Cancelled PNG trip suggests Yudhoyono busy with fraud case
Updated
Doubt is being raised on claims by some Australian observers that Australia-Indonesia relations have been damaged by the Rudd government's handling of the saga of the Sri Lankan asylum seekers on the Australian vessel the Oceanic Viking. It was a month-long saga which filled the Australian media, but has barely caused a ripple in Indonesia as the country remains glued to a massive scandal rocking the Presidency.
It is this scandal that is most likely the reason the Indonesian President has cancelled this weekend's planned visit to Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Australia.
Presenter: Linda Mottram, Canberra Correspondent
Speaker: Haryadi Wiryawan, Associate Professor and Chair of International Relations, University of Indonesia; Tim Lindsey, Professor and Director of Asia Law Centre, University of Melbourne.
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MOTTRAM: The idea of the diplomatic snub greatly excites the Australian media, always closely watching for signs a neighbour has taken offence at an aspect of Australian policy. There's no doubt the issue of the 78 Sri Lankan asylum seekers on board the Oceanic Viking moored of Tanjung Pinang for the past month has been deeply sensitive. But some observers reject bold headlines in Australia about a rift in Australia-Indonesia relations over the issue.
Haryadi Wiryawan is Associate Professor and Chair of International Relations at the University of Indonesia in Jakarta. He says he believes the relationship remains stable.
HARYADI: The immigrants are not that big issue. Its more an issue for Australia than Indonesia.
MOTTRAM: Australian Indonesia expert, Professor Tim Lindsey, from the Asia Law Centre at the University of Melbourne agrees.
LINDSEY: Whilst there may have been issues between Indonesia's department of foreign affairs and Australia in working out a solution about what to do with the Sri Lankans on the Oceanic Viking and took up a huge amount of attention in the Australian media and Australian Parliament, that was simply not the case in Indonesia. It normally wouldn't be. These issues are just not national significance issue in Indonesia, whatever they may be in Australia.
MOTTRAM: Critics of the Rudd government say key evidence of Indonesia's displeasure with Australia is in the cancellation of President Yudhoyono's visit this weekend. Tim Lindsey says its got nothing to do with asylum seekers and everything to do with the enormity of the corruption scandal engulfing Indonesia's leader - a scandal that's been dubbed Indonesia's Watergate, in reference to the fall of former US President Richard Nixon. Tim Lindsey again.
LINDSEY: He is implicated in a multi-agency political scandal and coverup in which wire taps exist in which he is accused of supporting, he's named in fact by conspirators, as supporing a multi-agency plot against the anti corruption commission. Now that rates way higher than any issue about how to deal with asylum seekers as far as anyone in government in Indonesia counts.
