Independence day

Excerpts from Xanana inaugural speech

British Broadcasting Corporation - May 20, 2002

Tributes

"If 92 countries are gathered here today it is because the settlement of the question of East Timor was the responsibility of the international community.

Therefore your presence here is the most eloquent testimony of the universal values enshrined in the charter of the United Nations and is equally an unequivocal affirmation of the rights of the fundamental rights of peoples.

To the Secretary General of the United Nations, Doctor Kofi Annan, we wish to express our most sincere gratitude for the personal commitment to the Timorese cause.

We wish to extend here a word of profound friendship to all those in the world who endeavoured to understand us and above all who administered the process.

The list of acknowledgements would be long and it would make a special reference to the courage of [former Indonesian] President Habibie, the efforts of [Australian] Prime Minister John Howard and the decisiveness of [former US] President Clinton."

On relations with Indonesia "We warmly welcome your [Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri] presence here among us, not only in your capacity as head of state of the brotherly and neighbouring country which we share common borders, but also as a symbol of the democratic yearnings of the brotherly people of Indonesia.

The Indonesian people and the Timorese people have endured 24 years of difficult relations.

Today we all agree that the strains in our dealings were the result of a historical mistake which now belongs to history and to the past.

And this past ... should not continue to stain our spirits or to hamper our attitudes and conduct."

On Portugal, former colonial power

"I would like to pay a public tribute to the Portuguese authorities, for having turned East Timor and its people into a national cause of their own.

I would also like to thank each and everyone of our brotherly Portuguese-speaking countries for their affection, their political support and solidarity, which epitomised our brotherhood and which helped strengthen our relations in difficult times.

We hope you [Portugal] and our CPLP [Community of Portuguese- Speaking Countries] brothers will stay by our side throughout this process, which is a difficult but also an exciting one, of our independence and self-determination."

On the future

"Today, you are witness of the resolve to build a democratic foundations of development for the entire Timorese society.

And today, you are witnesses to the hope for the future based on the active and permanent struggle against poverty in all its forms.

Today, with humility -- and before the international community -- we take upon ourselves the obligations towards our people.

We wanted to be ourselves, we wanted to take pride in being ourselves -- a people and a nation.

Today, with your assistance, we are effectively what we have always striven to be.

Today we are a people standing on equal footing with all other people in the world.

To the international solidarity we extend a profound word of thanks from our people.

We continue to count on you to receive other forms of support, geared towards alleviating the hardships of our most needy populations and to the strengthening of the ties of friendship among people

Our independence will have no value if all the people in East Timor continue to live in poverty and continue to suffer all kinds of difficulties.

We gained our independence to improve our lives.

Independence! As a people, as a territory, as a nation! One body, one mind, one wish!"

Soldier 'theft' mars Timor day

Australian Associated Press - May 21, 2002

Dili -- Australian soldiers marred East Timor's independence day by stealing flags from outside a Dili hotel, an Australian businessman claimed.

Hotel Dili manager Gino Favaro also accused the six soldiers of threatening a local security guard with a rifle butt.

Favaro wrote a letter of complaint to the Australian military today over the alleged incident at Hotel Dili at 11.45pm yesterday, East Timor's independence day.

Favaro, who donated a giant East Timorese flag that was the centrepiece of independence celebrations on Sunday night, said the security guard told him Australian soldiers pulled up in a vehicle and stole East Timorese, Australian, Northern Territory and Italian flags from the hotel's front fence.

The guard reported that a soldier raised the butt of a rifle to his stomach when he tried to stop them.

"These people remember the Indonesian time and when a soldier raises a rifle, they get scared," Favaro said. "These flags were put there for the benefit of the East Timorese and what happened is ungrateful behaviour on a very special occasion."

Favaro said he wanted the four flags returned. The allegations were being investigated, Australian defence officials said.

Timorese demonstrate to greet Australian prime minister

IMC - May 19, 2002

Simba -- Today on the eve of the independence ceremonies for East Timor many of the international delegates arrived to address the press. At one press conference was the Australian president (sic) John Howard who was greeted by members of the International Solidarity Movement of West Papua and Aceh.

Young and old they were holding signs stating, "hands off our oil and Now economic independence!" They are also calling for new negotiations in the issue of the Timor Gap which was initially negotiated without the participation of the Timorese people.

In an interview with one the organizers he states, "we have a new parliament tonight and one is not in place as of yet so we are calling for new negotiations involving the Timor Gap with our new government and for the Xanana and the internationals to take a position on the liberation of West Papua and Aceh."

Aceh is on the northern tip of the island of Sumatra in Indonesia and West Papua became the twenty-sixth province of Indonesia in 1969 after the "Act of Free Choice", sponsored by the UN, saw the transfer of official administration from The Netherlands, the colonial power, to Indonesia. Both are experiencing the same brutal occupation by the Indonesian militia with the help of international interests like that of new nation of East Timor.

When questioned about the issue of West Papua and Aceh many internationals respond with "it's an internal matter." In an interview of Xanana it was interesting to hear the new President of a country that internationals once said "it's an internal matter," when dealing with East Timor for him to respond in the same manner.

The Timorese, Australians and Papuans who demonstrated today circulated a letter which they sent to the new incoming President of East Timor stating demands dealing with the situation of West Papua and Aceh. They demand the tonight in his public address that he recognize the situation and call for an end to the occupation.

Widows' grief overshadows East Timor independence

Sunday Telegraph (London) - May 19, 2002

Philip Sherwell -- East Timor has not known a weekend like it. The flags of the world fluttered above Dili yesterday as workmen gave a final spruce-up to the down-at-heel waterfront capital before the arrival of dignitories from nearly 100 countries, including Bill Clinton and Kofi Annan, the United Nations Secretary General, for tonight's independence celebrations.

The impoverished territory will become the first new nation of the millennium at midnight after nearly two-and-a-half years of UN administration, 24 years of brutal Indonesian occupation and more than three centuries as a Portuguese colonial backwater. Up to a third of the population of 700,000 are expected to turn out to watch the celebrations.

Even Megawati Sukarnoputri, the Indonesian president, is expected to fly in for the ceremony, although her visit was overshadowed by a row between the state-in-waiting and its former occupiers yesterday. East Timor protested to Jakarta over the entry of six Indonesian navy vessels into its waters, nominally to protect Ms Megawati's delegation.

Teresina Cardoso and Joana dos Santos are not in party mood, however. Tomorrow they will be back at work in the ramshackle market building in the border town of Maliana where they formed a widows co-operative, "The Group of 99", with nearly 50 other women whose husbands were murdered in September 1999 by rampaging pro-Indonesian militia.

They struggle to earn a living there making dresses and blouses on an ancient sewing machine and selling a few basic foodstuffs and household goods in the former militia stronghold.

To their distress and anger, recent weeks have seen the return to the streets around the market of former members of the gang that abducted and killed their menfolk after the territory voted overwhelmingly for independence. "I see these people walking free and I feel hate," says Mrs Cardoso.

Despite repeatedly searching the fields and forests around Maliana, where she lives with her two young daughters, she has found no trace of her husband, Albino.

"I just want to ask them where they left his body," the 30-year- old says, placing a hand on the shoulder of her oldest child, Saturnina, 11. "I have never been able to bury him because I never found him. Just a bone would do. Something, anything."

Ahead of independence, many former militiamen have been coming home from the refugee camps in the neighbouring Indonesian province of West Timor to which they fled after their murderous rampage. Across the border they maintained their reign of terror over more than 100,000 civilians forced out of East Timor at the same time -- as I discovered when I was attacked and beaten up in one camp in early 2000 by pro-Jakarta thugs who blamed the Western world and its media for the territory's breakaway from Indonesia.

The senior militia leaders who were responsible for organising the killing sprees are unlikely to return from Indonesia. Thousands of their men are returning, however, and are likely to remain free, for now at least.

They have good reason to believe that UN prosecutors and the embryonic state's pitifully ill-funded courts will only have the resources to try senior militia leaders and those accused of the worst atrocities.

Xanana Gusmao, the former guerrilla leader and political prisoner who becomes the first president of East Timor tomorrow, is taking a high-risk gamble, making reconciliation the cornerstone of his new administration and indicating that he will issue pardons for the few militiamen who come before the courts.

"We have to break the cycle of violence for the next generation," he says. "We still feel the pain of our suffering and sacrifices and losses. But we must look for justice not revenge."

The urbane and amiable ex-rebel commander, who says he would rather be a pumpkin farmer than a president, is pinning his hopes for maintaining peace on a policy of "reconciliation with justice".

Most militiamen will be dealt with by a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which his government is establishing, rather than the courts. Although the UN serious crimes unit is investigating 10 so-called "priority cases" against the former militia, it has only successfully prosecuted one so far.

Since the chaos and carnage of September 1999, when an estimated 1,500 people were killed, East Timor has made impressive strides towards statehood under UN supervision. Calm was restored by international peacekeepers and an army, police force and civil servants have been trained by foreign advisers.

There are growing fears, however, that the handover from UN control to the new government could be followed by bloody revenge attacks against militiamen by East Timorese who lost relatives two-and-a-half years ago and are frustrated by the slow pace of justice. "I don't support popular justice or lynch mobs," says Mrs Cardoso. "But if these people don't appear before the courts or the government issues an amnesty, then people will take justice into their own hands."

The last time I visited Maliana, shortly before the independence plebiscite in late-August 1999, I was repeatedly threatened by militiamen armed with home-made muskets, spears and machetes, draped in the red and white of the Indonesian flag and fuelled by amphetamines and alcohol.

Orlando Lopes, who was a member of that militia, has just returned from West Timor to the brick and mud hut where his family lives. The small and rather timid man insists that he was dragooned into the militia and witnessed no killing. He was not always so diffident, however, and admits that he was part of a mob that looted and burnt homes.

Asked how he feels about the declaration of nationhood that his militia so violently opposed, he says: "I'm happy that Xanana will become our president as he is like a big brother to us. But my life has not changed dramatically. I was a peasant then and I am a peasant now."

Mrs Cardoso only wishes that her husband could say the same.

Colour us free, cry jubilant Timorese

Sydney Morning Herald May 20 2002

Tom Hyland and Lindsay Murdoch, Dili -- East Timor became an independent nation early this morning but a row over the unauthorised arrival of Indonesian warships highlighted the potential fragility of its hard-won freedom.

The Prime Minister, John Howard, described Australia's new neighbour as a partner in security, and urged it to reach out to Indonesia, despite the arrival of the six warships casting a shadow over the celebrations.

As hundreds of thousands of East Timorese celebrated at Masses and ceremonies, the independence hero and new President, Xanana Gusmao, appealed to his Indonesian counterpart, Megawati Sukarnoputri, to help build a strong relationship and forget the past.

"Today, we all agree that the strains in our dealing was a result of an historical mistake, which now belongs to history and to the past," he said in an apparent reference to Indonesia's bloody 1975 invasion.

"And this past, because it already has a rightful place in history, should not continue to strain our spirits or to hamper our attitudes and conduct," Mr Gusmao said in the speech just minutes after the declaration of independence at midnight.

The United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan, paid tribute to the estimated 250,000 people who were killed or died from famine and disease during nearly 400 years of foreign occupation.

"At this moment, we honour every citizen of East Timor who persisted in the struggle for independence. We also remember the many who are no longer with us but who dreamed of this moment. It is their day, too."

Mr Annan saluted the courage of the Timorese. "That a small nation is able to inspire the world and be the focus of our attention is the highest tribute that I can pay."

He ended his speech to tens of thousands of people on a dusty plain outside the capital, Dili, with the cry: "Viva Timor leste" (long live East Timor).

The ceremony included the lowering of the flag of the UN, which has administered the territory since Indonesia withdrew in 1999 after its armed forces had sponsored a campaign of murder, looting, arson and forced expulsions.

The red, yellow, black and white flag of independent East Timor now flies across the country that was ruled by Portugal for nearly 400 years, then by Indonesia for another 25.

Among the crowd at the main celebrations outside Dili were traditional warriors with swords and headdresses, and women wearing colourful woven sarongs.

The mood was of quiet pride, joy and celebration. "I'm happy,"said Bernado Ximines, 23, an unemployed civil servant. "Today we are free. I'm happy. It is independence day and all the countries of the world are coming to East Timor to celebrate."

Mr Ximines was pleased that Ms Megawati had said she would come. "The Indonesian people are good. It's just the army that is bad."

The ceremony, attended by representatives of 80 countries including the former United States president Bill Clinton, had been soured by the unexpected arrival of the warships on Friday.

Military spokesmen in Jakarta said they were needed to protect Ms Megawati, but the UN and East Timorese leaders asked that the ships leave the country's territorial waters after expressing "displeasure" to Jakarta over their sudden arrival.

A report of the new Australian Strategic Policy Institute, to be published today, says Australia should make it clear that it would defend East Timor from any future attack by Indonesia.

At a news conference at Dili Airport, the Prime Minister, John Howard, wearing a traditional Timorese tais, said that the two countries were now "partners in this part of the world".

