May 26, 2003

A MEGA-JOB FOR A MEGA-LADY

By Tom Plate

Not enough Indonesians in America?

© 2003 Asia Pacific Media Network

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 awesome archipelago of maybe 13,000 islands and some 220 million people. Most of them are moderate Muslims, and there are more of those in Indonesia than anywhere.

Its leader is Megawati Sukarnoputri, the daughter of Sukarno, founder of modern post-colonial Indonesia. She may not be the second coming of Margaret Thatcher in the steel-nerves department, but she's no dishrag 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 westernmost 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 Megawati, a democrat, as it once propped up the autocratic and corrupt Suharto, her father's successor. But the Bush administration is encumbered by a well-intentioned but ill-conceived Leahy-Feingold congressional amendment that limits U.S. military aid to the TNI. This bodes to become a dagger in the heart of the budding Indonesia democracy.

For at the very time the embattled Megawati, democratically chosen, could well use the well-trained American military -- so evident in Iraq -- in her backyard to modernize and democratize 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 U.S. military aid, now that Indonesia is becoming a moderate-Muslim democracy, the United States should therefore do relatively nothing for Megawati.

This is American do-good-ism at its nightmarish worst. The Western human rights groups that have cowed Congress into this madness will have mainly themselves to blame if Megawati falls and Indonesia reverts to military rule.

President George Bush knows the deal. Indeed, his administration figured out the strategic vitality of Asia more quickly than its Clinton predecessors.

Take only the Iraq reconstruction mess (if one could) and the small-potatoes tax cut (as one should) out of the Beltway picture, 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 blew in for a public fence-mending trip that Roh Moo Hyun and Bush handled well. Last week the glamorous and articulate Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo huddled with our Commander-in-Chief and returned home bearing U.S. contracts, official expressions of support for her war on terrorism and a big smile. Bush likes her -- why not? Like Mega, she's against terrorism and she's smart.

This week (May 23-34), it was the Japanese president's turn, with a bonus barbecue at the Crawford ranch thrown in. Now there's a rumor Bush may pop over to John Howard's Australia for the world rugby championship in October, stopping along the way in Manila to see Gloria. If he does, Bush should also stop over in Jakarta and see Mega. She is no obnoxious Chirac taunting the American tiger but a potential moderate-Muslim ally in a region two key American 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 dollar. Its stock market has gained 25 percent in value over the past two months. And, politically, Megawati has benefited not only from revulsion among moderate Muslims against the Bali massacre and other terrorist violence but 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 U.S. troops being shot at, but also because it has but the tiniest diaspora stateside. Contrast that in America there are about 800,000 ethnic Japanese, more than a million Koreans, almost 2 million Filipinos and countless Chinese. The number of Indonesians in the United States: barely 40,000.

But note this: An aide to a leading military official in the Asia-Pacific has only one map on his wall. Mammoth China or strategically vital Japan or the troubled Korean peninsula? No, it's of Indonesia. The officer points to the westernmost point and has you imagine Seattle, Wash. He goes easternmost and imagines Portland, Me. "But it doesn't go as deep as Texas does in the United States," he admits. Even so, he is pretty confident his Commander-in-Chief will locate Indonesia on his own geopolitical map very soon.

The above weekly column has just appeared in the Honolulu Advertiser, The South China Morning Post and The Straits Times of Singapore. The author, Tom Plate, is a regular columnist at these three papers. The column also appears in other world newspapers, including The San Francisco Chronicle, The Seattle Times, The Japan Times and The Korea Times. Email him at: tplate@ucla.edu.

For publication and reprint rights, contact the author directly or John Simpson (john.simpson@latsi.com) of the Los Angeles Times Syndicate International.

Previous Columns:

Is Japan Back, at Least in the Eyes of Texas? (May 19, 2003)

The Importance of Being Sane (May 12, 2003)

The Singapore Sling of a Precedent-Setting Deal (May 7, 2003)

When Politics Can Be Injurious to People's Health (May 5, 2003)

A New Global Force to be Reckoned With (April 28, 2003)

© 2003 Asia Pacific Media Network