Bangkok, Thailand, 15-12-2005

Democracy, Reforms and Conflict Resolution: The Indonesian Experience

 

Acceptance Speech
by
Dr. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono
President of the Republic of Indonesia

“DEMOCRACY, REFORMS AND CONFLICT RESOLUTION : THE INDONESIAN EXPERIENCE”

At the Presentation of
Honorary Doctorate Degree in Political Science
Thammasat University
Bangkok, Thailand, 15 December 2005

Bismillah Hirrahmanirrahim
President of Thammasat University
Faculty members, staff and administrators,
Dear students,
Ladies and gentlemen,
(Sawadikab)

It is a great honor for me to receive this Honorary Doctorate Degree in Political Science from Thammasat University.
Thammasat University is widely known to be one of the best centers of excellence in Thailand. Your reputation for academic excellence is recognized throughout the region and beyond, and you have produced many great scholars, who have gone on to become champions of progress. I am greatly honored, and deeply humbled, to be confered this honorary Doctorate Degree by Thammasat University.

I hope you know what you are doing, because I am not a very good politician. I tend to see myself as a straight soldier who, by the force of history, got dragged into the mind-boggling world of politics.

I started my public service as a military officer in the early 1970’s, and it was only late in my military career. I did start getting to know politics, when I was assigned as Assistant for Social and Political Affairs for the Armed Forces Commander. I retired 5 years early from my military career in 1999, because I was running out of excuse to offer to President Wahid, who asked me to join his Cabinet as Minister for Mines and Energy. Being permanently out of military, I have continued to be in Government and in politics since then, until my present job as President of Indonesia.

You know, if you ask me, I am not entirely sure that politics is a science. As a practitioner, I always find it difficult to scientificaly explain or predict politics with the same degree of certainty as in natural science.

But I do know that politics is an ART. Some say that "politics is the art of the possible". And for me, politics is the art of change, of growth, of transformation.

I stand here before you today to share some thoughts on Indonesia’s experience with democracy, reforms and conflict resolution.

I have always spoken about the need for our democracy to connect with good governance. What needs to be equally stressed is the need for a democracy to develop an ability to resolve its internal conflicts.
This is particularly true for Indonesia as a multi-ethnic, multi-religious country undergoing rapid and dramatic democratic transition. Let me explain how.

Since 1997, Indonesia has embarked on a great national project, fueled by a newfound energy and sense of purpose.
It was catalyzed by a financial crisis that started here in Thailand, and spread to Malaysia, The Philippines, South Korea, and Indonesia. That financial crisis led to economic crisis, social crisis, mass demonstrations and public riots, and political crisis that led to the downfall of the Government of President Suharto. Thus began the powerful "reformasi" movement, a nation-wide rejection of all forms of Collusion, Corruption and Nepotism (known as KKN), and a call for reformS.

Indonesia's history in the last 8 year, therefore, has been a history of pursuing and pushing, often painfully, for reforms and democratic transition. It has not been an easy 8 years. We stumbled many times, and were tested by crisis after crisis. But the Indonesian nation was born out of a great struggle. We tend to thrive on crises as a way to elevate ourselves.

The unique part about our reforms and democratic transition was that they proceeded in parallel with our efforts to resolve old, and emerging, ethnic and separatist conflicts in Indonesia.

The problem was : as we pressed on with reforms, conflicts were rising in Indonesia, in intensity and in scope. We saw this in Aceh and in Papua, in Poso, in Maluku, in Sampit. These conflicts differed in terms of their intensity and degree of violence, but altogether they claimed many lives, created untold destructions and digressions.

These conflicts also burdened our democratic experiment, and they did this in a variety of ways.

Conflicts drained and sapped the energy of the nation, and deprived the community in conflict the dignity and freedoms of a normal life.

Conflicts could become breeding grounds for extremism and radicalism. This is what happened in Poso, which became a place to recruit, and even provided a training ground, for potential terrorists.

Conflicts produced extreme polarizations in society, and could produced violence and destructions that undermines the
social fabric and institutions of governance.

Conflicts could also harden people's attitude and behaviour, away from rule of law, and towards the imposition of views, intolerance, hatred--all the conditions that are not conducive for democracy.

Resolving conflicts therefore was a top priority for all the Governments in the era of reformasi. It was critical for our national security, our national unity, and to our democratic transition. And we knew that we had to do our best to try to manage these conflicts within a democratic framework.

Eight years into reformasi, Indonesia is in a much better place. In Aceh, the guns are now silent, after a peace deal was signed between the Government and the leadership of the Free Aceh Movement in Helsinki last August. In Papua, the situation is relatively calm, and we hope that the recent formation of the Council of the People of Papua will bring greater stability there. The situation in Poso, Maluku, Sampit are now under control, although we remain vigilant.

Indonesia’s democratic transitions have gone far. Very far. Last year, we held our second free and fair multi-party elections since 1999, which is delivering a more representative Government and greater political stability. Our economy this year is growing around 5.5 -5.7%, despite the tsunami and very high oil price. We have also solidified our national unity. All in all, not bad for a country that just a few years ago were feared to start the "Balkanization" of Southeast Asia.
We still have more work to do to transform Indonesia. But already, we can derive some lessons from our experience in dealing with internal conflicts in Indonesia.

