POLITICS-INDONESIA: U.S. Looks for ‘Statesmanship’ from Suharto

By Jim Lobe Reprint | | Print |

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, May 20 1998 (IPS) - The United States moved closer to calling for the resignation of Indonesian President Suharto Wednesday when Secretary of State Madeleine Albright urged him to commit an “historic act of statesmanship” to preserve his legacy.

Speaking to the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in Connecticut, Albright noted that “further unrest (in Indonesia) could have profoundly negative consequences for peace and prosperity throughout Asia.” She praised the beleaguered Suharto’s pledge to launch a political reform process as “an important development.”

“Now he has the opportunity for an historic act of statemenship, one that will preserve his legacy as a man who not only led his country but who provided for its democratic transition,” she said, in what some officials described as a subtle call for Suharto to resign.

“We think he’s run out of time,” one official told reporters. U.S. officials are very worried about the possibility of a violent crackdown against pro-democracy forces if Suharto decides to cling to power or of fighting between different military factions.

Albright’s remarks came just one week after the United States first called for a “dialogue” between the Suharto government and other forces in Indonesian society. Political observers deemed it significant that she did not use that word in her prepared remarks Wednesday.

On Tuesday, Suharto announced that he would hold early elections and establish a national reform council to help organise the process. He said that he would not run for re-election but the absence of a concrete timetable for the process, as well as a de facto ban on a mammoth protest rally called by the country’s opposition leaders Wednesday, raised widespread scepticism about Suharto’s intentions.

“We’ve clearly moved on to a new stage,” said one senior official who cautioned against reading too much into Albright’s words. “If it’s clear that Suharto is setting up a credible, relatively short-term transition away from himself, then we think things can hold together. But’s it’s got to be credible and it’s got to be quick.”

White House spokesman Mike McCurry also declined to fully endorse the interpretation that Albright is calling for Suharto to resign. “If she had said he should step down now,” he said, “that would have been a declarative statement in English. She did not say that,” he said.

At the same time, McCurry stressed reform in Indonesia should be “undertaken immediately.”

“President Suharto has now indicated that he has committed himself to a political transition that could indeed lead to a change in the nature of the regime,” he added, “and Secretary Albright today said that that was positive.”

As recently as Monday, Albright’s chief Asia adviser rejected calls by several U.S. lawmakers to speak out in direct support for the students and others who have been clamouring for Suharto to resign. Assistant Secretary of State for Asian Stanley Roth said Washington would instead continue to urge Indonesian security forces to exercise restraint against protestors and Suharto to engage in dialogue with other sectors.

This was also the counsel of a number of Indonesia specialists who have spoken out in recent days, including during a contentious Senate hearing Monday.

Noting that a U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operation against President Sukarno actually backfired against Washington in the 1950s, University of Wisconsin Professor Donald Emmerson strongly warned against heeding “increasing calls for American intervention.”

“Do not try to influence the outcome of the succession,” he said. “It is the sovereign right of Indonesians to determine the content of reforms and to carry them out. We ought to be careful not to overplay our hand.”

Similarly, Adam Schwartz of influential Council on Foreign Relations also stressed that Washington should resist pronouncing on a transition. “A call by the U.S. for Suharto to stand down is not likely to make much of an impact on Suharto’s decision-making and runs the risk of a nationalist backlash that could weaken the opposition,” he said .

Washington should make clear that violent suppression of the opposition would result in a suspension of all non-humanitarian aid and loans, Schwartz added.

On the other hand, the clamour for Suharto to step down has grown stronger here, as well as in Indonesia. The Washington Post called for Washington to “generate a bit more clarity about its favor for democratic solutions…Suharto has run out his string and should be replaced promptly by the popular choice.”

Anticipating Albright’s own remarks, The New York Times Wednesday said Suharto’s best service to his country “would be to set in motion a fully democratic transition and then resign.” It called for presidential and legislative elections to take place this summer.

Top U.S. Asian specialist Paul Wolfowitz, a former ambassador in Jakarta, also called for a quick transition, telling senators that “it’s impossible…for Indonesia to recover economically under (Suharto’s) leadership.”

Wolfowitz, a senior Pentagon official under former President Ronald Reagan, said the “best (Suharto) can do for his country now is to leave gracefully, in a way that spares further damage and avoids the spectre of violent change.”

He also assailed the administration of President Bill Clinton for not calling for political reform earlier in the financial crisis and warned against “the impression … that there’s only President Suharto. There’s a lot of leadership in that country. What is missing is a process for having that leadership coalesce into an orderly process for picking a successor.”

Dan Lev, an Indonesia specialist at the University of Washington in Seattle, said the Clinton administration had been consistently late in reacting to events in Indonesia and should have been pressing for a transition months ago.

“It’s internal variable that really counts,” he said. “None of the player are going to pay too much attention to what Albright says at this late stage.”