"The security of East Timor is important to Australia. We wouldn't be where we are now if we hadn't taken that view some years ago."

Mr Howard refused to be drawn on the row over the arrival of the warships, saying: "I have encouraged the East Timorese leadership to reach out to Indonesia and I've encouraged Indonesia to reach out to East Timor."

He spoke of Australia's strong affinity with the East Timorese and referred to Australia's gratitude for their help during World War II and to Australia's support for the territory's independence.

Mr Howard refused to say when Australian troops serving as UN peacekeepers would be withdrawn.

[Further reporting by Jill Jollife.]

Birth of a nation

Independence poses new challenges

Green Left Weekly - May 22, 2002

Jon Land -- As the official festivities wind down in East Timor following the May 20 independence celebrations and the international dignitaries fly back to their comfortable and privileged lifestyles, a beckoning question for most East Timorese remains, what does independence hold? The plethora of government heads, former prime ministers and presidents who gathered in Dili for the May 20 independence celebrations would like to think they played the main role in East Timor gaining independence. However, most of their governments for 24 years blocked -- or at best ignored -- the East Timorese nation's struggle for self-determination.

The triumph of the East Timorese can first and foremost be attributed to their own efforts. Two other important factors proved decisive though. Firstly, the dramatic political upheavals sparked by pro-democracy activists and organisations within Indonesia that toppled the dictator Suharto. Secondly, the support from an international solidarity network that challenged and forced the big Western powers to change their hypocritical policies towards East Timor.

The East Timorese resistance to Portuguese colonial rule was stimulated by the anti-colonial struggles that gripped the world in the 1960s and 70s.

Though largely cut-off from what was happening in other parts of the world, young (and not-so-young) radicals, intellectuals and sections of the urban East Timorese elite started to organise against colonial rule. They became the backbone of the new national independence movement, primarily embodied by the political party Fretilin, which espoused the creation of a new East Timor based on egalitarian principles, free from all forms of oppression and injustice.

It is these principles which kept alive the hopes of the East Timorese people during the Indonesian military occupation after 1975. While most of the key leaders of the independence movement where murdered or disappeared in the first brutal decade of the Indonesian military occupation (along with around one third of the entire population), new forms of resistance created by youth and students arose to compliment the guerilla struggle.

The oppression of the East Timorese was dramatically brought to light by the bravery of thousands of young East Timorese who marched through the streets of Dili on November 12, 1991. Hundreds were gunned down or beaten by heavily armed Indonesian soldiers, supplied with weapons and training by the United States, Australia, Britain and other supporters of the Suharto dictatorship.

This incident galvanised existing solidarity organisations internationally and gave birth to new groups committed to supporting East Timor. The plight of East Timor was increasingly popularised during the 1990s through the work of many dedicated activists.

At the same time, the democracy movement in Indonesia began to directly defy military rule. The most radical section of this movement -- led by the Peoples Democratic Party -- openly supported self-determination for East Timor, and worked closely with East Timorese student and worker activists living in Indonesia.

It was this campaign on three fronts -- within East Timor, within Indonesia and internationally -- that forced the holding of a United Nations-sponsored referendum on independence in September 1999. It was also the momentum from this campaign that mobilised hundreds of thousands across the world demanding UN military intervention to stop the post-referendum carnage and defend the East Timorese people's rejection of incorporation into Indonesia.

Now that this chapter of struggle has passed, a new, daunting challenge confronts East Timor. As it slowly overcomes the distortions and contradictions created by the presence of the UN administration, East Timor looks set to become the newest victim of the neo-liberal policies imposed by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank on underdeveloped countries.

East Timor is an incredibly impoverished country. The National Human Development Report on East Timor released on May 13 by the United Nations Development Program reveals the extent of the country's underdevelopment. East Timor's GDP per capita is estimated at US$478, with nearly half the population living on less than US$0.55 per day. Life expectancy is 57 years and only 41% of the population is literate.

At the international donors meeting held in Dili on May 14-15, representatives from the IMF and World Bank, under the guise of "economic stabilisation", stressed the need for further privatisation, lowering of wages and increasing indirect taxes.

It is difficult to conceive how such an economic plan will benefit East Timor, faced with the decline in GDP growth from around 18% to a projected negative growth rate of -2% this year. While donors pledged $US360 million over the next three years to help with the budget shortfall, it remains unclear whether this will be sufficient and what economic and social policies East Timor will be pressured to implement so as to receive this pledge in full.

Around half the recurrent budget expenditure is slated for spending on social welfare and development, but even this amount will barely stretch to meet enormous needs in education, health and basic infrastructure such as housing, roads, power and communications.

Key areas of the East Timorese economy are under threat from foreign countries or companies. Australia is seeking to undermine East Timor's control over oil and gas in the Timor Sea. Portuguese and US interests dominate coffee production while smaller Australian and south-east Asian capitalists have a stronghold in the construction, service and retail sectors (though services and retail will suffer the most with the departure of UN administrative staff).

In a solidarity statement for the May 20 independence day celebrations, Max Lane, national chairperson of Action in Solidarity with Asia and the Pacific, commented that: "We witness today the rapacious, arrogant and unjust efforts by the giant financial corporations, the international financial institutions and governments such as those of the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan and Australia to enforce neo-liberal policies on the Third World... "We stand with the East Timorese people in any struggles they have with the Australian government, greedy Australian corporations, or the IMF and World Bank.

"We are with the East Timorese peoples' struggle, not just up until winning an independent political state but until a full and just society has been achieved."

East Timor faces rocky path: Dunn

Australian Associated Press - May 19, 2002

An Australian with one of the closest associations with East Timor, former diplomat James Dunn, has concerns about East Timor's future as an independent country.

The 74-year-old who has maintained links since he was Australian consul in Dili in the early 1960s is undergoing an emotional experience as the resilient East Timorese claim full independence under the presidency of former resistance leader Xanana Gusmao.

He led a fact-finding mission in 1974 to the former colonial possession abandoned by Portugal and recommended to the then Whitlam government that Australia should support self- determination.

He fled when the Indonesians invaded in 1975 and again, as a United Nations observer, when the pro-Jakarta militia backed by the Indonesian military, TNI, razed the country in 1999.

Back in Dili as a house guest of senior minister Jose Ramos- Horta, Dunn lists East Timor's fragile economy and the need to pursue justice for the atrocities surrounding the autonomy ballot of August 30, 1999, as concerns that are mixed with his elation.

"There's enormous excitement about independence but then I have all these great hopes that the future will shape up well despite a number of problems," Dunn said.

"One of the most serious is, the East Timor economy is quite weak. On the other hand, as the donor nations have shown, the international community has turned out to be quite supportive so that spells well for the future." The World Bank predicted last week that East Timor had a good chance of becoming economically independent in a few years through royalties from Timor Sea gas.

Dunn believes Australia is pushing a hard bargain on the terms of a new Timor Gap Treaty and that the East Timorese have placed a lot of faith in their wealthy neighbour's promise not to rip them off.

"If that [Timor Sea liquid natural gas development] works out, they'll be doing OK, but it'll be quite a while before they're a wealthy nation," Dunn said.

Dunn, a recognised expert on crimes against humanity in East Timor, reported to the United Nations that 24 members of the Indonesian military warranted investigation over the 1999 violence that reduced the country to ruins.

President Gusmao is pushing hard for reconciliation among East Timorese and with Indonesia.

"That does leave a few little problems in the sense that if the East Timorese were to take the view that they should forget the past totally, that would mean that a group of Indonesian generals who really conspired to set up the militia, to prevent the loss of East Timor, to sabotage the UN mission -- it's unthinkable that they might totally get away with it," Dunn said.

Dunn advocates that an international tribunal investigates the atrocities that occurred in East Timor and report to Indonesia to bring wrongdoers to justice.

East Timor gets United Nations nod

Associated Press - May 23, 2002

Edith M. Lederer, United Nations -- Acting with unusual speed, the UN Security Council adopted a resolution Thursday recommending that the 189-nation General Assembly admit East Timor as a new member.

The resolution was approved without a vote a day after Secretary- General Kofi Annan sent East Timor's request to join the United Nations in late September to both UN bodies. East Timor became the world's newest nation on May 20.

Singapore's Foreign Minister Shanmugam Jayakumar, whose country currently holds the Security Council presidency, congratulated East Timor "on this historic occasion."

He said the council's recommendation would be sent to Annan for transmission to the next session of the General Assembly, which begins in early September.

Switzerland voted on March 3 to join the United Nations, and it was not clear which country would be admitted first.

East Timor became independent on May 20 after centuries of Portuguese rule and 24 years of often brutal occupation by Indonesia.

In its first act, the tiny southeast Asian nation's assembly voted to sign the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights and join the United Nations.

"We kindly request that the Democratic Republic of East Timor be admitted as a new member of the United Nations during the last week of September 2002," East Timor's president, Xanana Gusmao, and prime minister, Mari Alkatiri, said in a joint letter to Annan on May 20, which was circulated Wednesday.

The Security Council referred the application on Wednesday to its Committee on the Admission of New Members. The committee met Thursday morning and unanimously decided to recommend East Timor for UN membership.

After the council approved the recommendation Thursday afternoon, Singapore's Jayakumar noted "with great satisfaction" East Timor's commitment to uphold the UN Charter.

"We look forward to the day in the near future when the Democratic Republic of East Timor will join us as a member of the United Nations and to working closely with its representatives," he said.

East Timor is independent - so long as it does as it's told

The Guardian - May 23, 2002

Jonathan Steele -- It's a hard world to be born into, even for nation-states. This week East Timor, half of a small island a few hundred miles north of Australia, became the youngest member of the so-called international community. Out went a temporary UN administration, established three years ago after Indonesian troops had run amok when the Timorese voted in a referendum for independence.

In came the leaders of one of the bravest resistance movements of modern times, who fought for two decades in the mountains and doggedly lobbied in foreign capitals to keep East Timor's illegal occupation on the international agenda.

One might have thought such a small country with so difficult a history might have been granted a few years of innocence as it finally achieved sovereignty. But no. The dread hand of American hegemony, corporate as well as diplomatic, was already in action, squeezing the embryo in the womb.

Unlike Bosnia, Cambodia, Haiti and Kosovo, where the UN recently had or still has advisory or administrative missions, East Timor is rich. It has large oil and gas reserves under the sea which separates the country from Australia. Rare among small developing states, East Timor ought to be able to stand on its own feet and avoid foreign debt.

So, one of the first decisions the UN administration took when it arrived in Dili in 1999 to help to prepare the country for independence was to open negotiations with Australia on a new energy treaty on East Timor's behalf. It could have waited and left the issue for the Timorese to handle after independence. But UN officials felt they had to go forward, even though it put the UN in a unique position of sitting as an adversary across the table from a sovereign government, Australia, which is a wealthy and powerful member of the UN system.

The UN put up a tough fight to get a better deal from Australia and the mighty oil companies, including US-based Phillips Petroleum, than the one which Indonesia had made years earlier. The surprise came last year when the US started warning East Timor not to push Australia too hard shortly after Vice-President Dick Cheney had received Australian representatives in his Washington office. Mr Cheney is, of course, an oil-man with continuing contacts with businessmen but here he was, using the weight of his governmental position, to interfere in discussions between the UN and a foreign government. Odd, but symptomatic of the world tiny East Timor was entering. East Timor's UN negotiators resisted and did not give way.

More recently, it was the turn of the Bush administration's "moderate", the secretary of state, Colin Powell. He wrote to the incoming government a month ago, warning them to give a written promise not to prosecute any US citizens for crimes against humanity under the procedures of the newly established international criminal court. Otherwise the US Congress would find it difficult to go on giving aid, he advised them.

There are no US troops in the UN peacekeeping force in East Timor, making the US demand almost entirely theoretical. The urgency of the pledge being demanded from East Timor was hard to see, let alone the propriety of forcing a country to make exceptions to one of the first international treaties it intends to sign, but on this occasion the Timorese gave in. The principle is the thing: even embryonic states have to make a declaration of dependence to the world's only remaining empire before they assume their notional "independence".

If the US historical role in East Timor's long struggle for sovereignty had been benign, the Bush administration's pressure tactics might seem less grotesque. But Washington's hands have long been covered in blood.

Previously classified documents released last December show how Henry Kissinger, then secretary of state, approved Indonesia's plans to invade East Timor after the Portuguese, the original colonisers, pulled out in 1975. In "talking points" prepared for President Gerald Ford's visit to Jakarta in December 1975, Kissinger proposed to double US military aid to Indonesia. He also described the "merger of East Timor with Indonesia" as "a reasonable solution".

American intelligence saw the mounting preparations for an invasion and when Ford met General Suharto, the Indonesian dictator told him: "We want your understanding, if we deem it necessary to take rapid or drastic action." Ford answered: "We will understand and not press you on the issue." Kissinger's only worries were that US-made weapons not be used and no military action be taken until he and Ford got out of Indonesia. "If you have made plans, we will do our best to keep everyone quiet until the president returns home," Kissinger told Suharto.

