What to do when the devil you knew dies

INDONESIAN dictator Suharto's death has highlighted the challenging moral and diplomatic high-wire act Australian governments conduct in our region.

On the one hand, Suharto was a stabilising force, holding together a nation of 230 million people from 300 ethnic groups speaking several hundred languages and living on a string of more than 13,000 islands.

On the other, he was a brutal and corrupt militaristic authoritarian, who paid scant regard for human rights and was accused of being responsible for the deaths of up to one million of his countrymen.

For more than three decades, from his emergence in 1965 to his downfall in 1998, Australia had to carefully balance its approach, treading a tightrope between encouraging Suharto's economic success, albeit redolent of corruption which stretched from his family right through the military, and acknowledging human rights abuses that shocked the world.

That Australia managed to do so for more than 30 years is a tribute to the cynical pragmatism of diplomacy.

Former prime minister Paul Keating, who at times enjoyed a relationship with Suharto that appeared almost filial such was his respect for the ageing dictator, went perhaps too far in his subservience to the Indonesian leader but did manage to forge a link with the Indonesian government that was closer than previous governments had achieved.

His successor, John Howard, achieved a more level and even closer relationship with Suharto's successors, managing to engage the Indonesians on the question of their military occupation of East Timor and agree to Indonesia's withdrawal from the former Portugese colony.

In their approaches, Labor was more ready to forgive Indonesia and Suharto its gross record of breaches of human rights, though its Left was more condemnatory.

The Coalition was more inclined to encourage the Indonesian leadership through references to Australia's historic championing of Indonesian independence in the wake of World War II, and particularly in its infancy when Australia moved that the new nation be recognised by the fledgling UN.

While both sides of Australian politics deplored aspects of Suharto's military rule, to greater or lesser degrees, they both agreed that overall the military strongman was a "good thing" for our region despite the blood on his hands and the ill-gotten billions in his family's secret bank accounts.

Ignoring the mass arrests, murders and corruption was the price necessary for the undoubted stability the dictator brought to the region.

Human rights activists might choke on the reality, but that's how it has worked.

Had Australia dug in its heels over the numerous instances of torture, mass relocation or corruption, our relationship with Indonesia would undoubtedly be far more fraught with difficulty than it is.

While there can be no doubt Keating's warm relationship with Suharto was closer than any previous Australian and Indonesian leaders enjoyed, the horror of the Bali bombings and the aid effort generated by the Boxing Day tsunami bound Australia and Indonesia even more tightly in a relationship that was more respectful and more fully engaging than the personal ties between Keating and the late dictator.

Nevertheless, we must realise that it has been the case that Australia was complicit in encouraging the Suharto regime, as corrupt and brutal as it was, for the greater good of Australia and our region.

And no doubt we will have to back strongmen (and women) in the future when it is in our national interest.

As well-intentioned as we all may wish to be, and this has domestic implications also, it will always be the case that the side of the angels will not always be the side that delivers what is the best for Australia. That's why we have diplomats who can nod and smile while actually doing nothing, an art at which current Prime Minister Kevin Rudd excels.

There is an old saw which says you have to be cruel to be kind. Critics of the conservative parties might say that the Coalition understands this perfectly - and has little difficulty in inflicting cruelty.

But pragmatists on the Labor side are just as familiar with the saying and have shown from time to time that Labor can deliver pain if it believes political gains will follow.

While historically Labor has shown no reluctance to sup with the neighbourhood's biggest dictator to prove itself in international matters (despite the muffled cries of outrage from within its own ranks), it will soon have to consider whether it is prepared to take a hard line against its Left on domestic issues such as industrial affairs and indigenous issues.

Signs are the Rudd Government will opt for the softer options at home and abroad.

Its decision to cut and run from Iraq despite evidence the US surge is winning support and the battle has turned; its decision to wind back aspects of the intervention in the Northern Territory, notably the reintroduction of the permit system which allows back-door apartheid to flourish; and its refusal to stand up to the union movement on wage demands though they would fuel domestic inflation, show its spinelessness.

Tough times produce tough men, like Suharto, Keating and Howard, and we are in for tough times. It's a pity there is a shortage of tough men to take on the challenge.