Foreign Aid for Alliance: Indonesia’s Effort to Find Support in the South Pacific Region

United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) has been actively seeking for independence since its inception in 1969. ULMWP founding fathers, as well as leaders, stated that this movement aims at achieving West Papua independence and freedom, while at the same time, is being regarded in Indonesia as a separatist movement, representing only a small portion of Papuans abroad. In order to achieve this goal, the ULMWP has been trying to gain international recognition and support, mainly from its neighboring countries and region. One of ULMWP constant supporter is Vanuatu, who has been declaring its support for the ULMWP since the time of its first Prime Minister Walter Hadye Lini in 1980. Vanuatu often calls for Papuan Independence in various international arena, such as the UN Assemby and the Melanesian Spearhead Groups (MSG) High Commisioner Meetings. To ward off Vanuatu’s influence in the South Pacific region, Indonesia has been actively providing and offering aids for South Pacific countries, as a token of appreciation for their support for acknowledging Indonesia’s sovereignty. This paper thus aimed at answering and explai ning how Indonesia is using foreign aid as a mean to build alliance in the South Pacific and in the MSG. Foreign aid almost always contains political interest, in this particular case, Indonesian aids to the South Pacific are aimed at maintaining relations and supports from the South Pacific countries for its sovereignty. As a result, prominent South Pacific countries have expressed their support for Indonesia’s sovereignty.

Researches on Indonesia's diplomacy towards blocking the ULMWP efforts in the South Pacific region are vast, but not researches emphasizing on the use of foreign as the instruments of alliance. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to offer alternative to analyze Indonesia's instruments to gain support from the South Pacific region. This paper is going to analyze how Indonesia is using foreign aid as an instrument to build alliance to maintain the status quo, which is to prevent further support for the ULMWP and to recognize West Papua as part of Indonesian sovereignty. Before further explained in the methodology section, foreign aid has always been political in nature and its political nature rests on the assumption that the donor country might intend such aid to change the status quo or to maintain the status quo [10]. To maintain the status quo, especially in case JOSAR, Vol.    [14]. The changing nature of the motive is based on the dual goals of foreign aid, which are humanitarian goal and strategic goal. Strategic goal of foreign aid is heavily influenced by international political factors, as well as domestic politics. Strategic interest have always been relevant and will always be relevant to analyze the motives that donors provide or recipients accept the aids, other than simple altruistic motives. In relation with security issues, foreign aid has always been used as an instrument to gain allegiance since the era of Cold War. For security concern, alliance has often needed as a tool to support status quo.
Specifically, Markovits, Strange, and Tingley exemplified the importance of foreign aid to the status quo in world politics [10]. It was extensively discussed in their paper, using comparative methods throughout diverse regions, historical JOSAR, Vol.

