Marines in Darwin: Trashing the Lombok treaty

Duncan Graham, The Jakarta Post, Malang, East Java | Wed, 11/23/2011 9:45 AM A | A | A | - Klipping The Jakarta Post

In 2006 the two relevant foreign ministers, Alexander Downer and Hassan Wirajuda, signed the Australia-Indonesia Agreement on the Framework for Security Cooperation.

It took two years of negotiations to develop the document, which replaced the 1995 formal defense pact. What’s now known as the Lombok Treaty committed both nations to cooperation and consultation in defense and law enforcement, combating international crime and terrorism, and sharing intelligence.

The two countries also agreed they would not “in any manner support or participate in activities by any person or entity which constitutes a threat to the stability, sovereignty or territorial integrity of the other Party”.

Then, suddenly last week Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard and US President Barack Obama announced that up to 2,500 American Marines would be stationed in Darwin, the largest port in Australia closest to Indonesia. This newspaper described the news as a “bombshell”.

Indonesia’s Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa had apparently been alerted ahead of the announcement. Did this comply with the Lombok Treaty clause on “consultation”? Only if you embrace Australian newspeak where the word has become synonymous with informing others after a cast-iron decision has been made.

That wasn’t the only gulf in interpretation. It seems Australia’s decision to allow heavily armed foreign forces to dig in on the border doesn’t fall into the category of threatening the other’s “stability, sovereignty or territorial integrity”.

Indonesia appears to differ. Natalegawa, who was educated in the UK and Australia and is no slouch in understanding the subtleties of English, was reported as saying it could create “a vicious circle of tension and mistrust”. In plain speak, this is instability. The treaty was designed to do the opposite.

Establishing a US base in northern Australia is meant to send a message to India and China, the two growing super-powers. But between those faraway places and the Great South Land lies a lovely archipelago, the world’s third-largest democracy. This strategic zone will now have American warships, warplanes, submarines and helicopter gunships on a nearby beach — and Indonesians weren’t asked what they thought.

Perception depends on position. Living a few hundred kilometers northwest of Darwin, I have a different view of plans to turn the Northern Territory into an armed camp than when I lived in Perth.

If I was still in my home state (and earlier state of ignorance about Southeast Asia), I might have thought the idea of beefy American soldiers between little me and the land-hungry masses of Asia to be comforting.

Most Australians know about their nation’s empty interior and over-populated neighbors. We’ve grown up fearing the menacing arrows of descending communism believing that only the gallant forces of the Free World could stop the evil Red Tide, just as they halted the Japanese in the 1940s.

But then we matured and it seemed that the gravity theory driving Australian foreign policy had been buried. Wrong. Last week it was exhumed and revived.

It’s been embarrassing trying to explain to Indonesians why a sovereign nation would allow foreign troops to be based on its soil, unless, of course, the host is weak, insecure and subservient to a colonial master.

That’s the obvious logic, and no end of rabbiting on about independent alliances and historical ties will shake local opinion. My friends are just a mite confused — why the US military and not the UK when Australia has the Union Jack on its flag and the Queen’s head on its currency?

It would be easier trying to explain cricket.

The Indonesian media response has been robust with commentators asking how the deal sits alongside the regular pleas for Australians to develop friendly grassroots relationships with the people next door. There’s been much talk of a new Pearl Harbor.

How would Australians react if Indonesia suddenly announced a similar number of Chinese troops being stationed in Bali? Would Canberra accept the “normal bilateral agreement” line? If our Javanese neighbors in suburban Malang invite Ambonese hardmen (the preman usually used for “protection”) to settle in and flex their muscles, my family would be rapidly reappraising our community relationships.

Does Indonesia have territorial ambitions on Australia? It’s about as impossible to erase this deeply-
embedded but absurd fear in the Australian psyche, as it is to convince the electorate that the US will not necessarily dash into the fray should the continent be attacked.

The Indonesian armed forces would be formidable defenders of their land, but don’t appear to have the equipment, funds, or enthusiasm to invade 7.69 million square kilometers. There’s no discernable political appetite for such an insane adventure. Terrorists occasionally add Australia in their visions of a Caliphate but these crackpots are on the fringe of the fringe.

The last test of US resolve in this region came during the 1999 East Timor Referendum crisis when Australia appealed for American involvement. Then president Bill Clinton maneuvered a few warships but kept them over the horizon. The tension with Indonesia was an Australian problem, and no grunts’ boots were among the international peacekeepers that trod the turf of what is now Timor Leste.

The realpolitik is that future US policy will be based on that nation’s national interests at the time and having a US Marine base in Australia will make not a whit of difference. If Washington decrees these troops will be deployed elsewhere or sent back to their northern hemisphere home, Canberra’s agreements with the US will have no more value than the Lombok Treaty.

