INDONESIA AND THE SOUTH–SOUTH COOPERATION FROM BANDUNG UNTIL TODAY Bence Kocsev This article aims to focus on the role Indonesia plays in forging South–South relations. The paper will first examine the context in which the idea of South–South Cooperation was born and unfolded, then the focus will shift to Indonesia to briefly outline its historical and current engagement with other countries in the Global South. The paper ends with some brief and tentative remarks on the current situation and perspectives of South–South relations. THE ORIGINS AND THE FRAMEWORK OF SOUTH–SOUTH COOPERATION The founding myth of the South–South Cooperation (SSC)1 circles around the so-called Bandung Conference which was held sixty-five years ago when politicians, leaders of national liberation movements, and other opinion leaders from twenty-nine African and Asian countries gathered in the West Javan city for a conference that was aimed to set a new course for the postcolonial world amid the processes of decolonisation and in the emerging context of the global Cold War. With participants like Gamal Abdel Nasser, Zhou Enlai, Ho Chi Minh, Kwame Nkrumah, or Sukarno, the Afro-Asian Conference (as it was officially called) was one of the most significant events in the emergence of an independent postcolonial world. In Bandung, the new and reborn states, being increasingly dissatisfied with the perpetuated colonial subjugation that survived in many respects such as trade, politics, security, etc., attempted to create a political alternative to the bipolar world system. As Sukarno, the first president of independent Indonesia, put it in his opening speech: “We do not need to go to other continents to confer. . . . We are again masters in our house.”2 While it provided a global forum to discuss the various political problems affecting these countries and assured assistance for those still fighting for 150
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independence, by issuing the Declaration on Promotion of World Peace and Cooperation, the conference also laid the foundation for economic cooperation among developing countries in the Global South, encouraging economic cooperation and diversification, as well as cultural and technical exchange. Envisioning collaboration and solidarity within the developing world, the declaration sought to pave the way for future economic, cultural, and technical cooperation among southern countries. In this regard, Bandung was a moment when a distinct “Third Worldist” program was formulated and entered the global scene. Henceforth, the spirit of the conference kept inspiring the meetings of the developing countries in various fora (Group of 77, Non-Aligned Movement, Afro-Asian People’s Solidarity Organization, etc.) and provided a dynamically changing framework by which actors from Africa, Asia, and Latin America tried to locate themselves in the vortex of the world economy during and beyond Cold War bipolarity. In addition, to facilitate economic cooperation among developing countries in an institutionalised way, the establishment of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) took place in 1964. For decades, the UNCTAD has been providing a unique platform for challenging the historical hegemony of the Global North and for fostering a closer South–South Cooperation. The efforts by the developing countries within and outside the UNCTAD culminated in the formulation of the so-called New International Economic Order (NIEO), a set of proposals that promoted an equitable international trade regime and a more intense SSC. In the same year, 1974, the United Nations (UN) created the Office for South–South Cooperation (UNOSSC) with the mission to promote and to coordinate intra-South and triangular cooperation.3 In 1978, the UN took a further step and convened the Conference on Technical Co-operation among