The first thing to remember is that every conflict has a life of its own. Each conflict has its own personality, its own dynamic, and as such, it must be treated on its own merit. Aceh and Papua both contain separatist conflicts, but they cannot be mechanically treated in identical way.

This follows that no single formula exist to resolve all conflicts. You always have to find the "heart" of a conflict before you can find solutions that are specific to the nature of that conflict.

Equally important is that it is always better to prevent than to cure conflicts. Preventing conflict before it happens is better, easier, cheaper, safer, faster and more effective. Once a conflict develops, especially if it is allowed to fester for a long time, it will require more energy and resources to undo.

This is why Governments must develop an ability to detect potential conflicts. An early detection, an early preventive action, is especially relevant in situations, where ethnic or religious differences are mixed with economic competition and social inequality. In the islands of Maluku, for example, we had a community of muslims and christians who lived in peace and harmony for as long as one can remember. But something went wrong, and in 1999, a small street brawl between certain individuals somehow triggered a communal conflict which led to a massive bloodshed.

What happened in Maluku taught us that we can never take religious and ethnic harmony for granted. Even the most harmonious ones are liable for conflict and violence.

Another lesson is that when a conflict cannot be resolved, MANAGE it. Not all conflicts are ripe for resolution. So if the conditions for resolution are absent, do not force it, but keep the conflict contained, manageable, and controllable. There will come a time when the calculus and the dynamics will change, perhaps even the players will change, and when that time comes, make the best of it.

And this leads to my next point : the importance of taking advantage of opportunities. You may be in the dark for a while. But sometimes, opportunity comes knocking out of the blue. And when they come knocking, do not waste that chance, it may not come around again for a long time.

This is what happened to the Aceh peace deal. A deadly tsunami arrived in Aceh, killing over 200,000 Acehnese in a matter of minutes, and destroying much of Aceh. But the tremendous sufferings caused by the tsunami gave political impetus for a renewed peace process.

On the second day after the tsunami, from Aceh, I called on the Free Aceh Movement to end the conflict and to work with
the Government to help the people of Aceh. The GAM leadership abroad were initially reluctant, but eventually they agreed to sit down with my representatives in a series of meetings held in Helsinki. It took only 5 meetings before the GAM leadership finally agreed to drop their demands for secession and accept a peace deal based on special autonomy. The historic MOU that was signed in Helsinki on 15 August marked the first comprehensive conflict resolution settlement ever reached over the conflict in Aceh.

The peace deal was a result of political will and hard negotiations, but to tell you the truth, I am not so sure it would have happened without window of opportunity opened by the tsunami.

In trying to strike a peace deal, attaining trust building between the actors in conflict becomes critical. Without a process of trust building, a resolution is hard to produce.

There are a variety of ways to promote trust building. It usually involves sending the appropriate signals, making the right gestures, making compromises, saying the right words, and doing the right things.

In Poso and Ambon, we were able to manage the bloody conflict by engaging the informal leaders on both sides in an
intense dialogue process, which culminated in the signing of a peace agreement, known as the Malino Agreements. The trust and confidence that evolved between the leaders were critical in the Government's efforts to resolve that conflict.
One important factor in conflict resolution is an ability to evolve a creative process for a political settlement. This is where leaders, mediators, disputants are required to think outside the box, and to tirelessly seek creative solutions to complex problems. In most cases, this depends on the ability to find a win-win solution. A win-win solution ensures that all the players in a conflict have a stake in the success of the peace deal, because they will have lots to gain from its success and more to loose from its failure. This is how the calculus of conflict can be changed.

Finally, there is the importance of post-conflict peace building. It is said that the only thing more important than making peace is keeping it. History is full of empirical examples to this. Peace building involved comprehensive measures, political, legal, economic, social, cultural. And the devil is always in the details. Ultimately, peace building requires sustained political will by the leadership. The difference between a good peace building and a poor one is the difference between a short-lived peace and a long lasting one.

So these, ladies and gentlemen, are SOME of the lessons that we have learned from Indonesia's experience.
Ultimately, resolving our internal conflicts is important because Indonesia is NOT JUST a multiparty democracy. We are multi ethnic, multi religious democracy. Our ability in managing diversity is critical to our survival as a nation.
I do believe that our democracy, combined with decentralization, have enabled us to better manage that diversity, while deflecting conflicts which in the past resulted from a very centralized political structure.
Furthermore, democracy endows us with a habit of dialogue and consultations, and a system of checks and balances, which usually helped the management of conflicts.

Democracy also leads to to greater awareness and respect for human rights, and this in itself is a great boost to resolving conflicts, which often have a strong human rights dimension.

This is where we remind ourselves of the dictum contained in the report of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan titled “In Larger Freedom”, namely that there can be no development without security, no security without development, and neither can be achieved without human rights.

We in Indonesia still have a great deal of work to do: peace and reconciliation is an on-going challenge. But once we have rid ourself completely of these debilitating conflicts, I believe there is no stopping Indonesia from becoming a peaceful, advanced, tolerant, stable democracy.

Insya Allah..I thank you.