial territory on the western part of New Guinea,
partly because Jakarta at the time is seen as too
sympathetic to the Eastern Bloc.

1963 - Indonesia violently "confronts" former British areas
of Malaysia and Singapore. In fighting on Borneo island
between Malaysia and Indonesia, Australian troops aid
Malaysians.

1965 - Indonesia's first president, Sukarno, loses power to
military elements who over the next few years shift policy
in a pro-West, pro-capitalism direction. Ties with the West
improve.

1975 - Five Australian journalists are killed in town of
Balibo in East Timor in an attack blamed on Indonesia's
military shortly before Jakarta's annexation of the
territory.

1989 - Australia acknowledges East Timor, a former
Portuguese colony, as an integral part of Indonesia.

Dec 1995 - Australia and Indonesia sign security pact,
widely praised as a consolidation of progress in bilateral
relations. Canberra agrees to shun independence movements as
part of the new alliance with Jakarta.

Sept 1999 - Australia leads peacekeepers into East Timor to
quell militia violence following a vote for independence.
Indonesia announces it is tearing up the 1995 security
agreement.

2001 - Australia deploys navy warships to prevent Middle
Eastern boatpeople from Indonesia crossing the border.

Aug 2001 - Indonesia and Australia cooperate in combating
illegal immigration after a Norwegian cargo ship rescues
mostly Afghan asylum seekers in a fishing boat off Christmas
Island.

Oct 2002 - Bombs on Indonesia's tourist island of Bali kill
202 people, including 88 Australians. The attack by Islamic
militants leads to greater cooperation between police from
the two nations in combating regional terrorism.

Sept 2004 - Australian embassy in Jakarta is bombed, killing
at least 10 Indonesians, but no Australians.

Dec 2004 - Deadly Indian Ocean tsunami hits Aceh and North
Sumatra provinces in Indonesia. Australia is the first
country to offer aid, sending transport aircraft and
military personnel.

Oct 2005 - Bombs explode in Bali again, killing 20 people,
including four Australians.

March 2006 - Australia grants temporary visas to 42 Papuan
asylum seekers. Indonesia recalls its envoy and accuses
Canberra of supporting the separatist movement in the far-
flung province.

June 2006 - Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono
and Australian Prime Minister John Howard meet on
Indonesia's Batam island to mend strained ties. Howard says
his country has no wish to be a staging point for Papuan
separatists.
Nov 8, 2006 - After two years of negotiations the two sides
announce their agreement on a new security treaty, including
wording supporting Jakarta's sovereignty over restive
provinces.

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Joyo Indonesia News Service
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