The invasion happened two days later when the American party had moved on to the Phillippines. During the course of the 24-year Indonesian occupation up to 200,000 Timorese are thought to have died. Bill Clinton, who represented the US at the UN hand-over ceremony in Dili on Sunday, had a better record on East Timor but for many Timorese he is a negative symbol, a man of inaction.

When Indonesia's new post-Suharto government agreed in May 1999 to permit a referendum on independence, security was the decisive issue. Even though it was well-known that the Indonesian army had already begun to organise local militias to harass and murder supporters of independence, the UN security council agreed to let Indonesia, rather than an international peacekeeping force, maintain security for the pre-referendum period.

Publicly, the argument was that Indonesia had already made a huge concession by agreeing to a referendum. To insist on foreign peace-keepers would be a demand too far. Privately, it was said the US would exert pressure on the Indonesian government, which was desperate for IMF loans, to rein in the army and militias. There need be no worries about security.

Clinton let the Timorese down. If he did put pressure on Indonesia, it had no effect. Violence rose to a climax in the hours after polling when it became clear that voters had opted for freedom and against Indonesia. Troops and militias ransacked Dili and other towns and villages, transporting hundreds of thousands of people to West Timor and forcing the rest of the population to flee to the hills. Only then did the US finally weigh in, under the pressure of the international media, and persuade the Indonesians to accept the referendum result, withdraw their forces and allow in foreign peacekeepers.

Even now, the US is failing to press Indonesia to take seriously the tribunal set up in Jakarta to try former generals and militia leaders or to hand over suspects indicted in East Timor for trial in Dili. As part of the "war on terrorism", senior US administration officials want to relax restrictions on contacts with the Indonesian military.

Far from pressing tiny East Timor to toe the US rejectionist line on the international criminal court, the Bush administration would do better to get justice done for the Timorese as they become a nation-state at last. There is not much chance of that.

Reality check in East Timor

Asia Times - May 22, 2002

Aaron Goodman, Dili -- The unfurling of East Timor's flag and the lighting of fireworks on Sunday marked the formal coming out of the newest country of the millennium, one whose test of nationhood will be under way for many years to come.

For now, however, the 800,000 people of the country, whose official name is the Democratic Republic of Timor Leste -- are simply savoring the moment few imagined even just a few years ago.

In his address to revelers and the nation, president-elect Xanana Gusmao praised the Timorese' determination and thanked the international community for their assistance in helping the country reach its long-sought goal of independence.

In a move aimed at reconciliation with its largest neighbor, Gusmao paid special tribute to Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri, whom he earlier accompanied to the Heroes' Cemetery, where Indonesian soldiers who died during their 24-year war to subjugate Timorese nationalist guerrillas are buried.

The former guerrilla leader, who fought Indonesian troops from Timor's forests, and spent seven years in a Jakarta prison, called previous Indonesian-Timorese ties "a historical mistake which now belong to history and to the past".

Yet aside from the celebrations attended by 150,000 people, a candle-lit memorial to those who died in the independence struggle, and a march by former freedom fighters, Gusmao acknowledged that East Timor faces enormous challenges, including alleviating poverty and providing jobs, health care and education.

All these will need to be addressed in rebuilding the country after the devastating violence that decimated it in 1999, after nearly 80 percent of its people voted to break away from Indonesian rule.

"Our independence will have no value if all the people continue to live in poverty and continue to suffer all kinds of difficulties," he said. "We gained our independence to improve our lives. Because of this, we are celebrating our independence."

Nearly three years ago, pro-Jakarta militias razed the country, killing 2,000, displacing three-quarters of the population, and destroying nearly all buildings in the aftermath of the UN- sponsored referendum.

As the poorest country in Asia today, and the world's sixth poorest, economists with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) estimate that half of East Timor's population earns about US$1 a day, surviving mostly as subsistence farmers. For the moment, the threat of renewed militia violence, or retribution directed at former militia members who have begun returning to East Timor, is marginal.

A much greater cause for concern is widespread unemployment -- which some estimate at up to 80 percent -- and simmering discontent among the Timorese with the new government because of the disparities that exist between the elite and the governed.

The tradition of inequalities is among the unfortunate handovers from the UN interim administration, one that came at a price tag of $2 billion and afforded little economic benefit to the Timorese themselves.

Dili is now one of the most expensive cities in Asia, and local residents cannot afford to eat at most restaurants, which cater to international UN staffers who are paid 200 times as much as their local counterparts.

Meanwhile, Dili's population has soared to 100,000 since 1999, and unemployed youths hawk oranges, mobile-telephone cards and pirated compact discs to make ends meet. Homeless children sleep on the pavement outside Dili's Hello Mister Supermarket, where goods and produce imported from Australia are priced on par with Harrods in London.

But the bubble will not last long. Once the economy begins to deflate when UN staffers begin leaving East Timor this week, it is not yet clear what the effect will be. Jobs for locals will be increasingly scarce, and until revenues from oil exploration in the Timor Gap begin feeding the economy, East Timor will largely depend on foreign aid. On Monday one the new government's first acts was to sign a treaty with Australia dividing revenues from oil and gas reserves under the Timor Sea 90:10 in East Timor's favor.

The reserves are expected to bring the nation about $7 billion over the next 20 years, but the revenue is not expected to kick in until 2005.

On May 15, the international donor community pledged more than $360 million, to be spread over three years, in development aid to East Timor. This is in addition to $81 million already available through a multi-donor trust fund.

To make matters worse, after the Timorese transitional government adopted Portuguese as the country's official language, young people who grew up under the Indonesian education system, who never learned their distant colonizers' tongue, quickly became known as "the lost generation" and will be at increasing odds to find work.

The people's needs in the districts are equally urgent. In Same, the capital of Manufahi district five hours from Dili, Colombian Dr Xavier Pineda is one of two doctors servicing 35,000 Timorese. He complains that people are dying unnecessarily from tuberculosis, malaria, diarrhea, respiratory infections and other treatable illnesses because of a lack of directive from the new administration.

At his clinic, Pineda says he does not have the basic equipment he needs to perform routine medical tests, let alone the necessary equipment for delivering babies. "I've seen four children die because I don't have forceps to pull them out," he says. "You can feel the child and you know the child is going to die. Can you imagine this level of disorganization at all levels? It's very worrying."

Outside Dili, few places have electricity for more than a few hours per day, and often not even every day. Telephone connections outside the capital do not exist, and local media, funded by the United Nations and international agencies -- is largely unsustainable.

But how to rebuild a society that has been deliberately and systematically broken during 24 years of brutal military occupation?

According to Kristina Tang of the Psycho-Social Recovery and Development in East Timor, a non-government organization that provides assistance and counseling to people suffering from trauma, 15-25 percent of the population suffers from post- traumatic stress disorder.

"Now that the situation has started to stabilize, the effects of trauma are starting to come to the surface," says Tang. "Unemployment is high and a lot of men are drinking. They're thinking about their trauma and are manifesting the consequences of that. This is when people start showing problems as a result of all the violence."

One of the spinoffs of years of conflict, says Tang, is an increasing level of domestic violence and child abuse that now accounts for one in five serious crimes before East Timor's courts.

Future depends on learning from mistakes of past

The Australian - May 20, 2002

Don Greenlees, Dili -- Soon after sundown in a football field here, Domingos Ribero's gaze fixes on the screen of a makeshift outdoor cinema. Images from East Timor's violent past unfold before him, captivating a large audience who have been exposed to little of their own history.

For Ribero, like many in this field, the films being shown in the Human Rights Documentary Film Festival offer many small and large revelations.

Tonight, he watches a documentary about the early days of East Timor's painful struggle against foreign occupation.

"I think it's good for us to remember these things -- many mistakes were made that we should not make again," says the 25- year-old engineering student.

He has bitter personal experiences of those mistakes. His father, a soldier under the Portuguese colonial administration and a member of the Timorese Democratic Union (UDT), was killed in the civil war of 1975.

Ribero assumes the killer was from the now-ruling Fretilin. During last year's elections for East Timor's Constituent Assembly, Ribero voted for one of the many smaller parties trying to constrain Fretilin's inevitable victory.

But he doesn't bear any grudges. Last night's declaration of independence, and the birth of the Democratic Republic of East Timor, he believes, obliges the people to put to rest old differences.

"It was a different situation back then," he says. "We are going to be independent now and we cannot try to blame others. The important thing now is whether the Government is true to the people, works for the people."

Independence is binding the East Timorese together, transcending the political disagreements that lie ahead as the country focuess on the task of nation-building.

But independence means different things to different people. Many East Timorese fear independence will be a signal for the elite to fall back into the bad old habits of ruling for themselves.

A study by the Washington-based National Democratic Institute found that although the East Timorese were in a forgiving mood, there were concerns that recently elected leaders had already stopped listening to the voters.

"The people have a well-developed sense of representative democracy, they want their representatives to come and hear their views and take their views back to the parliament," says NDI's East Timor director Jim Della Giacoma.

"The people who have the weakest sense of representative democracy are the representatives themselves, who see themselves as too busy governing to talk to the people."

Such complaints are shown in the choice of the date of the handover from UN rule to indigenous rule -- May 20. This is the birthday of Fretilin's forerunner, the Timorese Social Democratic Party (ASDT). Independence Day will be celebrated on November 28, the anniversary of Fretilin's 1975 unilateral declaration of independence. This move by Fretilin to claim the symbolism of independence has irritated many East Timorese.

President Xanana Gusmao is among those to have opposed Fretilin's choice of dates. He, like many of the younger generation, preferred Independence Day to be marked on August 30, the anniversary of the 1999 referendum that paved the way for an end to Indonesian rule.

Says Gusmao's Australian wife, Kirsty Sword: "I agree with Xanana, he made it very clear publicly at the time that he didn't agree that the 20th of May was an unbiased choice of date.

"He would have preferred that it be the 30th of August, which is indisputably a day in which East Timor came out in force and showed its true colours, of which it can be hugely proud."

Ribero says irrespective of the date, he celebrates the coming of independence with a full heart. But he says such battles over the symbolism should be a reminder of how easy it is for the governed to be forgotten by the governors.

"Many of those in government now were not here in 1999 -- they didn't see our experience," he says. For them, they remember East Timor as it was."

Your questions on the world's newest nation

BBC News - May 21, 2001

Richard Galpin, Dili -- East Timor is celebrating becoming the world's newest country. It has been under United Nations administration since 1999 when it overwhelmingly voted to break away from 24 years of Indonesian rule. Pro-Indonesian militias went on a bloody rampage following the vote, leaving parts of East Timor in ruins.

Since the UN arrived, much has been rebuilt. But East Timor has a mammoth task ahead to build itself into a stable nation. What kind of country will East Timor be? How should its problems be addressed?

Transcript

Newshost: The UN Secretary General, Kofi Anan, the former American president, Bill Clinton, among other world dignitaries, make their way home. The world's newest nation now has to find its own feet. Well with us to help to chart the course the future of East Timor is a man who's reported a lot from there during the years, our Jakarta correspondent Richard Galpin and he's here on the line to answer your questions.

Well firstly Richard from the United States, F. Doraj says: "How have the people of East Timor reacted to their independence?"

Richard Galpin: I think right now the sense is very much one of festivity and excitement and I think for many people the almost disbelief that this day has come. If you look back literally just a few years, people really could just not have imagined that they would eventually win their independence. So I think people are revelling in that and enjoying every moment. And as we speak now there's a huge music concert going on with almost the same size crowd as there was last night for the actual independence ceremony for the handover of power.

So people are really enjoying themselves but at the same time, obviously, there is concern for the future. We've been here for the past week and talking to people out in the districts where the situation is very grim indeed, in terms of the economy and the level of destruction which is still there, they know that they face many, many problems. And the government's acutely aware of that as well, that they have a massive task ahead to get this new nation off the ground. This has already been designated officially as Asia's poorest country, so it's going to be a very, very tough first few years of independence.

Newshost: J. Lewis from Wales, here in the United Kingdom, writes quite an optimistic question. He says: "Considering the small population and newly signed oil and gas export agreement with Australia isn't it possible that East Timor could have quite a well developed economy 10 years down the road providing the newly elected government does manage to keep hold of the reigns of ASEANs newest member?"

Richard Galpin: Yes -- the key phrase there is 10 years down the road and I think it's going to take at least that. I think probably the experts here would say much longer, maybe it's going to be 20 or 25 years. But the revenue from the oil and gas in the Timor Sea doesn't actually come on stream properly, at the earliest, for probably up to about four years and then it'll be gradual.

But certainly the estimates for the amount of oil and gas in the Timor Sea are really quite considerable -- it's anything up to about $7 billion. And as the questioner was saying, that the population of East Timor is only about three quarters of a million. So potentially things could develop but it will take a long time.

