How to Avoid Another Kosovo in South Asia

Indonesia could become the next big test of the international community’s ability to meet the challenge of separatism. If the United States and other international actors can prevent this deeply fractured nation of 210 million people and more than 13,000 islands from following the bloody path of the Balkans, they could create a precedent for dealing with what is likely to be the greatest threat to international peace and security in the coming decade. If they fail, however, there is little hope that the world will be able to develop the approaches necessary to control separatism and reduce the risk of conflicts like those over Dagestan in Russia, Tibet in China, Kurdistan in Turkey and Kashmir in India.

The immediate focus in Indonesia is East Timor. On Aug. 30, voters in the former Portuguese colony, which was forcibly annexed by Indonesia in 1976, will decide whether their territory should become independent. The U.N.-supervised referendum is widely expected to favor independence, but there are fears that anti-independence militias in the province will attempt to use violence to block a transition to independence. Last week, these fears were forcefully expressed by former President Jimmy Carter. The risk is sufficiently real to have prompted U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to propose doubling the size of the U.N. force that will oversee the transition in East Timor. According to some reports, the United States is developing contingency plans for the deployment of an international peacekeeping force.

While the Indonesian government has pledged to accept the results of the referendum in East Timor, it is determined to prevent two other rebellious provinces, Aceh on the island of Sumatra and Irian Jaya on the island of New Guinea, from breaking away. In addition, it must deal with violence between Muslims and Christians, which has resulted in at least 84 deaths in the last few weeks in Kota Ambon, the provincial capital of the fabled “Spice Islands,” now known as Malaku.

Indonesia offers a good opportunity to experiment with new approaches to separatism, for several reasons. The country is in the midst of an important political transition. In May 1998, the Asian financial crisis and popular protest forced President Suharto, who had ruled Indonesia since seizing power in a coup in 1966, to resign. His handpicked successor, B.J. Habibie, has opened up the political system in many ways. In August 1998, he agreed to the referendum in East Timor and ended a decade-long anti-insurgency campaign in Aceh. More important, he oversaw, in June, the first free and open national parliamentary elections in more than 40 years.

The elections, part of a long and extremely complicated presidential-selection process, were won by the country’s leading reform party, the Indonesian Democratic Party in Struggle. The party, led by Megawati Sukarnoputri, daughter of Sukarno, Indonesia’s first president and the father of modern Indonesian nationalism, received nearly 34% of the vote. Golkar, the ruling government party led by Habibie, finished second with almost 22%, with most of the remaining votes divided among three Islamic parties. Although Megawati is expected to become president when the selection process is completed in November, the formulas used to create the 700-member electoral assembly that will make the final selection give Habibie a chance to put together a coalition to keep himself in office.

The forces of Suharto’s regime, especially the military, could still attempt to thwart the reformers in Indonesia, either by staging a coup or, much more likely, by working behind the scenes to influence the selection of the next president. But given the growing strength and determination of pro-democracy groups, especially students, such an effort would almost certainly lead to popular protest.

The international community can add its voice to the debate by making it clear that financial assistance from the International Monetary Fund and other sources will stop flowing if Indonesia does not continue down the reform path. As important, Washington and others should use their leverage to encourage the next Indonesian government to consider new approaches to its problem of separatism.

Currently, Megawati and her party, whose strongest support is on the island of Java, are as committed as Habibie and Golkar to preventing Aceh and Irian Jaya from seceding. Even with respect to East Timor, Megawati has suggested that Habibie may have been wrong to agree to hold the referendum, though she has vowed to accept its results.

The message Indonesia’s leaders need to hear is that the costs of backtracking on East Timor or attempting to defeat separatism elsewhere militarily will be high. The conditions that allowed Indonesia and other governments to suppress separatist movements in the post-World War II era have changed in at least three ways: First, as evidenced in Yugoslavia, the principle of national sovereignty is no longer sacrosanct. While most governments, including that of the United States, still pay lip service to this principle, the reality is that they are becoming much more willing to disregard it when it conflicts with other principles such as human rights, democracy and self-determination.

In addition, the growing power of the human rights movement, both around the world and in countries like Indonesia, coupled with the development of international mechanisms such as the war crimes tribunal to investigate and punish gross human rights abuses, are placing constraints on the ability of governments to use force to put down rebellions. The collapse of the Soviet Union has removed another card from these governments’ hands: They can no longer exploit superpower rivalries to extract the military support and political quiescence necessary to crush and isolate rebel groups.

Finally, as a result of the globalization of financial markets and the decline in unconditioned foreign aid, countries afflicted by continuing violence and political instability pay a much greater price in terms of capital flight, currency depreciation and lost economic opportunities.

For all these reasons, the next government in Indonesia has a strong incentive to find better ways to deal with its restive provinces. One answer lies in devising new formulas for governance that grant regions greater autonomy. In the best case, these would allow regions to exercise cultural and political self-determination, and to gain a greater degree of control over their economic futures, without creating a new batch of poor, weak and highly dependent countries posing as nation-states. Put another way, if the cultural, economic and political rights of the citizens of East Timor, Irian Jaya and Aceh were guaranteed, they would be much better off being part of Indonesia than being separate states.

The time for the international community to launch a coordinated effort to help Indonesia during its political transformation is now. Paradoxically, the unsettled state of politics in Jakarta enables Indonesian leaders to experiment with political formulas that would foster the emergence of a greater new Indonesia. To give this effort a better chance to succeed, the United States and other powers should be prepared to assemble a package of substantial economic and financial assistance, to be delivered on the condition that the Indonesian government allow its rebellious provinces to decide their own political fates. Separatist leaders, meanwhile, should understand that if they choose to break away after their rights have been guaranteed, they will receive no assistance from the international community.

The United Nations could also play a role in helping to persuade separatist movements from answering the siren call of independent nationhood. For example, an assembly composed of regions, possibly including ethnic groups, could be created to give its members a greater degree of recognition and self-confidence.

In the middle of the crisis in Kosovo, all the experts lamented the absence of any efforts to prevent the conflict from escalating into another form of ethnic cleansing. Indonesia is an opportunity to show that history need not be repeated.*