I commend this article to you. Crouch is a seasoned Indonesia scholar based in the region. Managements may increasingly ask members about Indonesia's "viability" and Crouch's arguments and analysis may prove useful in constructing a response. For what its worth, I personally found many of his arguments compelling.

Wayne Forrest, Executive Director, AICC

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The Age Saturday 22 July 2000

News Feature

Why Indonesia won't fall apart

By HAROLD CROUCH

More and more, Indonesia is portrayed as approaching the brink of disintegration. After the loss of East Timor, separatist sentiment remains strong in Aceh and Irian Jaya (now often called Papua) while a virtual civil war continues in the Maluku islands. In the past two years religious and ethnic clashes have claimed many victims in virtually all parts of Indonesia. Even in Jakarta police seem incapable of preventing vigilante killings of petty criminals.

These developments have convinced some observers that the "Javanese empire" is on the path to dissolution. The "unity" imposed on the diversity of the archipelago by Dutch rule and sustained for the past half-century under two Indonesian presidents now seems fragile.

In a sense the idea of "Indonesia" is more like "Europe" than it is like "France" or "Germany". The people of Indonesia belong to dozens of regional communities with distinct languages, cultures and histories. Indonesia, of course, is not alone in this respect. Until the recent past such states were accepted as "normal", but the experience of the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and Pakistan, raises the question of their viability.

The perception of Indonesia as a "Javanese empire" with a "Javanese army", however, is a gross caricature. Of course, the Javanese, who make up by far the largest ethnic community with about 45 per cent of the population, are disproportionately represented in the national elite. But they have never monopolised the top positions in the state. Non-Javanese have always been well represented in the leadership of the government, the bureaucracy, military, political parties and various national institutions. This is evident in Abdurrahman Wahid's government, but it was also true of the government of B.J.Habibie (who is a non-Javanese from Sulawesi) and of the Suharto regime.

The common accusation that the wealth of the Outer Islands has been exploited for Java's benefit is misleading. The main beneficiaries of this exploitation were the members of the elite in Jakarta - both Javanese and non-Javanese - and the exploitation was felt not only in the Outer Islands, but also on Java itself.

The fall of Suharto's regime allowed regional resentment against Jakarta to surface. There were protests against the effective appointment of regional heads of government by the centre, the exploitation of regional resources by central interests, the failure to take account of distinctive regional cultures and traditions, and the role of the army as the ultimate guarantor of government power.

Last year the Habibie government introduced radical legislation creating wide regional autonomy within the existing constitution. In principle, the new law decentralises authority over all fields except foreign affairs, defence and security, justice, monetary and fiscal policy, religion and a number of broad economic areas. Another fundamental reform provides for the election of regional heads - provincial governors and district heads - in contrast to the practice of the Suharto era when they were, in effect, appointed by the centre after transparently manipulated elections. Another new law, on fiscal redistribution, allows regional governments to retain a substantial share of revenues produced in their regions.

Can these regional autonomy laws satisfy regional demands? The government recognises that in two provinces - Aceh and Papua, where armed separatist movements have been fighting for decades, these autonomy laws do not go far enough to meet grievances. The special nature of Aceh and Papua was recognised in 1998 when the People's Consultative Assembly called for legislation granting "special autonomy" to the two provinces.

Both the Habibie and Abdurrahman governments have been conciliatory towards separatists in Aceh and Papua. Habibie publicly apologised to the people of Aceh while Abdurrahman offered to incorporate rebel fighters into the Indonesian army. In May, an agreement was reached in Aceh for what was called a "humanitarian pause" in hostilities although fighting has by no means ended.

In Papua, the leadership of the independence movement passed from guerrilla fighters in the villages to prominent public figures in Jayapura and other cities who had become alienated from Indonesian rule and saw new prospects in the country's changed circumstances. Instead of the repression of the Suharto regime, the Abdurrahman government engaged the Papuan nationalists in discussion. The president not only allowed a pro-independence conference to be held in Jayapura in May, but even provided funds. Now Papuan nationalists are permitted to fly the Papuan flag in public places.

Still, it is widely believed that if referenda were held in Aceh and Papua, the vote would be for independence. Moreover, in both provinces the demand for independence is backed by armed movements. We cannot dismiss the possibility of either Aceh or Papua eventually obtaining independence, but at this stage such outcomes seem unlikely.

But even if one or other of these provinces became independent, it is by no means obvious that other provinces, even if they wanted to, could follow their example.

A QUICK glance at the economic prospects of potentially independent provinces helps to explain why separatism is not a particularly attractive option. Only four resource-rich provinces - Aceh, Papua, Riau and East Kalimantan - would gain unambiguous economic benefits from independence. The resource-poor provinces that receive subsidies from the centre have no economic incentive to demand independence. While independence might turn four provinces into "Bruneis", about 10 would more resemble Bangladesh while the other dozen would be "poor". In strategic terms, the four "Bruneis" would not necessarily be better-off as they could become "Kuwaits" attracting the attention of more powerful neighbors.

Only two provinces - Aceh with a population of 4 million and Papua with 2.5 million, out of an Indonesian population of nearly 220 million - have both the economic potential for independence and established popular political movements calling for it. Riau and East Kalimantan have the economic potential, but not the political movements.

In oil-rich Riau, local leaders occasionally call for independence, but they are urban politicians who are hardly likely to opt for armed resistance in the jungle if their demands are not met.

In the other oil-rich province, East Kalimantan, some support for federalism exists, but local demands seem to have been softened by the new laws on regional autonomy. The other provinces have neither economic potential nor popular movements.

There is a tendency in popular discussion of Indonesia's future to confuse separatist activities with communal violence. Other provinces afflicted by widespread violence, in particular Maluku and West Kalimantan and now Central Sulaweswi, are extremely serious problems for the central government. In contrast to the picture often presented in the international press, these are not cases of separatism, but inter-communal conflict. The warring communities are not fighting against Jakarta but against each other.

In these regions local leaders do not demand that the central government's military and police be withdrawn - as they do in Aceh and Papua, and did in East Timor. Instead they call on Jakarta to provide more, and most crucially, "neutral", troops.

In Maluku, in particular, the conflict has become unmanageable because local Ambonese military and police personnel themselves consist of Christians and Muslims who tend to side with one or other of the warring factions. Now troops from other parts of Indonesia have exacerbated the conflict by taking sides.

There is no short-term solution to communal violence. While the presence of adequate security forces is essential, in most cases it will take years to restore conditions that will enable ethnic and religious communities to live peacefully together. Yet Indonesia's now-regular ethnic conflict does not mean the whole country is on the point of breaking apart. A large majority of Indonesians live peacefully in areas that are not been torn asunder by communal conflict.

The sense of being Indonesian is still strong in most parts of the country although there is resentment against the centralised power of the Suharto era. The government, first under Habibie and then under Abdurrahman, has begun to address these grievances both through the new regional autonomy laws and the democratisation of the past two years. Only Aceh and Papua have separatist movements that might succeed, but even there, the prospects are remote.

Harold Crouch works for the Brussels-based International Crisis Group in Jakarta. He is a senior fellow in the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies at the Australian National University.