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Indonesia To Break Up Soon?
by Kazi Mahmood
JAKARTA, May 24 (IslamOnline) - The intensifying Indonesian crisis could lead to its break up into several mini republics, a professor in political affairs told IslamOnline Thursday.
Analyzing the current situation, a professor Bahirul said Indonesia had little chances left to be united, arguing that the political crisis in the country was deepening and that it was becoming difficult to keep the provinces together.
He said he took President Abdurrahman Wahid's statement that several provinces would leave the federation if he were to be impeached very seriously.
Parliament is expected to demand Wahid's impeachment over allegations of corruption and incompetence in less than a week.
"Everybody thinks Wahid is bluffing about the provinces that could break away from Indonesia," Bahirul said.
"I think Wahid has planned this. The recent statement from Islamic leaders in Jawa Timor [East Java] shows they mean business," he added.
East Timor leaders and Wahid supporters said on Wednesday that the province would break away from Indonesia and become an independent republic.
However, several other observers in Jakarta interviewed by IslamOnline said they believed there would be no breakaway republics even after the highly probable Wahid impeachment by June of this year.
They also said there will be no transition when Wahid leaves office, since Megawati Sukarnoputri, his vice president, is ready to takeover.
Yet Bahirul said the threat of a divided Indonesia would not be a terrible catastrophe to the republic. He said that if part of Java were separated from Indonesia, the republic would not lose much.
"Most of the other provinces, Aceh, Riau, Irian Jaya etc., are anti-Java. Once Java decides to keep Wahid and break away from Indonesia, there will be no more Republic Indonesia.
"This will then bring along several mini-republics, such as Sumatra and Aceh, possibly Maluku Republics.
"It will also settle the problems faced by Aceh, Riau, Borneo…that is, the economic exploitation problems and the political domination of Java will be gone," he said.
Bahirul said Megawati would thus inherit a divided nation, where only Java West and central may remain as remnants of the Indonesian Republic.
He agreed with Megawati that Indonesia was fast becoming "the sick man of Asia".
Megawati said disintegration could happen in Indonesia, a country with a population of 210 million and 13,000 islands, some of them wracked by separatist and communal violence.
She also warned that Indonesia's spirit of national unity was fast declining and that new conflicts could erupt in the far-flung archipelago.
"Groups that earlier lived together in peace, have started to keep their distance from each other," she said.
"If provoked, they could become involved in horizontal conflicts, which would result in many victims and not be easy to end."
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