Indonesia’s return to OPEC
Despite the consensual profile which underpins international organisations, these global bodies also have to contend with unilateral impulses on the part of their members. For instance, the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is an institution which has continued to exhibit this contradictory phenomenon. Now and again, individual member-states, acting in consonance with what appears to be their national interests, have threatened to leave the organisation; and indeed, some have actually consummated this threat. But even then, in line with the flexibility of life, some of those countries have also retraced their steps by rejoining the organisation.
Consider Indonesia. Way back in 2009, after being a member of OPEC for almost 50 years, the country decided to suspend her membership of the intergovernmental body. Indonesia did this in view of the fact that, in the course of time, her credentials as an oil exporter had become modified as she moved from an oil exporter to an importer of oil, thus losing one of the statutory reasons for remaining in the organisation.
In taking this step, Indonesia was not charting a new path. Earlier on in 1992, Ecuador had set a precedent by suspending its membership, only to rejoin in 2007.
Nevertheless, Indonesia’s exit from the organisation must have been a big blow to OPEC. This is because Djakarta, by wanting out as she did, had deprived OPEC of its only member from the Asian continent.
The import of the immediate foregoing can easily be appreciated from the fact that in geo-strategic and political terms, OPEC is not the usual Third World commodity grouping. It is instructive to note here that largely through the efforts of this Third World body, OPEC carried out the unprecedented feat of being the first primary producers’ organisation to dictate terms to the powerful multinational oil companies and their equally powerful parent-nations.
Naturally, such a momentous action attracted a lot of hostile attention from the status-quo forces in the international system. Among other things, the organisation was pilloried and subjected to all kinds of scurrilous attacks in the Western media and literature. Some analysts even went as far as to contend that, like all cartels in world economic history, OPEC would sooner than later be subjected to the throes of mortality. But then, OPEC has managed to defy this and other mortal projections. For despite the contending odds, the organisation is still standing and alive.
Moreover, one interesting fact that is often overlooked is that OPEC headquarters in Vienna, Austria, did not just happen. The eventual choice was also a function of Western hostility and antics. This was because, at its inception and as revealed by Anthony Sampson in his magisterial work, ‘The Seven Sisters’, OPEC’s headquarters was initially slated for Geneva in Switzerland since this was the traditional home of most international organisations. But the Swiss authorities, essentially prodded by the status-quo forces in the international system, denied diplomatic status to the then fledgling body. Hence, OPEC had to settle for the then seemingly less-fancied Vienna.
Therefore, it is against this background of global conspiracy and machinations that we welcome Indonesia’s current attempts to rejoin the organisation. Such a step will go a long way to strengthen this body. Luckily enough, it is instructive to note that the founding fathers of OPEC had enough foresight to anticipate the evolving scenario. This is because in its statutes, provision was made for associate membership. Consequently, without being a net exporter of oil, this flexibility allows Indonesia to rejoin other members in this important grouping.
On this note, it is apposite to sound a note of warning to other OPEC members who may be thinking of treading the respective paths of Djakarta and Quito. They should refrain from this move, if only because wanting out of OPEC amounts to a whittling down of Third World solidarity.
It is also necessary to point out that as Indonesia rejoins OPEC, the organisation should retool and prepare itself for contemporary challenges and aspirations. It is disturbing that some 55 years after the organisation’s establishment, some OPEC member-states still lack coherent oil policies such that, in critical downstream sectors like refineries and petrochemicals, they are still non-starters. Such members can latch on to best practices from more sophisticated OPEC members like Iran, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia and Algeria.
Indeed, we believe that if this and other creative measures are put in place, OPEC would have gone a long way to justify the hopes and aspirations of its founding fathers. And to this extent, the rather schizophrenic inclinations of entities like Djakarta and Quito would have been effectively contained in future. In the meantime, we wish to welcome Indonesia back home. It is a new dawn.