Australia and Indonesia

"Australia's relations with Indonesia are currently at a low ebb. The optimistic prospects of the mid-1990s had collapsed almost completely by the year 2000. Senior Indonesian officials were angered after that by the triumphalist tone of John Howard's public statements after the intervention in East Timor, by the megaphone diplomacy resorted to by some Australian ministers to express their displeasure at Indonesian policies or actions, by Howards acquiescence in the use of the term deputy sheriff to the US in our region, and particularly by his assertion of a right to make pre-emptive strikes against terrorists in neighbouring countries if he deemed it necessary. When demands arose in Papua for a greater degree of autonomy and in some quarters for full independence after East Timor achieved it independence, arousing vocal support from pro-Papuan groups in Australia, suspicions arose in Indonesia that many Australians were seeking to detach Papua from the unitary state of Indonesia and perhaps to bring about the fragmentation (or Balkanisation) of Indonesia. Then the new element of terrorism entered into the picture after the war of terror triggered by the 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington, followed by the October 2002 Bali bombing which thrust Jemaah Islamiyahs (JI) terrorists from Indonesia, some with links to Osama bin Laden, into the limelight. Remarkably successful cooperation by the AFP and Polri were not sufficient to offset the frictions that arose over Australian impatience at Indonesian reluctance to take strong punitive action against terrorist suspects and Indonesian reluctance to do so."--Provided by publisher.