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Australia and Indonesian Independence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2009

W. J. Hudson
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Relations between Australia and Indonesia became strained within months of Indonesia's attainment of independence, deteriorating as conflict developed first on the question of West Irian and then as a result of Indonesia's hostility towards Malaysia. For many years, it seemed ironical that Australia should have played a major part in the emergence of a neighbour whose external policies and internal trends endangered rather than safeguarded Australian interests. But there is more involved here than historical irony in the context of Australian-Indonesian relations. Sufficient time has now elapsed for Australian policy on the Indonesian independence question to be seen in the wider context of the whole postwar phenomenon of decolonisation. For it is not merely of interest that Australia should have assisted neighbouring Asian rebels against a European colonial Power (remembering that Australia herself was, and is, a European colonial Power) and should then have been embarrassed by the activities of the rebels coming to office. It is of greater interest that, of the immense number of colonial issues anxiously engaging the attention of international society in the 1940s and 1950s, the years which saw the virtual demise of western colonialism, this was the one issue on which Australia took up the rebel cause. Throughout this period and irrespective of the complexion of the parties in power in Canberra, Australia persistently jeopardised her regional objective of friendly relations with anti-colonial Asia by opposing strongly and, at times, bitterly the anti-colonial cause in the United Nations. If nothing else, the United Nations has provided a forum in which each year Australia and other members have been forced to declare themselves on colonial questions. And, until the 1960s when Australia switched policy, Australia fought against all the anti-colonial Powers' largely successful attempts to have developed a system of international control over colonies under the authority of Chapter XI (“Declaration Regarding Non-Self-Governing Territories”) of the United Nations charter, to tighten the trusteeship system of supervision erected under Chapters XII and XIII of the charter, and to involve the United Nations in particular disputes so as to meet alleged threats to peace — all of them being attempts, however indirectly, to hasten the attainment of independence by dependent territories. Thus, Australia supported South Africa on South-West Africa, the Netherlands on West New Guinea, the British on Southern Rhodesia and Oman, the Portuguese on their African territories, the French on Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria. But Australia opposed the Netherlands on the Indonesian question.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian History , Volume 8 , Issue 2 , September 1967 , pp. 226 - 239
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 1967

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References

1. It became clear in 1961, when the anti-colonial cause manifestly was triumphant, that Australia had resigned herself to imminent departure from New Guinea and to the exigencies of diplomacy. Her support for Britain became less sure and, abandoning any pretence of consistency, she joined in censure of South Africa and Portugal.

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4. Ibid., 18th Mtg., 13 February, pp. 258, 263.

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8. The United States offer, accepted by the Netherlands, was made in the Security Council on 1 August. The Australian offer was made by the Prime Minister, J. B. Chifley, in Canberra on 7 August: “…the Australian Government.… would be prepared to act jointly with the United States Government in a capacity of mediator and arbitrator” (see Current Notes, Vol. 18, p.469 — 08 1947).Google Scholar

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11. Ibid.

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14. Ibid., 211th Mtg., 14 October, p. 2579.

15. Ibid., 217th Mtg., 31 October, pp. 2698, 2700 and 219th Mtg., 1 November, p. 2750.

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31. Ibid., 195th Mtg., 26 August, pp. 2216–7.

32. Ibid., p. 2224.

33. SCOR, 3rd Yr., 390th Mtg., 23 12 1948, p. 6Google Scholar, Australia's attitude in the 1940s and 1950s to requests for Court opinions seemed to vary according to political interest. Thus, she was coolly disposed towards a “multiplication of opinions” on the South-West Africa issue (on which the Court was likely to come down against South Africa), but took Indonesia's refusal to submit the West Irian question to the Court (which might well have come down for the Netherlands) as evidence of Indonesia's bad faith or, at the least, weak case.

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38. Ibid., p. 46.

39. Ibid., p. 64.

40. Ibid., p. 69.

41. SCOR, 3rd Yr., 326th Mtg., 23 June 1948, p. 31.

42. Ibid., 393rd Mtg., 27 December, p. 17.

43. Ibid., 396th Mtg., 29 December, p. 42. Australia's international support for the Republic involved forums other than the Council and the General Assembly. In 1948, for example, Australia co-sponsored a move to have the Republic admitted as an associate member of ECAFE, a move which was opposed by the Netherlands and the United States and coolly received by Britain and France (see Singh, L.P., ECAFE and India, Uupublished Ph.D. thesis, Australian National University, Canberra 1964, p. 54).Google Scholar

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61. CPD, Vol. 191, p.1170 (26 03 1947).Google Scholar

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64. Ibid.

65. Ibid., p.113.

66. CPD, Vol. 186, p. 19 (6 03 1946).Google Scholar Australia's imports from the Netherlands Indies in 1939–40 had amounted to £A9,829,274 and exports to the colony to £A2,040,491 — –8.2 and 1.5 per cent (approximately) of Australia's total imports and exports for the year. Oil products comprised three-quarters of the imports. See Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics, Oversea Trade and Customs and Excise Revenue 1939–40, Bulletin No. 37, Canberra, pp.708–10, 606.Google Scholar

67. See Beazley, in CPD, Vol. 189, p. 169 (13 11 1946).Google Scholar

68. CPD, Vol. 206, p.1176 (23 03 1950).Google Scholar

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71. The vituperation heaped on Indonesia by some leading Labour Opposition members following ill-advised Indonesian references early in 1950 to the future of West New Guinea and even of East (Australian) New Guinea rivalled that of Menzies in the mid-1940s. Even Evatt turned about, only Chifley retained something of what had been the Labour Government's tolerant attitude towards Djakarta.