I'll just come back to this point that East Timor was the poorest province of Indonesia and then we had this horrific destruction in 1999 surrounding the independence vote. So there's a very, very long way to go, something like 80% of the infrastructure here was completely destroyed and of course many of the population forced across the border -- 250,000 or so refugees -- many of whom have come back now but it's going to be very, very difficult.

But I think the East Timorese Government, certainly from pressure from the United Nations, have been made very aware of the dangers of a windfall from oil and gas. We've seen many countries around the world which have gone down that route and squandered the money in corrupt practices and certainly the UN has really been pushing home that point. And we understand the East Timorese government, if all this revenue does actually come through, they're going to put a lot of it actually into a trust fund, they won't spend it all immediately, take the interest from it to help develop the country but actually push a lot of it aside so it's not spent immediately so that there are reserves of cash for future generations.

Newshost: They've elected as president as we know, Xanana Gusmao, the great hero of the independence movement but there has been talk of some rivalry between him and the prime minister, Mari Alkatiri, Peter writes, also from here in the United Kingdom: "Do you think that this is a problem and how does the new constitution divide their powers? Which is the more powerful and what happens if there's a disagreement between them?"

Richard Galpin: Well it certainly is potentially a problem and during the time of the presidential election last month this was an issue which was very much raised at the time. There's certainly deep hostility -- perhaps a little bit strong -- but the two men do not get on at all well and this goes back many, many years to the way in which the independence struggle, the resistance to Indonesian rule, was run and the two men disagreed, particularly because Xanana Gusmao took the resistance away from the main party, Fretilin. It had been just part of Fretilin but Xanana Gusmao said the resistance struggle should not just be about one political party, it must be about the whole East Timorese nation and Mari Alkatiri was extremely angered by that.

And that is something which has lived on. So again there was a lot of pressure put on the East Timorese at that time and on the two men from the United Nations to try to get them to work together and certainly there have been many pledges saying that they will now work together. We've heard from both men that they will not allow this to get in the way of this critical time for East Timor.

In terms of the constitution, in fact executive power lies almost exclusively with the cabinet and the prime minister Mari Alkatiri and Xanana Gusmao does not have that much executive power except in the case of some kind of crisis. So he is much more of a symbol, a figurehead, but having said that he enjoys such enormous popular support, in the presidential election he got something like 84 per cent of the vote and that's a very powerful mandate and he knows that he can do a lot with that and he intends doing a lot with that. He's saying that he's going to be the people's president. He will go round the country constantly talking to the people, seeing what their problems are and feeding that back to the government. So he could, in many respects, be something of a thorn in the side of the government if they do not agree on the issues which have been raised.

Newshost: Alexander Roberts writes asking for a historical comparison. He says: "Do you feel that the Indonesian occupation has left East Timor better prepared for independence now, as opposed to the state it was in immediately after the Portuguese left?"

Richard Galpin: Well it's certainly true that during the Indonesian occupation large amounts of money were pumped into East Timor and we certainly, for example, saw a lot of health facilities built, a lot of schools built, there was a big emphasis in particular on enrolling children into primary school.

But the key point here is the destruction which we saw in 1999 for all that work which was done then it was almost all completely destroyed by the Indonesian troops and militias when they were retreated after the independence vote at the end of August in 1999, there was literally almost nothing left. So no I don't think it is right to say that. East Timor has really -- well was pretty much pushed back to the Middle Ages by what happened in 1999.

But also I should say that under the Portuguese they did very little to develop this nation. I think, if I remember correctly, that the figure was something like 5% of the country was literate at the time the Portuguese pulled out in 1975 and that was after more than four centuries of rule. So they did absolutely nothing to help the East Timorese population.

Newshost: Rahul Laxman Iyer writes from the United States about the world full of examples of developing countries, as we know, who have achieved independence and then become irredeemably corrupt. He fears this might happen in East Timor -- do you see any signs of it?

Richard Galpin: Well I think that obviously is a genuine concern and East Timor was of course a part of Indonesia for almost a quarter of a century and Indonesia is renowned for its corruption -- it's endemic right now in Indonesia and obviously was during the time of the occupation. So clearly there is that potential and there's a lot of concern about that. Of course we don't know yet, we will have to wait and see how this government performs.

There are concerns, particularly given the fact that the main political party, Fretilin, dominates the government so much, it took around about 60-70% of the seats in parliament, it holds most of the ministries.

Certainly people we've talked to in the districts are very concerned that Fretilin now will use that position for patronage to get all their supporters positioned in a bureaucracy and people perhaps who are better qualified who've been involved in the UN administration, East Timorese that is, will be pushed out and there will be jobs for the boys. There's a lot of concern about that but once again I think that the eyes of the international community are very much watching East Timor and watching how it develops.

The international community has a lot of leverage, certainly for the next few years given the fact that it's effectively keeping East Timor afloat economically. We've just had a donor's conference last week at which foreign donors pledged another almost $400 million for East Timor for the next three years and that is essential money. East Timor could not keep afloat economically, it cannot even finance its own very small national budget. The national budget for this financial year is something in the region of $100 million which is peanuts for most countries but in terms of the revenue which the East Timor government can actually obtain it's only about $30 million. So the international community is actually financing the basic national budget, as well as development for East Timor, so there's a lot of leverage and they can exert a lot of control on that.

Newshost: A couple of factual questions to finish on Richard. Francisco in Venezuela asks about language: "Has a decision been made on an official language because there was a bit of an argument about this?" And Artur P. from Russia asks about the flag, this red flag with a couple of triangles and a star in it -- where does that come from?

Richard Galpin: Well the flag is actually based on the original flag which was raised very briefly in 1975 when the Portuguese withdrew. There was a declaration of independence but of course it didn't last very long, in fact just nine days. So it is based on that original flag. And it symbolises -- the white star symbolises peace, the red symbolises the resistance, the yellow, apparently, the years of colonial rule.

Newshost: And on the language Richard -- what's the official language going to be?

Richard Galpin: In terms of the language, a decision, yes, has been taken. It's written into the constitution that East Timor will have two working languages which are Portuguese and Teturn. And then also two other languages -- sorry those are the official languages and then two working languages which are English and Bahasa Indonesia, the Indonesian language. So it's really quite a hotch potch and actually it is very controversial.

Many people were quite dismayed that in particular that Portuguese has been made an official language, Portuguese is very much the language of the elite, the people who are in power right now, but only a tiny proportion of the rest of the population actually speak it. But the political elite, have insisted that this should be the main official language and in fact have imported something like 150 Portuguese teachers to come and help and of course this is going to cause real problems. As I was saying earlier, the country has virtually no infrastructure, education in terms of schools and teachers is absolutely minimal, so finding people who can actually teach Portuguese, getting hold of the textbooks that you need is going to cost an awful lot of money which East Timor doesn't have.

Then on top of that it could, according to some people we've been speaking to, cause problems within families, that you have the children of a family learning Portuguese but the parents don't understand a word they're talking about, so it's going to be very difficult. It's a difficult transition and could slow that critical process of actually educating the population, which is obviously going to be so important for the development of this nation. According to the UN DP reports -- the United Nations Development Programme report -- released just about a week ago they estimate that something like 41 per cent of the population of East Timor is illiterate, so actually getting a fast-track education system underway is very important. So imposing these kinds of linguistic problems really isn't going to help.

Newshost: Well for now Richard thank you very much. I guess the party will go on in whatever language for a day or two.

[That's Richard Galpin our Jakarta correspondent, reporting from East Timor, the world's newest nation and that's all from the BBC News Interactive Forum.]

Transition & reconstruction

Pull out troops after 2004: report

Canberra Times - May 21, 2002

Lincoln Wright -- To avoid provoking Indonesia, Australia should pull its 1450 troops out of East Timor after the United Nations leaves in 2004, according to a new defence report.

But the Howard Government should help upgrade East Timor's police force to improve security.

The new Australian Strategic Policy Institute, a government- funded think-tank, concluded in its first report yesterday that many Indonesians were highly suspicious of Australia's motives in East Timor and allaying their concerns was a major priority.

The director of the institute, Hugh White, described Australia's strategic interests in East Timor as a balancing act between not scaring Indonesia and ensuring East Timor's security.

"We obviously need to be very conscious of the way what we do in East Timor is read in Jakarta. If we're not careful, our actions to build a strong defence relationship with East Timor will be misread in Jakarta as an attempt to make East Timor a strategic asset for Australia."

On the one hand, Mr White said it would be "unthinkable" to allow military aggression against East Timor to go unchallenged. The 2001 Defence White Paper had indicated Australia would support any nation in the south-west Pacific if it were attacked, and that principle should apply to East Timor.

That did not mean a bilateral agreement should be reached with East Timor, however, or even a security guarantee. A trilateral agreement with Indonesia and East Timor would be preferable, he said.

Instead of troops, the report said the Government needed to give East Timor more internal security support to control the growing rascal element and the threat of militias on the border with West Timor.

The UN is expected to leave East Timor in two years' time. Mr White said ultimately that could mean leaving behind between 30 and 50 Defence Force personnel, but they would be in training roles, and not on operational missions.

"Australia's key policy challenge is to help East Timor meet its urgent security problems, and to encourage other countries to do the same," the report said.

Economic growth was the solution in the long term, but better policing was the key aim at this stage. Better policing was needed to tackle organised gangs, increased smuggling, and the latent threat of militia from West Timor.

"The new East Timor Government's security apparatus is ill- equipped to deal with these problems. The police are poorly trained, have almost no equipment, and are severely under- funded," the report said.

When asked about several Indonesian warships sent to Dili Harbour during the visit there by Indonesia's President Megawati Sukarnoputri, Mr White said the ships had probably sent a message to President Megawati and East Timor.

Yet East Timor had found a way out of the problem, and that was good news. "Indonesians and East Timorese managed to sort it out ... These things are going to happen all the time. And they'd better get used to building the mechanisms to work it out," Mr White said.

The global class: scrooge of Timor

International Herald Tribune - May 21, 2002

Joseph Fitchete, Lisbon -- Bill Clinton presumably didn't notice any problems during East Timor's independence celebrations last week. After nearly two days' flying time to the Pacific as the Bush administration's representative, Clinton spent only a few hours in Dili, the new capital.

But Secretary-General Kofi Annan might have paid more attention to local complaints that departing United Nations officials took away nearly $10 million worth of computers, generators and other equipment that they had been using. Some administrative offices were stripped bare, say journalists and official guests from Lisbon, who took special interest in the UN handover because Portugal ran East Timor until 1975.

According to Carlos Monjardino, chairman of the Portuguese-Asian philanthropic foundation, Fundacao Oriente (endowed by funds from Macau's casinos), "UN officials said the decision involved sophisticated equipment liable to impose maintenance costs too high for East Timor."

UN officials retorted that $50 million in imported infrastructure remains: It belongs to a reduced UN mission, slated to stay a year. Noting that East Timor expects a bonanza from offshore oil, Monjardino said the UN action felt "mean-spirited."

West Timor refugees

West Timor military consoles pro-integration refugees

Jakarta Post - May 21, 2002

Jakarta -- East Nusa Tenggara Military district chief Col. Moeswarno Moesanip consoled some 30,000 pro-integration East Timorese refugees who were politically estranged in West Timor following East Timor's independence on Monday, saying all sides, including the military must accept the reality.

"The former Timorese political elite, including veterans, should be introspective over our past faults that caused the territory's separation from Indonesia. "We [the Indonesian Military] are the worst hit but we must swallow the bitter pill,"he said in Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara, on Monday.

The refugees, mostly former tribal chiefs, militiamen and officials, have declined to return home after hopes faded of being able to annul the independence. They also protested President Megawati Soekarnoputri's visit to Dili to join worldleaders in witnessing the birth of the new nation.

Some 7,000 ex-militiamen and 3,560 ex-servicemen who had taken refuge in West Timor returned home moments before the independence celebration.

Moesanip said the refugees should not turn their back on the past because such an action will disrupt their future. The most important thing now is how to develop the economy and maintain better ties with the neighboring country, he asserted.

He warned that whatever had happened in East Timor certainly had a negative impact on Indonesia. He said the Timorese were expected to look to Indonesia in the terms of language, legislation, trade and culture.

He said East Timor was expected to develop its economy in cooperation with Indonesia as Nepal did with India. "East Timor's economy will remain interconnected with Indonesia, rather than Australia, the United States and Portugal," he said.

Concerning people living in the two countries' border areas, he said it would be better for Indonesia and Timor to require only a border pass to cross the border areas because they were part of one family. "It looks impossible to separate the two countries," he said.

Meanwhile, the provincial administration will extend the repatriation program until November 20, 2002, to allow the refugees to return home.

"After six months from now, the Indonesian government will ask the remaining refugees to make their choice whether they wish to join the settlement program or go back home.

"If they go back now the provincial administration will no longer provide financial assistance because foreign donors have stopped their donations for the program," Stanis Tefa, chief of social affairs bureau at the provincial administration said.

He said refugees who declined to return home in the next six months would be presumed to be Indonesia citizens and they would be asked to join the resettlement program to transfer to other provinces.

