Indonesia’s Roles in Myanmar’s Rohingya Crisis: Through the Lens of Public Diplomacy

Abstract

Myanmar's Rohingya crisis is one of the intractable conflicts in South East Asia that has been unsolved until now. The Rohingya, as a minority group in Myanmar, suffer from human rights violations by the majority Buddhist Rakhine population with central government support. In effect, many of them fled to neighboring countries, such as Thailand, India, Indonesia and Nepal, and other countries across the region (UN Refugees, 2022). Indonesia, as one of the founding members of ASEAN, thinks that ASEAN must solve this conflict, but the obstacle faced by ASEAN is the non-intervention principle. With the differences in ideology and national interest of ASEAN member states, this conflict is not to be the utmost priority by the ASEAN Members. Indonesia gave attention to Myanmar’s Rohingya crisis since the crisis emerged in 1948 at the same time Myanmar gained independence from Great Britain. As an ASEAN host this year, Indonesia intensified its role to be a peace broker through shuttle diplomacy and engaging key players in Myanmar. Indonesia realized that this conflict must be solved by bringing to the table the key players in Myanmar’s Rohingya conflict. This conflict matters for Indonesia, because of a chance for Indonesia to be portrayed as one of the countries that enhance its reputation and want to revive its glory moment in the Soeharto era that can solve regional conflict. Public diplomacy will be used in this paper by seeing the efforts of the Indonesian government, especially during President Jokowi's second term. As Joseph S. Nye said <<soft power is the ability to affect others to obtain the outcomes one wants through attraction rather than coercion or payment>>, we can see the Indonesia effort through shuttle diplomacy, implementation of the Five-Point Consensus on Myanmar, and humanitarian aid to solve this conflict. The capacity of Indonesia to be an honest peace broker is natural because of the resources that Indonesia had in several areas, particularly in political and economic areas.