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| COUNTRY IN CRISIS | |
 November 12, 1999 
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RAY SUAREZ: For more, we get two views: Paul Wolfowitz was ambassador
to Indonesia during the Reagan administration. He's currently the dean
of the Paul Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns
Hopkins University. And Adam Schwarz is a consultant and former journalist,
and the author of a new book, "A Nation in Waiting: Indonesia's
Search for Stability." Both were in Indonesia three weeks ago when
Abdurrahman Wahid was elected president. ADAM SCHWARZ, Author: He certainly has. Well, except for the last part. I'm not sure things are quite as calm as he would like. But in terms of giving a sense of having turned a new page, he's certainly done that in his treatment of the military, and as your opening piece had pointed out, putting in a civilian as a defense minister, the inclusion of numerous parties in his cabinet, which is something we haven't seen before in Indonesia, and in his comments in reaching out to the outer islands of Indonesia in trying to develop a sense of inclusiveness. All of these are welcome and new in Indonesia. RAY SUAREZ: Paul Wolfowitz, you've been quoted as someone who's praised the new president Wahid as having the temperament necessary for this time in the country's history. Tell us more about him. PAUL WOLFOWITZ, Former U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia: I think it's more than just temperament. He has an incredible vision. This is the man who is now the president of the country of the largest Muslim population in the world. For more than a dozen years he has been the leader of the largest Muslim organization in that country with some 30 million very devoted followers. and he is as strong an apostle of the idea of religious tolerance as you could find anywhere in the world. He went out of his way five days in office to go and visit a Hindu temple in Bali, participate in Hindu prayers, and talk about the fact that the ministry of religious affairs has to stop being the ministry of only one religion, i.e., Islam, his religion, and become the religion of all the people of Indonesia. It's a very important message because it's crucial to building national unity. It's crucial to getting the ethnic Chinese who have been persecuted for so long to come back. But it's also part of his sense of mission in life. He believes with a passion that Islam is completely consistent with democracy and human rights and freedom and is very upset with Muslims who interpret it a different way. RAY SUAREZ: But he's not out of step with his own country. I mean, his brand of Islam is a little different. PAUL WOLFOWITZ: That's absolutely right but he is probably the most outstanding spokesman you could find for it. I'd say one other thing. I think he has a keen sense of strategy. I think he realizes, for example, that one of his biggest problems is how to bring the military under civilian control. He knows he has to do it. He has taken some decisive steps to start doing that by naming a civilian defense minister, by putting an admiral instead of a general in charge of the military, by moving a lot of people around in personnel positions in an interesting way. He also knows he can't do it unless he has allies in the military. He knows he can't do everything all at once. So I think the problems they face, as you correctly showed in your introduction, are just staggering; they're almost superhuman. But all can I say is this man, blind though he is and in certain ways frail, has unbelievable mental energy and vitality. And if the country has a chance with anybody, I think it's with him. RAY SUAREZ: Adam Schwarz, are you as optimistic as the ambassador seems to be about President Wahid's declawing of the military? ADAM SCHWARZ: I am. I share Paul's view on both President Wahid's vision and his energy and his objectives, what he intends to do. I think we would both agree that the problems and the challenges are enormous. And it's certainly not going to be an easy ride. The military is clearly -- the power is on the decline. If we look at it from where we were two months ago, it was a consensus view that a military figure would be the vice president, if not the president. That did not happen. And through the various steps that that Paul just mentioned, clearly the military has seen its power recede. Having said that, I don't think anybody would deny that the military retains enough influence to, if not retake power down the road, if things take a turn for the worse, it certainly has the influence to undermine and to undercut the effectiveness of the government of President Wahid. And that's why on a number of different areas, corruption being one of them, and the prosecution of former President Suharto being another, there are certainly some compromises and some deals that are going to have to be made for the sake of maintaining the effectiveness of his government. RAY SUAREZ: Well, just a few months ago, Ambassador, the pundits were saying one way to get the military to show its hand was to promise Aceh a referendum, the kind that East