October 1999
This month, the Turtle salutes the people of
the Democratic Republic of East Timor.
East Timor, of course, has only actually been
a democratic republic for ten days. It was a Portuguese territory
from the seventeenth century until 28 November 1975, when Fretilin (Frente Revolucion‡ria de Timor Leste
Independente, or "Revolutionary Front of Independent East
Timor") issued a declaration of independence, ending the civil
war which had begun earlier that year. On 7 December 1975, Indonesia
invaded. The violence which followed was extraordinary. Of the original
seven hundred thousand people who lived on the island in 1975, over
two hundred thousand -- nearly three in ten -- have been killed. Many
more were raped, wounded, displaced and repressed.
"What have the East Timorese done to deserve
this?" is a maddening question to answer. There is no reason.
This can't be a case of reuniting populations disjoined by colonialism.
For the seventeenth century, when Timor was first carved up between
the Dutch and the Portuguese, was a long time ago, and the East Timorese
have since then had an increasingly distinct culture, language and
form of life from the rest of the Indonesian archipelago. And when
Indonesia invaded there was no pretence, as there was when the Chinese
invaded Tibet, of restoring national bonds of unity. Nor do rich stores
of oil or diamonds explain the ferocity visited on this patch of land
and its people, some fantastic wealth which might illuminate the Indonesian
regime's decision to resort to genocide. There's every indication
of mineral wealth under the Timor peninsula, but they're still poking
around for it twenty-five years later. This isn't a war about oil.
The most satisfying explanation is also the
most distressing. The Suharto regime invaded East Timor because it
could. The more-or-less unconditional American support of Suharto
gave him the confidence he needed to expand Indonesia to its "natural"
geographical boundaries. And this confidence of US support was well
founded. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the US ambassador to the
United Nations at the time, recalls in his memoirs, and not without
pride, the fact that he was able to get the neutralise the specially
appointed UN Commission on East Timor. It agreed that Jakarta had
violated international law, and agreed to do nothing else at all.
And as long as Suharto's regime continued to be fiercely anti-communist,
the US was happy to condone their actions, and supply arms (over a
billion dollars since 1975 at current prices) to aid the repression.
It wasn't just the arms industry, incidentally, that was pleased to
be doing business in the great Indonesian Emerging Market. The president
of Coca-Cola was effervescent when in 1992 he said "When I think
of Indonesia -- a country on the equator with 180 million people,
a median age of 18, and a Muslim ban on alcohol -- I feel like I know
what heaven looks like."
The financial crisis, and the ensuing collapse
of the Suharto presidency, ought to have brought respite to the people
of East Timor. But it hasn't. Habibie's government have proven single-mindedly
resistant to the prospect of East Timorese independence, even to the
extent of imperilling a recent IMF loan. That the regime would seriously
entertain losing a six billion dollar loan over East Timor demonstrates
just how important the annexed province is to Suharto's children.
East Timor's independence means much more than the temporary swallowing
of pride. For the government, Timorese independence represents the
end of a twenty-four year experiment in national integration. To have
a thousand blue-helmeted foreigners effectively certifying the failure
of this experiement strikes at the heart of the regime's self-image.
Little wonder, then, that the UN presence has come under such vehement
(and un-officially sanctioned) attack from the militiamen. The regime
is worried about what effect this will have on other parts of the
country. The government is currently repressing separatist movements
elsewhere in the archipelago; strong movements in Aceh and Irian Jaya
have been encouraged by the East Timor experience to think that a
referendum might offer the prospect of independence. Irian Jaya and
especially Aceh have oil, gas, timber and coffee resources, and over
four million people, all of which the regime would be deeply unhappy
to see go. And so the regime has supported the anti-independence militias,
all the while claiming that the violence in East Timor is the result
of internecine bickering between the hopelessly divided pro-independence
rabble, whom the Indonesian military are there to placate, while serving
the greater common good.
And in spite of all this, the East Timorese
have put up an incredible resistance, agains awesome odds. Students,
Fretilin, members of the Catholic Church, journalists, and of course
Noam Chomsky have campaigned ever since 1975. In 1990, the Dili massacre
(click here for more
information) caught the attention of the international media with
the horrific coverage of the Indonesian military's massacre of more
than two hundred and seventy members of a funeral procession passing
through the capital city. In 1996, the Nobel peace prize was shared
by JosŽ Ramos Horta, East Timor's chief foreign representative, and
by Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo, East Timor's spiritual leader.
And finally, at the end of August, the UNAMET (United Nations Mission
in East Timor) elections finally took place. In the popular consultation,
the East Timor people voted 21.5% in favour, 78.5% against proposed
special autonomy. (Why not 100% in favour of independence? Local officials
whose power was guaranteed by the Indonesian regime, and former guerillas
who changed sides were able to exert pressure on voters, backed, of
course, by the terrifyingly well armed anti-independence militiamen.)
And so now the East Timorese face an uncertain
future. The UN Human Rights Commission has just passed a resolution
to allow an independent war crimes tribunal to investigate in East
Timor, but this passed without Indonesian approval. The capital city
of East Timor has been levelled by departing Indonesian troops, and
the militia still runs free. The struggle of the people of East Timor
is far, far from over, yet for their unfailing courage, for the determination
they have shown over the last quarter century, and for their heroism
in the special consultation...
The Turtle Salutes The People of East Timor!
If you'd like to find out more about East Timor
on the web, three very good sites are :
The East Timor Action Network
TimorNet at
the University of Coimbra, Portugal
Znet's East Timor Page