30,000 Timorese refugees vow to continue fighting

Jakarta Post - May 20, 2002

Yemris Fointuna, Atambua -- As East Timorese proclaimed their hard-fought independence at midnight on May 19 and changed the name of their country to Timor Lorosae, some 30,000 refugees originally hailing from the new country opted to remain in Indonesia.

They also vowed on Sunday to continue fighting for the former Portuguese colony's integration into the Unitary Republic of Indonesia, but failed to spell out how they would advance their cause.

"We in the refugee camps are proud to be East Timorese. We pray that East Timor will once again become part of Indonesia," Timor refugee Fransisco Gutteres told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.

Timor Lorosae achieved full independence at midnight on May 19, after more than 450 years of foreign rule, including 32 months under the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET). The ceremony was attended by a number of heads of state, including President Megawati Soekarnoputri.

Timor Lorosae, Indonesia's 27th province for 24 years, voted to break away in a United Nations-organized referendum in August 1999.

Following the referendum, thousands of military-backed pro- Indonesia militiamen went on a rampage, killing hundreds of pro- independence East Timorese, destroying up to 80 percent of the territory's infrastructure and forcing over 250,000 East Timorese into makeshift refugee camps in West Timor.

The trials are now underway in Jakarta of 18 former civilian officials and military personnel believed to have been responsible for the bloodshed, while the number of East Timorese still living in West Timor now stands at around 30,000.

"We feel neglected. As human beings, our rights have been trampled upon. We will show the world that we are civilized people," said Mario de Araujo, another Timorese refugee in Atambua, West Timor.

Joao Martins said they felt sidelined and treated as second-class citizens by the Timor Lorosae authorities as all political processes in the territory had proceeded without the involvement of the East Timorese in the refugee camps in West Timor and other parts of Indonesia.

"The election of the Constituent Council, the formation of the transitional government, the presidential election and the setting up of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission had all been done without the involvement of the East Timorese in the refugee camps," Joao said.

Meanwhile, Indonesian Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare Jusuf Kalla said in Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara (NTT), on Saturday that the government would give the Timorese refugees until August to make up their minds about whether they wished to become citizens of the new state or remain as Indonesians.

"In August, we will repatriate those who want to return and resettle those who want to stay in Indonesia," Kalla was quoted by Antara as saying.

Kalla also said that at least 26,000 refugees had signed up to return to Timor Lorosae after the territory declared its independence.

Timor Gap

Downer: no change to Timor borders

The Australian - May 25, 2002

Don Greenlees, Jakarta -- Foreign Minister Alexander Downer yesterday signalled Australia would dismiss any proposals from newly independent East Timor to radically change seabed boundaries because it would risk unravelling thousands of kilometres of boundaries that have already been settled with Indonesia.

Responding to pressure from East Timorese leaders for Australia to provide a greater share of oil and gas reserves currently within Australian territory, Mr Downer said Canberra was obliged to consider any proposals put forward, but a radical change to delimitation of the boundaries was unacceptable.

"As I explained to the East Timorese some time ago, we are happy to hear what they have to say but we don't want to start renegotiating all of our boundaries, not just with East Timor, but with Indonesia. It has enormous implications," Mr Downer said.

"As I have explained to them, our maritime boundaries with Indonesia cover several thousand kilometres. That is a very, very big issue for us and we are not in the game of renegotiating them."

In contention are two large oil and gas fields known as Greater Sunrise. About 80 per cent of this resource lies on the Australian side of a 1972 seabed boundary. The remainder is within a joint petroleum-development area covered by the Timor Sea Treaty signed by John Howard and East Timorese Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri this week. Australia and East Timor are due to begin negotiations on an agreement covering certain commercial arrangements for Greater Sunrise in the next few weeks. The two sides hope to conclude an agreement by the end of the year.

But East Timor is keen to increase its share of the $30 billion reserves estimated to lie with Greater Sunrise -- nearly double the sums so far identified in the joint petroleum-development area.

The East Timorese can be expected to push their case strenuously, and are signalling they are prepared to seek an international court ruling, because the wealth of the Greater Sunrise field could make the difference between a modest income for East Timor and real wealth.

Tiny East Timor ready to fight for oil and gas rights

Toronto Star - May 24, 2002

Jennifer Wells -- On the news a few evenings back, CBC correspondent Patrick Brown contextualized the birth of the new nation of East Timor by emphasizing how small it is. With a population of just 800,000 souls, Brown made the point that the former Indonesian-occupied east end of an island is no bigger, people-wise, than Winnipeg.

How can a nation so small hold out hope for a viable future? The answer is concise. O-I-L. And G-A-S.

The commodities are central to the country's economic independence. So key, in fact, that it should come as no surprise to hear that the Timorese, not 24 hours into nationhood, made it clear that they are rethinking the Timor Gap Treaty, which governs oil and gas reserves in the Timor Sea. In so doing, the fledgling country is taking on not only Australia, with whom the treaty was signed, but such heavyweight American oil interests as Shell Oil Co. and Phillips Petroleum Corp. China and Portugal, to name but two, desperately want a piece of the action, Portugal's Petrogal S.A. having long been rumoured to be in secret negotiations.

It is rich to observe East Timor, shunned by the West as the murderous Suharto forces "integrated" the region in the waning days of 1975, being wooed in this way. In Suharto's Indonesia , Hamish McDonald chronicled the visit of US President Gerald Ford and his then-secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, to Jakarta in December of '75. The timing was slightly awkward, as Gen. Suharto planned to attack the East Timor capital of Dili on the very day of the presidential visit. What to do? The United States certainly knew of the little dictator's intentions and proposed a simple solution: might the Indonesians postpone their rampage for a day? But of course.

Writes McDonald: "In Jakarta, Kissinger raised no objection to the intervention, stipulating only that the Indonesians did it `quickly, efficiently and don't use our equipment'."

Of what use was East Timor anyway? It had a high-grade coffee crop, and the sandalwood was lovely, but the short-term commercial prospects for a country with a per capita gross national product of $40 (US) annually did not compel the Americans, or Australians, for that matter, to interfere in Suharto's plans. In A Nation in Waiting, an analysis of Indonesia through the '90s, Adam Schwarz described the situation thusly: "Australia and the United States made it clear to Jakarta that they intended to stay uninvolved, which Jakarta interpreted to mean tacit support for its integration designs."

And what did integration bring East Timor? In October, 1979, a Red Cross official was quoted as saying that East Timor's condition was "as bad as Biafra and potentially as serious as Kampuchea." An estimated 200,000 Timorese would ultimately die before Indonesia was through. The Suharto dictatorship, eager to use East Timor as an example to put down secessionist sentiment elsewhere in the archipelago, felled them by slaughter and starvation. Genocide is not too strong a word.

Now Suharto is gone, the interregnum of United Nations stewardship is over, East Timor has been relaunched, and all eyes are on her oil and gas assets. On Independence Day, the new country signed the modified Timor Gap Treaty, a revision of a previous treaty signed in 1989 between Australia and Indonesia. The 1989 contract accomplished two objectives: it affirmed in the eyes of the world Australia's endorsement of Indonesia's rule over East Timor, and it split the oil and gas spoils 50-50 between Canberra and Jakarta. Australia promoted the arrangement as a "logical corollary" to the absorption of East Timor into Indonesia.

The new deal signed this week looks, on its face, like an obviously better deal for the new country, with 90 per cent of revenues owing to East Timor and the remaining 10 to Australia. But hold on. The arrangement governs a predetermined "Joint Petroleum Development Area." Within that area sits the Bayu Undan oil and gas field, which is expected to contribute at least $6 billion to the East Timorese economy across a 20-year production scheme, commencing in 2005.

Far less advantageous to East Timor, however, was Australia's insistence on annexing to the same treaty the as-yet-undeveloped, and expectedly far richer Greater Sunrise project. Only 20 per cent of the Greater Sunrise field sits within the boundaries of the joint development area. It has been estimated that 82 per cent of what could be a $30 billion plus revenue stream will flow to the Australian side, a consortium that includes Shell and Phillips.

East Timor's Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri put Australia on notice this week that agreeing to be a signatory to the treaty does not resolve the drawing of maritime boundaries between the two. Boundaries, says Alkatiri, are still to be negotiated and must result in an arrangement for a greater share of Sunrise dedicated to Dili's coffers.

Australia may have hoped that the 90-10 split would make it appear generous in the eyes of the international community. It is to laugh. The country merely looks sly, again.

More than a quarter-century ago it was Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam who mused that Indonesia might as well take East Timor as it was "economically unviable" on its own. Whitlam's government already had its sights set on exploitation of East Timor's natural resources. Australia had no sense, then, that the tiny outpost would not waiver in its efforts to claim its nationhood. Which it has now, officially, won. The sun had not even set on Independence Day, before the reborn country put Australia, and the world, on notice: East Timor may be a pipsqueak, but oh what a mistake it would be to underestimate its determination.

Editorial: Timor gas treaty - the raw deal

Workers Online - May 24, 2002

HT Lee -- When Howard claimed Australia is generous by giving East Timor a 90% share of the royalties -- what he forgot to mention is that it is only for one of the three oil and gas fields off the Timor Sea -- Bayu-Undan.

Under the terms of the treaty, East Timor is not getting a 90% share of the gas field of Greater Sunrise which is three times the size of Bayu-Undan -- it is only getting an 18% share of Greater Sunrise and no share at all in the oil field of Laminaria/Corralina.

The treaty continued to maintain a joint petroleum development zone -- the JPDA. Its boundary is based on the same boundary as 'Zone A' of the now defunct 1989 Timor Gap Treaty with Indonesia. It favours Australia because it recognises Australia's use of the continental shelf seabed boundary rather than the internationally accepted median-line (half way) boundary between the two coastlines.

East Timor under international law is entitled to its own exclusive economic zone (EEZ). The whole of the JPDA including at least 80% if not the whole of Greater Sunrise, and 100% of Laminaria/Corralina should fall within East Timor's EEZ -- if the median-line and eastern and western lateral boundaries are recognised and applied.

Under the terms of the treaty -- the revenue sharing in the JPDA is 90:10 in favour of East Timor but no revenue sharing in Australia's EEZ. We therefore have a classic situation here of: "What's yours is partly mine. But what is mine is wholly mine."

At stake is an estimated tax revenue -- expressed in cumulative dollars of the day of $US50 billion from the three oil and gas fields in the Timor Sea -- Bayu-Undan with a gas reserve of 175 million barrels of LPG, 229 million barrels of condensate and 66 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas (LNG), returning an estimated tax revenue of US$12 billion from 2005 to 2030; Greater Sunrise with a gas reserve of 300 million barrels of condensate and 177 million tonnes of LNG, returning an estimated tax revenue of US$36 billion from 2008 to 2050; and Laminaria/Corralina with an oil reserve of 198 million barrels, returning an estimated tax revenue of US$2 billion from 2000 to 2012.

East Timor will also miss out on the estimated thousands of jobs and millions of dollars in industrial spin-off because the gas will be piped onshore to Darwin instead of East Timor.

Howard claimed by giving East Timor a 90:10 split of the oil and gas revenue in the JPDA -- as opposed to the 50:50 split with Indonesia under the 1989 Timor Gap Treaty, Australia has been fair and generous to East Timor.'

However East Timorese opposition MP Eusebio Guterres disagrees. "How can you give away something that does not belong to you?" Eusebio asked.

According to Eusebio if East Timor claims its rightful maritime boundaries and EEZ -- all the oil and gas fields of Bayu-Undan, Greater Sunrise and Laminaria/Corralina should belong to East Timor.

Australia and East Timor can still agree to share the Timor Sea's oil and gas resources -- using a formula that would benefit both parties. "It should be East Timor, not Australia who should be dictating the terms of any agreement," Eusebio said.

Eusebio also pointed out the oil field of Laminaria/Corralina has began production and has in the past two years returned a tax revenue of US$650 to Australia. "If East Timor has had its own EEZ, that money should rightfully belong to East Timor," Eusebio said.

A spokesperson for East Timor's Prime Minister, Alkatiri said the treaty was only an interim one -- it would allow Bayu-Undan to proceed as plan and begin production by 2005. East Timor would still be pursuing its rightful maritime boundaries and is confident of victory. He also believes by the time Greater Sunrise begin production around 2008, East Timor's maritime boundary would have been settled with at least 80% if not the whole of Greater Sunrise would fall within East Timor's EEZ. And under such circumstances, he felt the treaty was fair and the best deal East Timor could get for the time being.

When asked why East Timor did not just conclude a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) covering only Bayu-Undan, his reply was they wasn't any possibility or opportunity for that to take place.

The treaty was conducted in secrecy and behind closed doors by only a handful of people. And throughout the negotiations, Australia behaved like the typical school boy playground bully and took advantage of East Timor's economic and strategic vulnerability.

East Timor was also forced to conclude the treaty because the US$360 million bridging aid the donor countries promised for the next three years was conditional to the treaty being concluded and signed.