Timor had had. Yet, here's President Wahid saying that such a thing is possible, even likely. PAUL WOLFOWITZ: Well, he's also saying it's not ready yet; we need time. I think he's trying to deal with an incredibly difficult situation. I think he realizes that he can't keep Aceh in Indonesia by force and therefore in principle he concedes that they have a right to choose. But he is going to be doing everything between now and whenever that referendum happens to persuade them that the right choice is to stay in Indonesia. And I think the first step, in a way, is a million people in the streets of the capital of Aceh demonstrating for independence. On the one hand that makes people scared -- maybe the country is falling apart. But they wake up the next morning and they notice the military was not called out. People were not shot. It may be a different kind of government. And if there's any hope of resolving this issue peacefully, it has to be through backing off the military force, giving people in Aceh enormous autonomy. It's a terribly big gamble but I think it's the only one that might work. RAY SUAREZ: Well, there's a rebel army in the bush in Irian Jaya as well. Why shouldn't they press their demands even harder? PAUL WOLFOWITZ: Well, they will. But each of these situations is different. And to be honest, I don't think the opposition in Irian Jaya is anything like the level of East Timor, for that matter, Aceh. But again they are going to have to work on it. And one of the interesting things he did was assign his vice president, Megawati, the task of working with some of the provinces like Irian Java where she has, I think, a certain special appeal to people. And again, it's going to be to try to convince the bulk of people that they're better off staying within Indonesia. RAY SUAREZ: Adam Schwarz, a lot of the news from Indonesia over the last couple of weeks -- barring this violence -- has been pretty reassuring, at least in the business sense, yet there are no thumbs up in the marketplace for this country.- -- no signs of faith -- big faith yet that it's back on its feet. ADAM SCHWARZ: Not yet, but I would say that relative to where we were a month ago, the mood is certainly brighter and more optimistic in the markets. There is now a sense that things can get better, which is not a sense we had a month or two months ago where Indonesians in general, and the markets in particular, were sort of filled with gloom and foreboding. The question going forward for the economy remains as it has been, is can there be sustained political stability in Indonesia? Now with the assumption of power by President Wahid, we have the prospect of that happening. Doesn't mean it's going to happen, and I think the markets are waiting to see whether it's going to happen. And on this bigger issue that we've been talking about in terms of Aceh and Irian Java, will Indonesia stay together? Will Indonesia remain as the Indonesia we know it? It's going to be a long process to convince people that that is the case, that President Wahid has what it takes to deal with those problems; that his health will hold out; that he can maintain the support and unity and cohesion of this cabinet that will work effectively, and leaving aside the specifics of the economic reform agenda such as corporate and bank restructuring. So it's a long agenda, but would I say that the markets are now in an optimistic poise waiting to go forward, waiting to have a few more things demonstrated, rather than having thrown up their arms and given up on the place, which I think would have been a more general description of the way things were a month or two ago. RAY SUAREZ: Should investors be reassured by the pardon of Suharto? ADAM SCHWARZ: Well, again, it depends on how that is sort of interpreted. I think the way it gradually will be interpreted is what is going again to bring stability and peace and a sense of reconciliation and some forward momentum in the politics of Indonesia. RAY SUAREZ: Let me get a quick read on that same question from the ambassador. This pardon, setting the house in order, just part of the inevitable process at this point? PAUL WOLFOWITZ: Well, as he said in his meeting at the White House or after the meeting he said there were two things -- Suharto was their president. That has to be respected. And he made it very clear last night -- the children are a different matter. If I were the children, I'd be looking for residence elsewhere. But secondly, the reality is that Suharto has still a lot of influence, a lot of capability to do mischief. He was pretty explicit about that. He doesn't want to see that unleashed. There's a third thing which he didn't say but which I suspect is in the back of his mind, and this man is a strategist. He thinks several steps ahead like a chess player. I think before you get to a pardon, you're going to see some kind of arrangement for restitution, that is to say, some degree of financial compensation for the people of Indonesia as part of his notion of how Islamic forgiveness is earned. RAY SUAREZ: Paul Wolfowitz, Adam Schwarz, thanks for being with us. |
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