SUPPORT FROM THE SOUTH PACIFIC
The South Pacific are known as one of the most aid-dependent regions in the world [15]. The leading donor for South Pacific region is Australia, and then followed by China, New Zealand, and other traditional donor countries. In its development, along with the significant economic growth and its success in becoming a member of the G20, the Indonesian government under Jokowi's presidency started on implementing foreign aid or to be known as "tangan di atas" diplomacy as one of his policy. In its implementation, the Indonesian government will give foreign aid for several neighbor-developing countries in ASEAN and  [18]. The Indonesian government states that she wants to increase its foreign aid to reach Rp.10 trillion by 2021 [17]. This is the commitment of the Indonesian government as a donor country.
Basically, the Indonesian government has provided foreign aid to the South Pasific region even before Indonesian Aid was launched. Previously, the Indonesian government signed an agreement to provide an assistance for Nauru in the form of 1 barge and 1 tug boat $2.5 million worth, to help them export their natural resources; grants for the construction of school affected by the earthquake in Fiji; and grants for Tuvalu to build a conference hall that used as Pacific Island Forum meeting [19]. After that, at the last Pacific Island Forum meeting that held on August 2019, the leaders of the South Pacific region who attended the forum, agreed to recognize Papua as part of Indonesia sovereignty [17]. Not only that, the Indonesian government had previously succeeded in gaining its status in Melanesian Spearhead Group, from an observer to associate member. Moreover, during the 50 th anniversary of Nauru's independence, Baron Waqa as the President of Nauru states that "my country will support every step and decision taken by the Indonesian government, thus for the prosperity of the people of Papua and West Papua" [20]. The Prime Minister of Tuvalu, Enele Sopoaga also states that "We don't have an intention to interfere with the Indonesian policy, We highly value human rights as well as cultures, but Tuvalu is in no position to interfere in that issue" [20]. the Fiji's government also JOSAR, Vol.  [7]. The Indonesian government must be able to convince other South Pacific countries. This is an important thing to do, to secure its national interest and sovereignty.
"It is difficult not to conclude that the aid is more a political tool, to win a favor from those countries" (Andreas Harsono, a senior researcher of HRW) [22] "The aid should strengthen Indonesia's diplomacy beyond its usual allies. Including on Papua issue, anything related to small countries, one of the most effective instruments is to provide aid" (Yose Rizal Damuri, the head of the economic department of CSIS) [22] Hence, even during the pandemic covid-19, the Indonesian government, which was experiencing an economic downturn, increased its commitment to become a donor country. On December, 16 th 2020, the Indonesian government signed grants for three countries, two of them are South Pacific countries, Fiji and Solomon Island [23]. This policy implemented by the Indonesian government to secure its national interest in South Pacific region. This was done by the Indonesian government even though its foreign debt increased during the pandemic. It should also be borne in mind that currently Indonesia is still a recipient country that receives hundreds of millions dollars foreign aid from traditional donor countries, including US, Japan, China and Australia [24], as well JOSAR, Vol. as international organization such as World Bank and Asian Development Bank [25]. Therefore, the Indonesian Aid has received strong criticism from some media and expert in Australia, whose states that the Indonesian government should focus on dealing with its economic and national development to welfare her own people [17], rather than helping the South Pacific countries.
The main argument and finding of this paper is as drawn on the illustration beneath. Indonesia is using foreign aid as an instrument to form an alliance

CONCLUSION
Indonesia's main aim has been very clear since the beginning, which is to uphold its sovereignty over its territory. West Papua is a part of Indonesian territory based on the referendum, the "Act of Free Choice" held in 1969. As a sovereign nation, it is impertinent for Indonesia to uphold its territorial sovereignty, and this is the main political context of this paper. The United Liberation Movement has challenged this sovereignty for West Papua (ULMWP), claiming that the 1969 referendum was invalid, and still to this day, assume Indonesia as a colonial power controlling over a West Papua nation. ULMWP has employ many strategies to gain recognition, especially internationally and regionally. In the South Pacific region, ULMWP is actively seeking support by appealing to countries and organization with cultural similarity and colonialized past. In the international arena, ULMWP is actively gaining recognition by appealing to the West about its human right abuse experienced under Indonesian administration.
In order to block support for the ULMWP, Indonesia has been using foreign aid as an instrument to gain alliance, especially from the South Pacific countries and from the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) organization. Aids given by Indonesia over the years, although non-political in nature, has political function under the political context to maintain its sovereignty. It has been proven that Indonesian foreign aid is beneficial to spread influence in the South Pacific region and to gain support for its political goals. Indonesia's aid has improved Indonesian influence in the region that in the end, further strengthened Indonesia's alliances. With the alliance strengthening, Indonesia is able to maintain the status quo in the region, which to acknowledge and further support Indonesia's sovereignty over West Papua's independence.

SUGGESTIONS
Further research is needed to confirm the compliance of the South Pacific countries towards Indonesia's request to support its sovereignty and to block the ULMWP through the administration of Indonesia's foreign aid. Researches are done mainly from the perspective of Indonesia, as the donor, or as the active subject of diplomacy, seeking to gain support from the South Pacific countries, but little is done to seek what is the motives of those South Pacific countries in giving support to Indonesia. Information gain both from Indonesian perspective and from South Pacific perspectives will enrich the understanding on the relation between the two entities. This may also provide additional knowledge on the dynamics of the South Pacific region and the neighboring Southeast Asian region.
The dynamics between the two region has been poorly researched but has a great potential as the growing cooperation and relation in the Indo-Pacific region.