Although the treaty does not prejudice East Timor from seeking its maritime boundaries -- the decision by Attorney-General Darly Williams and Foreign Minister Alexander Downer in March to exclude Australia from the 1982 United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), can only -- as pointed out in the editorial of the Sydney Morning Herald of 17 May: "... raise suspicions that Canberra is withdrawing the only avenue of appeal effectively available to East Timor, given the unequal diplomatic weight of the parties."

By signing the treaty, many local MPs and international legal experts fear East Timor has jeopardise its changes of getting a bigger share of the oil and gas revenue of the Timor Sea -- we could end up in a situation where East Timor might be successful in obtaining its rightful maritime boundaries but loosing out on getting a bigger share of Greater Sunrise.

To ensure Australia maintains its claim of the EEZ, the 'dirty tricks department' has now been put into full swing. On 22 April, a month after the announcement of Australia intention to withdraw from UNCLOS, the Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources, Ian Macfarlane released 81 offshore petroleum exploration acreage for bidding.

Hidden among the bids is an area known as "NT02-1" -- latitude: 90 24' 54.87", 90 59' 54.87" longitude: 1280 20' 04.35", 1280 50' 04.34". This is just outside the JPDA and adjacent to Greater Sunrise -- an area which East Timor is contesting as within its rightful seabed boundary.

According to a UN source who do not wish to be named, East Timor had an understanding with Australia after the signing of the 5 July 2001 Timor Sea Arrangement that: "... the Arrangement does not authorise or permit, and cannot be construed as authorising or permitting, Australian exploration or exploitation of petroleum in areas outside the JPDA that are on the seabed claimed by East Timor."

Howard's and Downer's spin doctors are working overtime. But no matter how much spin they make, they cannot escape from the fact that the gas and oil fields of Bayu-Undan, Greater Sunrise and Laminaria/Corralina belong to East Timor.

As pointed out by Eusebio, you cannot give away something that does not belong to you.

The oil and gas fields in question is not Australia's to give away -- they belong to East Timor. It is up to East Timor to decide how much if any they would like to give away to Australia.

As pointed out in the latest bulletin of La'o Hamutuk -- The East Timor Institute for Reconstruction Monitoring and Analysis: "Canberra played a significant role in derailing East Timorese political independence from 1975 to 1999. As East Timor's independence is now imminent, Australia cannot be allowed to undermine the new country"s future.'

East Timor is the poorest nation in the region. Australia must therefore not frustrate East Timor's rightful claim to its maritime boundaries and its rightful share of the oil and gas fields of the Timor Sea.

Following independence, profits will be elusive for Timor

Stratfor - May 21, 2002

East Timor hailed its move to democracy May 20 by signing the Timor Gap Treaty with Australia just hours after becoming the world's newest independent state. However, the signing of the treaty was more an empty symbol of goodwill than a declaration of cooperation between the two on developing the Timor Sea's vast natural resources.

Negotiations over the sea's boundaries between Australia, Indonesia and East Timor -- along with the involvement of a number of international players, such as oil companies and Non- governmental Organizations -- will grow much hairier and will not end up being in East Timor's favor.

The Timor Sea, situated between East Timor and Australia's northern coast, contains numerous valuable oil and natural gas fields. East Timor hopes revenue from development in the sea will help put an end to its status as Asia's poorest country. But disputes with Australia regarding maritime borders -- and thus claims to profits over the fields -- could threaten Dili's aspirations.

The treaty signed this week by Dili and Canberra demarcates the Timor Gap section of the sea into three areas of cooperation -- A, B and C.

In areas A and C, East Timor claims 90 percent of the revenue left over after oil companies collect their cut of production profits; Australia gets 10 percent. In Area B, 90 percent of the yield goes to Australia and 10 percent to East Timor. Dili signed the arrangement in order to begin collecting returns as soon as possible.

The arrangement, however, does not address fields that lay outside the Timor Gap, the majority of which Australia now controls. Two of these fields, Greater Sunrise and Laminaria/ Corallina, will generate billions in earnings. A legal seminar, sponsored by Denver-based oil company PetroTimor in Dili March 23, advised East Timor's interim government that it could challenge the current boundaries to assert jurisdiction over a larger area of the Timor Sea.

Two days after the conference, however, Australia decided to renounce all decisions made by the International Court of Justice on the demarcation of the sea's boundaries. Canberra opted instead to engage directly in bilateral negotiations with Dili on maritime border issues.

The 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea calls for maritime boundaries to lie along the midpoint between countries if less than 400 miles of sea separates them. In negotiations with Indonesia, Australia used the continental shelf argument -- that a maritime boundary should lie along the deepest point of the ocean floor between the two countries -- and gained 85 percent of the sea territory, which it held until East Timor voted for independence in 1999. Australia's negotiating tactics shows its tenacity in trying to keep as much control of the sea as possible.

Dili's new leadership signed the Timor Gap Treaty to start money flowing into the country as soon as possible, delaying the unavoidably contentious debate with Jakarta and Canberra over who will get the most beneficial maritime boundaries. The inevitable negotiations probably will rear their ugly heads before East Timor sees any significant revenue. Even once they do, the current arrangement and Australia's considerable influence likely will keep East Timor from receiving the highest potential profits.

Brace for fight over oil, Australia told

Sydney Morning Herald - May 21, 2002

Tom Hyland, Dili -- On its first day as an independent nation, East Timor yesterday warned Australia of a tough fight ahead for a greater share of Timor Sea oil and gas revenue, even as the two sides signed a treaty to exploit resources in the energy-rich seabed area.

The Chief Minister, Mari Alkatiri, gave the warning in his maiden speech to the first session of East Timor's parliament -- just an hour before he signed the Timor Sea Treaty with the Prime Minister, John Howard.

The two countries have competing claims to the resources, and East Timor believes it has the right, under international law, to a greater share than it will receive under the treaty.

"[The treaty] does not represent, under no circumstances does it represent, a maritime border," Dr Alkatiri told Parliament, which was attended by Mr Howard and other Australian politicians and officials in Dili for independence celebrations.

The Government "will use all available instruments and international mechanisms to search for a solution", he said.

The treaty creates a joint petroleum development area, with 90 per cent of revenue going to East Timor and 10 per cent to Australia. East Timor, desperately poor and dependent on foreign aid, is expected to get $6billion in revenue from the Bayu Undan oil and gas field in the joint area over 20 years.

But an annex to the treaty -- involving the Greater Sunrise field, a richer deposit with reserves worth about $30 billion that straddles the eastern corner of the joint area -- has been criticised by politicians, activists and UN officials in Dili. Australia had insisted on the annex as a condition for the treaty going ahead.

East Timor will get 18 per cent of revenues from Greater Sunrise, but its Government has legal advice that the entire area could be within its maritime boundaries.

Dr Alkatiri said signing the treaty did not prejudice East Timor's boundary claim, while the Foreign Minister, Jose Ramos Horta, said he expected Australia would eventually concede a bigger share of Greater Sunrise revenue.

Mr Howard played down the prospect of further friction over the oil and gas resources following Dr Alkatiri's speech, and again denied Australia had been unfair to its impoverished neighbour.

"I was not the least surprised by what he [Dr Alkatiri] said. I expected him to say something of that kind," Mr Howard said. "We'll talk to him, we'll listen to him, but we think the way we've conducted ourselves has been fair and reasonable and we'll continue to be like that."

The signing took place in a conference room in the colonial-era government buildings on the Dili waterfront which have served as the Portuguese then Indonesian governors' offices and, more recently, the headquarters of the UN administration.

East Timor considers court action against Australia

Asia Pulse - May 20, 2002

Dili -- On their first day of East Timor's independence, leaders of the new country raised the prospect of taking Australia to court to gain a greater share of the rights to resources in the waters dividing the two countries.

But Australia has effectively blocked such a grab for Timor Sea petroleum resources by withdrawing from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) dispute resolution mechanism for maritime borders.

Australian and East Timorese government leaders today signed a new Timor Gap Treaty in Dili which will allow Phillips Petroleum to pipe gas from its Bayu-Undan field in the disputed territory between the two countries.

East Timorese Foreign Minister Jose Ramos-Horta later said he believed Australia would concede a larger share of Greater Sunrise -- a gas field three times larger than Bayu-Undan -- through negotiation.

"It's only fair and Australia is a fair-minded country," Mr Ramos-Horta said. "I dread the thought we will have to go to court. It would be a failure of leadership if the two neighbours, friendly countries, can't reach agreement through negotiation on new boundaries to replace those struck with Indonesia."

East Timorese Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri said in his maiden speech in the Australian-donated Legislative Assembly that the treaty signed today under no circumstances represented a maritime border. "The government will use all instruments and international mechanisms to search for a solution," Mr Alkatiri told parliament.

But Prime Minister John Howard said while Australia was open to discussion, the boundaries on which the original treaty with Indonesia was based -- which puts 80 per cent of Greater Sunrise in Australian territory -- was fair. "We believe that the approach we have taken to date has been very fair; has been generous," Mr Howard said.

He denied that Australia's withdrawal from the ICJ and from dispute settlement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea was unfriendly. "That is a legitimate protection of a national interest," Mr Howard said.

The treaty signed today gives East Timor 90 per cent of the royalties from gas taken from the so-called Joint Petroleum Development Area.

Opposition leader Simon Crean said the signing was an important first step in the relationship between the two now-independent countries. "Not only in economic terms, but in terms of the way in which we do business, can sit down and renegotiate in the interest of further cooperation and in particular, for the further development and greater economic independence of East Timor," Mr Crean said.

Howard faces 'theft' claims over Timor Sea oil

Melbourne Age - May 20 2002

Tom Hyland, Dili -- Prime Minister John Howard has rejected suggestions that Australia has treated East Timor unfairly in negotiations over the carve-up of rich oil and gas reserves in the Timor Sea.

Mr Howard, who attended the fledgling nation's independence celebrations last night, declared that Australia's role in securing East Timor in 1999 was its most notable foreign policy achievement in recent years.

But at a news conference he was forced to defend Australia's tactics in negotiating the Timor Sea Treaty, which will be signed today in one of the first acts of the independent East Timorese Government.

He was confronted by about 150 protesters carrying banners displaying the words "Australia, stop stealing Timor's oil" when he arrived to open an Australian-funded exhibition centre in Dili.

The treaty carves up shares to revenue from energy sources in the Timor Sea off north-western Australia. Under the deal, East Timor will get 90 per cent of the revenue from a joint development zone, with Australia getting 10 per cent.

Despite the apparently generous division, negotiations over the treaty have been marked by accusations that Australia has effectively denied East Timor the right to pursue claims to a greater share in the joint zone and elsewhere in the Timor Sea.

Oil and gas revenue is essential to the economic future of East Timor. The money will allow it to fund its budget without foreign aid by the middle of this decade. In the longer term, the benefits will be much greater. Revenue from the Bayu-Udan oil and gas field is expected to be more than $US3 billion over the next 20 years.

UN officials and local politicians have accused Australia of taking advantage of East Timor's economic and strategic vulnerability in pressing for an early signing of the treaty.

It has also been criticised for its sudden announcement in March that it will no longer accept the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice in maritime boundary disputes -- cutting off East Timor's avenue of appeal following legal opinion that its entitlements are potentially far greater than those given under the treaty.

Last month East Timor's Chief Minister, Mari Alkatiri, described the Australian decision as an "unfriendly act".

However, Mr Howard said Australia had been "extremely accommodating and fair to East Timor and it's important that that be recognised and understood". He said the original Timor Gap Treaty shared the revenue 50/50.

Mr Alkatiri will sign the treaty today, but said this did not resolve the issue of the final maritime boundary.

At a news conference last week, he said that once the new parliament had adopted a law on boundaries, it would seek to negotiate border agreements with Australia and Indonesia. He said the agreement on the shared zone in the Timor Sea was a "very temporary arrangement".

Any negotiations on a boundary, however, would take years, while East Timor's economic needs are immediate. UN officials have warned the Dili government that there is a risk such negotiations could led to tensions between the countries, which East Timor can not afford.

A senior UN official last week criticised Australia's negotiating tactics. "We've been a little bit surprised Australia is playing such hard ball," said the official, who asked not to be identified.

Adding to the controversy is an annex to the treaty covering the division of revenue from the Greater Sunrise gas field, straddling the eastern boundary of the joint development zone.

Australia had insisted on the agreement as a condition for finalising the treaty.

Under the annex, Greater Sunrise is deemed to lie 80 per cent in Australia's resource zone and 20 per cent in the joint zone. But East Timor's legal experts have advised that a permanent delimitation of the boundary could give East Timor most, if not all, of the field, likely to contain reserves worth tens of billions of dollars [with Jill Jolliffe].

Government & politics

East Timor's first cabinet

Reuters - May 20, 2002

Dili -- East Timor formally swore in its cabinet on Monday, hours after the tiny territory became independent and new President Xanana Gusmao took office.