In the meantime, we Australians have to remain in this region for the rest of our existence. Better Gillard puts her government’s energies into encouraging us to understand and appreciate our neighbors than being matey with the Marines.

If we really must have a US presence, then invite the Peace Corps.

The writer is an East Java-based journalist.

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| | | | | | | | Post Comments | Comments (19)

Edo E | Tue, 29/11/2011 - 09:11am

@ Mauricio, I only completed your sentence about Pearl Harbor, nothing more. Funny how you concentrate on that irrelevancy and "forget" completely the rest, very especially the debunking of your adored US-"policy of engagement". But that's how rhetorical manipulation (fill in some non existent gaps) and diversion (9/11...) works when caught red handed, right? Your zero comments about the gold in Papua and about the official link regarding the near 700 foreign military US-bases (this is the main subject here, remember?) exposes you as a fraud. A pity.

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Mauricio | Tue, 29/11/2011 - 07:11am

I set you straight of several accounts and fill in your gaps of glaring ignorance, and this is your come back? The US provoked the attack on Pearl Harbor? That's as foul an accusation as the pathetic, pathological delusion that 9/11 was carried out by the CIA. Yeah, you know what you're talking about...

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Edo E | Mon, 28/11/2011 - 10:11am

Mauricio, you surely mean the US-provoked Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1945, when only the US-elite (including Roosevelt...) knew about the imminent attack and didn't warn their own people in Hawaii, to play afterwards the "surprised", "offended" guys. The military shield was created later to counter the real threat of Communism, of course, while the emergence of some Asian countries was surely more self-made than due to altruistic motives of the USA (else, the "former" [?] US-colony Philippines would be also at the top...). And I'm sure you know about the exemplary fate of the Vietnamese, who can tell what real US-"policy of engagement" did to their country and how gloriously the GIs run away from there. On the other side, one has to admit that the USA did gain fantastic military victories against superpowers like Grenada and Panama, having curiously more problems with underdogs like Afghanistan and Iraq. Maybe that's the reason why they need more than an aircraft carrier to swallo... ehm, ... put an eye on Papua, where the interest is almost purely economical (gold. A lot of gold) against a future (and VERY real) Wahhabization of Indonesia. The USA has almost 700 foreign military bases in many countries of the world (please check the FBI-report http://www.acq.osd.mil/ie/download/bsr/BSR2010Baseline.pdf ) to defend their (former) "policy of engagement", read: the interests of their multinationals (including sales of weapons, oil-exploitation, minerals, the abominable GM-seeds, chemicals, etc). China and the Saudis have already began to engage in an economic colonialism too, with different means to achieve that target. The USA and Australia have been allies since WW2, thus China has to surmount a "gap" of 70 years. Peanuts in history.

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Mauricio | Sat, 26/11/2011 - 11:11am

Your analogy of stationing Chinese troops on Flores is specious, Edo. For one, because unlike Australia and the United States, China and Indonesia have not been long-time allies that have fought wars together. For two, because unlike the U.S. which has had and continues to have bases in East Asia, China does not have such history and experience. Therefore to compare U.S. placing troops in Australia with China placing troops in Indonesia is specious and ultimately misguided. Next time you want to make a point with an analogy, think more deeply about the issue.

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Mauricio | Sat, 26/11/2011 - 10:11am

That's December 7, not 11.

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Mauricio | Sat, 26/11/2011 - 10:11am

Wake up and smell the coffee, Edo. The United States has been ENGAGED with East Asia ever since the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1945. The East Asian Miracle and the Rise of the Asian Tigers took place and was made possible only through the active engagement and intervention of the United States in creating a military shield. The re-emergence of Japan, the rise of the RoK, Taiwan, Singapore could not have taken place without the engagement of the United States. The present move to station GIs in Australia is a continuation of a policy of engagement with East Asia dating from December 11, 1945.

Reading up on some history and IR might do you (and this forum) some good, pal. It's only a provocation cuz you don't see the forest from the trees. If you are concerned about a military presenting a clear and present danger to Indonesians, I suggest that you look inwards to your own military and to the threat that it poses to Indonesian nationals and to Indonesian stability.

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Edo E | Sat, 26/11/2011 - 09:11am

@ Mauricio, I'm a little confused. You say that the "GIs in Australia are a SIGNAL, a token that says that the United States is ENGAGED and it has willing allies in the region." If this is true, then this is clearly a threat and a provocation, of course. Just imagine China stationing 5,000 soldiers on a future base in Flores. The howls and hypocritical whining from the USA and Australia would be almost unbearable.

With a US-company getting FREELY 99% of the profits, I see absolutely no need to take the whole island militarily, as it would be completely counterproductive (the fight against guerrillas and local soldiers would only hamper the production, and they don't want that). Besides, political colonialism is being replaced by economical corporation-colonialism. With the base in Darwin, they are only preparing for FUTURE conflicts against the radicals.

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