Australian hospitality, a trick or a treat?

The Jakarta Post - Thursday, May 31, 2007

Meidyatama Suryodiningrat

The year is 1830. Dutch Governor-General Markus de Kock invites Pangeran Diponegoro to meet in Magelang to negotiate a cessation of a five-year uprising in Java.

But it was all a trick. By the end of the meeting the Javanese prince had been taken captive and exiled in the most devious of deceptions.

It would be pure hyperbole to mention Sutiyoso's name in the same breath as the legendary Javanese prince, but Jakarta's 12th governor surely feels the same kind of rage and betrayal suffered by Diponegoro.

At least Diponegoro knew he was betrayed by the enemy.

Tuesday's incident in Sydney, in which Australian officials attempted to serve Sutiyoso with a subpoena in his hotel room, leaves much to be regretted and underscores why relations between the two nations are (still) burdened with a deep-seated mistrust.

Despite the treaties, embraces between dignitaries, charity and unending exchange of peoples, Australia remains a nice destination but never home for Indonesians.

A sociocultural anomaly on the fringes of Asia proper.

Don't believe the propaganda of "good relations". There is a large portion of Indonesians, not least officials, who are genuinely wary of that large island - excuse me continent – to the south. They just don't admit it in public.

Jakartans are not in love with their governor. In fact, if a popularity contest were to be held here today Australian Prime Minister John Howard would likely score as high, or low, as Sutiyoso. But the manner in which he was reportedly treated in Sydney was just plain rude.

According to Indonesian officials, two Australian officers snuck into the governor's hotel room without his permission, waving around a summons to appear before an inquest into a 32-year-old case which, by all accounts, Sutiyoso probably had nothing to do with.

Even if Sutiyoso was traveling as a private citizen this behavior would be uncouth. But he was there in his capacity as governor, an official guest of the New South Wales premier.

There are more appropriate means by which his testimony could have been sought, and if pursued many Indonesians may even have been supportive of the endeavor.

The zealousness with which the attempted subpoena was handled raises distressing questions for Indonesians heading to Australia. Many officials have a military background. Most served tours of duty in East Timor, including President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. Is this the kind of treatment they can expect?

Forget diplomatic immunity, what about courtesy?

Even hosts are expected to knock first when they have a guest staying in their extra bedroom.

Australia is a great nation in which many things can be admired. Its democratic traditions, the inherent sense of personal manifestation and its strong vein of egalitarianism.

But it is this unbridled sense of impartiality which leads to unnecessarily rude assaults on propriety.

Two years ago the speaker of India's lower house, Somnath Chatterjee, canceled a planned visit to meet with the executive committee of the Commonwealth Parliament Association after Australian authorities refused to grant a waiver which would have ensured he and his wife would not be frisked by airport security.

Earlier a diplomatic row erupted when Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Michael Somare was made to remove his shoes during a security check at Brisbane airport.

If Australia takes so much pride in the way it treats a neighboring head of state, the governor of Southeast Asia's biggest metropolis and the speaker of a parliament which represents the world's largest democracy, then Sutiyoso would do well to echo Chatterjee's remark: "If I am not trusted then I should not go there."

Perhaps the legal advances of the Australian inquest were done in view of transnational justice.

But Sutiyoso is hardly in the same league as Chile's Augusto Pinochet who was detained in London in 1998, or Chad's Hissein Habre who was arrested in Senegal two years later.

The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations regulates the concept of immunity. Nevertheless its application depends on a quid pro quo that all countries honor our rights as scrupulously as we honor theirs.

Though Indonesians do not perceive their former colonial masters the Dutch with loathing, neither do they remember them with any fondness.

It is not that they were especially brutal - all colonial powers had bouts of butchery - instead it was probably their deceitful ways and means which left a spiteful aftertaste.

The Dutch eventually only became part of history, but never a memory.

More incidents like that which befell Sutiyoso will result in an equally apathetic association with Australia – acquaintances not friends, neighbors not allies.

Perhaps we in Indonesia are at fault for expecting too much from one who is merely an acquaintance and neighbor.

The worst part of it all is that the impetuousness of two Australian officers will elevate Sutiyoso to a martyr for the next few days.

That is something we could have done without; a tribute the governor does not deserve.