Following is the cabinet, selected by the former UN chief in East Timor, Sergio Vieira de Mello, and Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri last year. Most of the ministers served in a de facto government under the UN administration.

According to East Timor's constitution, the prime minister proposes a cabinet, which then requires approval from the president.

1. President - Xanana Gusmao
2. Prime Minister - Mari Alkatiri
3. Senior Minister for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation - Jose Ramos-Horta
4. Minister for Justice - Ana Maria da Silva Pinto
5. Minister for Planning Finance - Madalena Boavida
6. Minister for Internal Administration - Rogerio Tiago Lobato
7. Minister for Health - Rui Maria de Araujo
8. Minister for Transport, Communications and Public Works - Ovideo Amaral
9. Minister for Development and Environment - Mari Alkatiri
10. Minister for Education, Culture, Youth and Sport - Armindo Maia
11. Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry - Estanislau Aleixo da Silva
12. Secretary of State for Defence - Felix de Jesus Rodrigues
13. Secretary of State for Labour and Solidarity - Arsenio Paixao Bano
14. Secretary of State for Commerce and Industry - Arlindo Rangel
15. Secretary of State for Council of Ministers - Gregorio de Sousa
16. Secretary of State for Parliamentary Affairs - Antoninho Bianco

Justice & reconciliation

Reconciliation as refugees return to East Timor

Irish Times - May 31, 2002

David Shanks, Dili -- "The reconciliations are amazing. They sit in little huddles and cry and hug each other." A UN refugees' official was describing the work of Dili's La Quarantina transit centre for refugees returning to independent East Timor.

The UNHCR, which is working with Indonesian authorities, sees refugee return from West Timor as a good news story, largely because of the constant reconciliation message of President Xanana Gusmao. It is confident that up to 35,000 will return before a recently set UNHCR December 31st deadline expires.

That would leave "a hard core" of about 15,000 out of the estimated 250,000 who fled a militia killing spree in September 1999. Although the rate of return had dropped off around East Timor's independence on May 20th, nearly 4,000 had returned this month, said Mr Jake Morland of the UNHCR.

Some of the hard core will be serious militia offenders and those who served the Indonesian occupiers as polri (police) or civil servants. Many live well in West Timor.

The Irish aid agency, Concern Worldwide, has been managing water and sanitary facilities at La Quarantina. But it has now been contracted by the UNHCR to provide food, bedding, sarongs, buckets and firewood, said Mr Dave Storey, Concern's acting director here.

But an "absolute priority" now is the tracking of an unconfirmed 2,000 children who disappeared. Reports have had it that they were kidnapped and taken to orphanages in Indonesia. But Mr Morland said this was not always true. With the International Rescue Committee "we are following them up", he said.

By enlisting the co-operation of Indonesian authorities many of these "special category" cases have been reunited with their families. So far the figure is 1,000. Engaging with Indonesia, whether by the new government or the UN, seems itself to act as an inducement to better behaviour by the former persecutor.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Mr Ruud Lubbers, announced the time limit on refugee status last week. But the children separated from their families are exempt from this new rule. However, he said it was worrying that their numbers were increasing. "I fully trust the Indonesian authorities," he said.

The refugees, who can turn up at the rate of 700 a day, are interviewed and screened by the UNHCR. They are asked do they think that their return to their communities will pose a problem.

The community leader, the local priest, of their village or district are contacted and asked the same question.

When allowed to go back to their communities they are put on UNHCR open trucks and returned. Concern will be giving them some firewood for the first few days, in case they get no friendly reception.

[Concern Worldwide partly funded David Shanks's visit to East Timor.]

Poverty lingers after violence of past recedes

Boston Globe - May 19, 2002

Michael Casey, Liquica -- Marie Fernanda remembered hearing the voices of the approaching attackers as her family was fixing dinner three years ago.

Armed with guns and machetes, the band of 100 who opposed East Timor independence from Indonesia called out for her husband, a political activist who supported secession. They ignored her pleas and, in front of their three children, they hacked Herminho dos Santos to death.

He was the first of 50 residents of this farming village to die over two weeks in April 1999, including 40 killed as they huddled for shelter in a Roman Catholic church. The 50 were among the more than 1,000 slain that year as violence exploded across East Timor.

Now, many widows like Fernanda are angry that the killers remain free. "I saw the killers with my own eyes," she said recently. "I want them brought to justice."

As East Timor gains independence from Indonesia at midnight tonight, justice is but one of the challenges that await the world's newest nation.

It also must embrace reconciliation as refugees, some who still strongly oppose independence, return by the tens of thousands; it must try to jump-start an economy beset by a poverty level that rivals Rwanda's; and rebuild a shattered infrastructure.

The UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, will hand over power tomorrow to Jose (Xanana) Gusmao, East Timor's new president, a poet and former guerrilla leader. President Megawati Sukarnoputri of Indonesia, which once imprisoned Gusmao, and former president Bill Clinton are scheduled to attend the ceremonies.

Despite the obstacles, East Timorese seem to be optimistic about their future. "The unity of the people is strong," said Fidel Magalhaes, a 23-year-old UN worker whose father was killed in 1999 by anti-independence militiamen. "We want to rebuild our country. People are tired of war."

East Timor had expected independence in 1975, when Portugal ended a 400-year occupation. Instead, Indonesia invaded and annexed the territory, with the tacit support of the United States. The invasion began a 24-year reign of terror that is believed to have left 200,000 dead.

With the fall of President Suharto in 1998, East Timor got a second chance at independence when it voted to secede in a UN- sanctioned referendum on August 30, 1999. After the vote, pro- Indonesian militia and Indonesian security forces went on a rampage.

In addition to the killings, 250,000 people -- a third of the population -- were forced into squalid refugee camps in West Timor, which is still controlled by Indonesia. As much as 80 percent of the province's infrastructure -- including churches, government offices, factories, and schools -- was destroyed.

The turmoil eased a few weeks later when a UN multinational force arrived. And in October 1999, the UN transitional authority began running the country until independence.

After more than $2 billion in international funding, East Timor now appears ready to go solo. It has chosen a language and a currency -- Portuguese and the US dollar -- and an administration is in place.

Militias are no longer a threat, and human rights trials are under way in Dili, the East Timorese capital, and in Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, for suspects in the 1999 violence. (Among those charged is Armando dos Santos, a militiaman charged in connection to the Liquica church massacre.) More than 200,000 of 250,000 refugees have returned.

Dili, once a sleepy port city, is emblematic of the country's transformation. The streets are now jammed with traffic, hotels are full, and a building boom is in full swing. Nearly 80 percent of the buildings in Dili have been rebuilt, including the Parliament and the country's premier university.

Yet the country's shortcomings are hard to miss. Some Dili neighborhoods still resemble war zones, dotted with blocks of burned-out schools, offices, and homes.

The poor are conspicuous. Near the port, families live alongside goats and pigs in dirt-floor shacks with no electricity or plumbing. According to a UN report released Monday, 41 percent of East Timorese live on about 55 cents a day, and the average life expectancy is 58.

"I've got to work feed our family," said Natalina dos Santos, 17, whose father was killed in the Liquica church massacre, and who works in a general store that supports women left widows from the violence. "It's difficult to get food."

Gusmao says the poor will be his top priority, pointing to a National Development Plan that sets aside nearly 50 percent of the core budget for poverty eradication, health and education. He has brushed aside concerns from some Westerners who say he should give more attention to human rights investigations.

"If you talk about justice, you see a few people being judged," he told reporters this month in Jakarta, after a meeting with Megawati. "But if you talk about social justice, all our people will be cared for."

The new nation's short-term economic prospects look gloomy. The employment rate is 17 percent, and the economy is expected to shrink 2.7 percent in the next two fiscal years, after growing by 33 percent the previous two years -- mostly because of the UN presence.

On Wednesday, the international community pledged $360 million over three years. But most of that money will help fill budget deficits and plug revenue gaps until the country can tap the first of an estimated $7 billion in oil and gas revenues from the Timor Sea in 2005 and 2006. For now, officials are calling on East Timorese to be patient as the government works to diversify the agriculture-based economy by bolstering tourism, fishing, and luring foreign investment.

In a former stockyard turned refugee transit center in Dili, 22 members of an extended family were anxious to return to their farm and the simple life they had once known. They arrived last week from a West Timor refugee camp with little more than the clothes on their backs, a few plastic chairs, and their farm animals.

But they face many obstacles. Their homes in the village of Aileu were torched in 1999, their fields are now overgrown, and one member who belonged to an anti-independence militia faces persecution. But, like other East Timorese, they were eager for a fresh start.

This is my land," said Martiuho Lopes, 60, whose nephew was killed in the 1999 fighting. "I couldn't stay in Indonesia any longer."

Getting away with murder

Sydney Morning Herald - May 20, 2002

[It's the world's newest republic, but it will take a long time for old sores to heal. Lindsay Murdoch and Tom Hyland explain why guilty parties on both sides will get off scot-free.]

Emilia dos Santos knows the killers of her husband, Victor da Conceicao. She and five of their six children saw three pro- Jakarta militiamen and a policeman cut him down with machetes and spears outside a church in the East Timorese town of Liquica on April 6, 1999.

"He was holding my hand when he was killed," says their daughter, Natalina, who was 14 at the time. "They hit him with a machete and they speared him in his side. I cried and they hit me many times until I fainted."

Dos Santos, 37, says the killers fled to West Timor amid Indonesian military-sponsored mayhem after a majority of Timorese voted to reject Jakarta's rule in a United Nations referendum. "Those people are still on the other side of the border," she says. "They can come back here and can be forgiven. But first they must go before a court. If they don't, I can't forgive them."

One of the main challenges facing the Democratic Republic of East Timor that was today declared the world's newest state is how to bind the wounds of its deeply traumatised society.

How can there be reconciliation, as preached by the country's independence hero and first President, Xanana Gusmao, without justice?

At least 60 of up to 2000 civilians who had taken refuge in the church were killed in what has become known as the Liquica massacre, one of the worst atrocities in East Timor in 1999.

But Longuinos Monteiro, East Timor's general prosecutor, says that 21 people United Nations investigators have identified as being involved in those killings remain untouchable in Indonesia.

Indonesia's attorney-general's office has pursued charges against only three of the alleged killers in special human rights courts in Jakarta, which international observers have criticised as a sham.

Monteiro, 33, says he has offered to "open the door" to Indonesian prosecutors on atrocities involving a total of 220 people accused of committing serious crimes in East Timor in 1999, many of them soldiers up to the rank of major-general.

"We have told the Indonesian side we are willing to provide information and witnesses," says Monteiro, a former judge in the first trials held in East Timor after the Indonesians withdrew. "But the Indonesian side claims that in many of the cases it cannot act according to Indonesian law."

Many victims of the 1999 violence believe the UN -- East Timor's rulers from late 1999 until a Timorese administration took over today -- failed to deliver justice. Only one case of crimes against humanity has been completed.

Last December 10 Timorese were sent to jail for up to 33 years for their involvement in a massacre in the district of Lospalos. An Indonesian army officer, Syaful Anwar, was accused of ordering the killings and slitting the throat of one of the victims.

But the Indonesian Government has reneged on an agreement it reached last year with the UN to allow extraditions and the swapping of evidence and witnesses, setting a pattern that has frustrated other attempts in East Timor to prosecute alleged offenders. Under existing UN regulations, Anwar could not be tried in absentia.

Twelve people have been convicted in East Timor for other serious crimes.

Dennis McNamara, the UN's deputy administrator in Dili, says prosecutions in East Timor "can only have their full effect if they are matched by equally serious prosecutions in Indonesia".

"Reconciliation in East Timor in the legal, political and social sense does require justice to be done in both places," McNamara says. "The population does want justice. Yes, they want reconciliation, but they want justice as well and by that they want some of the very bad people to be prosecuted."

In Jakarta, the generals who were in charge at the time of the East Timor violence are attempting to rewrite history, further fuelling international pressure for the setting up of an international court similar to those established in Bosnia and Rwanda.

The generals are portraying the killings, rapes, looting, destruction and forced relocation of up to one third of East Timor's population as the result of a civil conflict between two violent factions in which Indonesian security forces were bystanders.

According to them, the UN was also to blame for the mayhem because it rigged the referendum and failed to maintain security ahead of the vote. In fact, under a UN mandate, Indonesian security forces were solely responsible for the territory's security.

The Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG) , which did an analysis of the courts, says the military's version of events is being reinforced by prosecutors who failed to produce any evidence suggesting active involvement of high levels of the Indonesian Government in the violence.

A list of 18 army and police officers and civilians who will stand trial does not include any minister or the then armed forces chief, General Wiranto.

The ICG, led by former Australian foreign minister Gareth Evans, warns that after the trials, the UN will still be seen in Indonesia as biased and manipulative. It warns that this will further reduce the slim chance that the UN could be an acceptable mediator in future conflicts in Indonesia. The ICG says the courts have a limited mandate and the indictments have been drawn up and presented by the prosecution in a very weak way.

"If the judges acquit the defendants, international outrage is a certainty," the ICG says in a report released early this month. "But even if they convict, the gravity of what occurred in East Timor will remain hidden and the concept of crimes against humanity will be trivialised," it says.

In East Timor, a serious crimes unit set up by the UN has so far indicted 101 alleged perpetrators of serious crimes from 10 priority cases. But the unit has an overwhelming 650 incident reports on its files.

One case can consist of multiple incidents and perpetrators. "The ability to prosecute suspects remains slow as the number of experienced and trained judges, public defenders and prosecutors is low and support services for the courts remain limited," a UN official admits.

Monteiro, the prosecutor in charge of the unit, says that as the UN withdraws after independence, resources to pursue crimes committed in 1999 will diminish. "The Timorese people are very forgiving, thanks in part to Xanana, who is leading them in reconciliation," Monteiro says. "But forgiving doesn't mean ignoring the law. We will not release people who have committed crimes. There can be no reconciliation without justice."

The new Timorese administration has set up an independent Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in an attempt to establish the truth of what happened throughout Indonesia's occupation, to reintegrate those who have returned from West Timor camps and to reconcile opposing community groups.

While people accused of serious crimes will still go before the courts, others who confess to lesser offences such as looting, burning and minor assault are expected to stand before their victims in village hearings. In some cases people who have committed crimes are expected to perform community service. If a person admits, for instance, to having burnt a house, he may agree to help rebuild it.

People who fulfil the terms of a so-called community reconciliation agreement will be immune from any further civil or criminal liability from those acts although the commission does not, have the power to grant amnesty to the perpetrators of human rights violations.

Aniceto Guterres Lopes, the commission's chairman, says East Timor will not be rebuilt from the ashes of 1999 unless Timorese confront the truth about what happened and the role they played. He says there is a risk of mob violence erupting in the future if people do not think that justice has been served, especially when UN civilian police start to withdraw from villages and towns.

But since the return of an estimated 200,000 Timorese from West Timor revenge attacks on former militia and supporters of Indonesia's rule have not been widespread. There have been several murders, a dozen kidnappings and a few dozen cases of mistreatment. One former anti-Indonesian guerilla has been sentenced to eight years' jail for murder.

Lopes, a 33 year-old human rights activist who was the target of militia violence in 1999, says that Timorese are tired of killing and violence.

Leandro Despuouy, chairman of the UN's Human Rights Commission, recently visited villagers in East Timor. Speaker after speaker told him of torture, murders and kidnappings committed in 1999.

Relatives of victims told Despuouy they had no faith in Indonesian promises to bring offenders to trial and some even asserted that they would take justice into their own hands unless the UN acted soon.

View from the other side

"Punishment should not be just for those who lost," says Jose Estevao Soares, a member of the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation. Soares, 47, the cousin of East Timor's former governor Abilio Soares, helped form the largest anti-independence party that in 1999 campaigned for East Timor to remain part of Indonesia.

He is adamant that justice should be brought to people on both sides of the conflict and warns of the imposition of only "victor justice". Certainly, some of the first cases the commission will investigate involve crimes allegedly committed by independence supporters.

In 1975, when Indonesian troops launched their bloody invasion of East Timor, Soares was forced to work as a porter carrying ammunition for Fretilin, the party that now rules the country. He tells how Fretilin rebels back then dragged about 300 people like him from a jail as the Indonesians advanced, made them dig their own graves and then killed them.

"All crimes should be punished, no matter who committed them," says Soares. "But I am confident that under the system we are introducing, justice will be fair."

Like a growing number of anti-independence supporters who have returned to East Timor from self-imposed exile in Indonesia, Soares now talks openly about how the Indonesian military ordered the destruction of the territory after the vote went for independence. He thinks it is wrong for militiamen to be jailed while Indonesians who ordered violence remain untouchable.

"In the Indonesian system, the president is the commander of the armed forces," he says. "It is easy to go after the militia. But it is not easy to punish the people who planned the action."

[Additional material for this story by Jill Jolliffe.]

Human rights/law

Top law arguably Asia's freest

South China Morning Post - May 20, 2002

Harald Bruning, Macau -- East Timor's constitution, which came into force at midnight last night, is a combination of civil guarantees, national fervour and provisions for social welfare and public ownership of the half-island's natural resources.

It is arguably Asia's freest, and one of the world's most liberal and social-minded, constitutions. The 170-article document is modelled on the constitutions of Portugal, Italy and Germany.

According to its preamble, the official date of the country's independence remains November 28, 1975, when the Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor (Fretilin) declared independence. Nine days later the Indonesian army invaded.

The preamble gives importance to two main forces that kept East Timor's struggle for independence alive: the "glorious" National Liberation Armed Forces of East Timor (Falintil) -- the armed wing of Fretilin that fought a guerilla war against Indonesia -- and the Catholic Church.

And it "solemnly reaffirms" East Timor's determination to uphold respect for human rights and to establish a multi-party democracy.

East Timor's highest law guarantees equality between women and men, and special protection for children, the elderly and the disabled. It also guarantees "every citizen's right to disobey and to resist an illegal order or orders that affect their fundamental rights, freedoms and guarantees".

The appointment of an independent ombudsman to defend human rights and justice is a constitutionally guaranteed must.

Freedom of the press is guaranteed, as is the separation of the Catholic Church and the state.

Every worker has the right to strike and to form or join trade unions, and only national citizens have the right to own land.

While the president is the head of state, the government is headed by a prime minister in a French-style system in which the two may represent different political orientations.

Formally, the constitution clearly fulfils all its expected functions. However, it remains to be seen whether it will be effective in dealing with the myriad problems that East Timor is bound to face as one of the world's poorest countries.

Indonesia

Unfinished business haunts Indonesia-East Timor ties

Jakarta Post - May 21, 2002

Aboeprijadi Santoso and Yemris Fointuna, Dili/Kupang -- Despite reconciliatory gestures from their leaders, the future of ties between Indonesia and its new neighbor East Timor hangs in the balance due to a legacy of wide-ranging unfinished business.

Not only do the assets of the Indonesian government and individuals need addressing, the incomplete repatriation of thousands of East Timorese from their refugee camps in East Nusa Tenggara, border security and the much-awaited results of the ongoing trial of Indonesian military, police and civilian officials for their alleged involvement in the East Timor mayhem in 1999 will serve as a thorn in the flesh as the two states attempt to develop good relations.

A series of meetings between representatives of the Indonesian and East Timorese administrations had failed to reach any conclusion as of Sunday's declaration of East Timor's independence.

In Dili, some observers and officials speculated that Jakarta would not ask for compensation for Indonesia's assets in the new country precisely because Jakarta wanted to avoid a demand for war reparations.

Asked about this, an East Timorese foreign affairs official who requested anonymity asked, "What does Indonesia really want from us?" Another diplomat said, "Look we have lost thousands of our brothers and sisters and then we get a legacy of a country without infrastructure.

"If they push for compensation for Indonesia's assets, we might as well demand for war reparations. We don't want to ask for anything, so let's both start from scratch." It is however possible, they said, that the issue may be raised as a form of leverage to push for a war crimes tribunal for Indonesian generals allegedly involved in the 1999 violence.

East Timor President Xanana Gusmao avoids the issue diplomatically by expressing his philosophy when confronted with the issue.

"The [Indonesian assets] issue is being handled by UNTAET," he said, referring to the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor, whose service has been handed over to the UN Mission of Support in East Timor (UNMISET).

During 24 years of Indonesian administration, more than 2,000 kilometers of road, 60 schools, 10 hospitals, hundreds of community health clinics and clean water facilities in 13 towns were built.

Regardless of the political motives behind the special treatment of the former province, the development had boosted the living standards of East Timorese until the pro-Jakarta militias wreaked havoc under the eyes of the Indonesian Military (TNI) in the aftermath of the independence vote in September 1999. Over 200,000 people sought refuge to neighboring East Nusa Tenggara.

Much of the new country's infrastructure is in ruins as a result of the violence.

A recent UN report revealed that more than 40 percent of East Timor's 740,000 citizens live below the national poverty line of US$0.55 cents per day, half the population is illiterate, life expectancy is 57 years of age, very few people have received more than elementary education and over half of all infants are underweight.

Only a part of the refugee problem has been dealt with as some 60,000 East Timorese are still in refugee camps across East Nusa Tenggara. The Indonesian government has again delayed the closure of the camps to the end of the year following an agreement with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

The cash-strapped Indonesian government has cut off its special budget allocation for the refugees, who have been told to return home or move to resettlement areas as Indonesian citizens.

Talks on assets will highlight the upcoming but so far undated visit of Gusmao to Jakarta.

Kristiyo Wahyono, Indonesia's current representative in Dili, said Gusmao was expected to raise various bilateral issues which were not adequately addressed by UNTAET. On his visit, Gusmao will be accompanied by Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri and Minister of Foreign Affairs Jose Ramos Horta.

The House of Representatives will also seek clarification from the government over the issue of Indonesian assets in the tiny, new state.

Chairman of House Commission I on security and political affairs Ibrahim Ambong said Minister/State Secretary Bambang Kesowo and Minister of Foreign Affairs Hassan Wirayuda would be summoned to speak on the government's behalf over the matter.

Ambong also disclosed that the House had received many letters from former pro-integration East Timorese leaders who had become Indonesian citizens, demanding that the government pay proper attention to their plight.

"The House will also ask the government to improve the welfare of Indonesian veterans of East Timor's integration and the widows of servicemen who died in the line of duty in East Timor," Ambong said.

Meanwhile, in Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara, former Indonesian foreign minister Ali Alatas said that with East Timor's independence, Indonesia could no longer claim a part of the oil- rich Timor Gap.

"Indonesia no longer has the right to claim a part of the gap, and it is unlikely to ask Australia to review the memorandum of understanding [MOU] on the Timor Gap," he said.

He added that the important thing was to discuss maritime border demarcation between the three countries so as to avoid any problems in the future.

Megawati runs into silent protest in East Timor

Reuters - May 20, 2002

Dili -- Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri was greeted by 50 silent protesters shortly after she arrived in East Timor late on Sunday to attend independence events for a territory Jakarta once ruled with an iron fist.

The protesters, their mouths taped shut, stood near a cemetery for Indonesian soldiers killed in fighting with guerrillas in East Timor during Jakarta's 1975-1999 occupation of the territory.

Security was tight and there were no incidents at the cemetery, just before the post-midnight official declaration of East Timor's independence.

Megawati's fleeting attendance had already attracted controversy, with Indonesia's dispatch of six naval vessels to the area irritating East Timor. It called the move an "ostentatious" display of military might.

But despite the protest and the problems, when Megawati later took her place on the stage with other foreign leaders at the venue for independence events at a field on the outskirts of Dili, she was greeted by shouts of "Mega", her nickname, from some in the crowd.

She had also been met at Dili's airport by East Timor's new president Xanana Gusmao.

Indonesia had tried to play down the flap over the ships, saying it had permission from the UN administration to send them and that in any case only two ever entered East Timor's waters.

How does Indonesia view Timor?

ABC Lateline - May 20, 2002

[East Timor has claimed its independence. How is the new nation viewed by its imposing neighbour, Indonesia? Tony Eastley speaks with Wimar Witoelar, who was spokesman for Indonesia's former president Abdurrahmin Wahid, and who is now a visiting professor of journalism at Deakin University, in Victoria. Compere: Tony Eastley Reporter: Tony Eastley.]

Tony Eastley: Wimar Witoelar, good evening and welcome to Lateline.

First of all, there are many people in Australia who would think Indonesians are very angry with the wresting away of East Timor, but generally speaking, many Indonesians are quite happy, is that correct?

Wimar Witoelar, Indonesian political commentator: It's correct because the people who oppress East Timor are basically people aligned with the Suharto regime and the majority of the Indonesian regime don't like the Suharto regime. That's why they deposed President Suharto back in 1998.

Of course, there are military elements and ultra-nationalist elements who still cannot get used to the idea that the East Timorese people deserve to be independent.

Tony Eastley: They're the people calling the shots in Jakarta at the moment. Do you think they will allow East Timor to be nurtured as a new, young nation or will they be interfering in its affairs?

Wimar Witoelar: First of all, they have to account to the Indonesian people. Indonesian people want East Timor to be free.

You may remember on February 29, President Wahid came to East Timor without any warships, just in a small cargo plane and apologised to the East Timorese people for the decades of oppression.

That reflects the Indonesia of tomorrow. Unfortunately now we have a government which harks back to the times of Suharto. It is like "Attack of the Clones".

Tony Eastley: Is there an accountability?

You talk there about accountability. Is there an accountability in Indonesia today under Megawati Sukarnoputri, particularly towards the Indonesian military who were charged with atrocities in East Timor but have never been brought to trial for those charges?

Wimar Witoelar: That's why we need your support, the support of the international world, to look Indonesia as a people struggling to free itself from harsh regimes, the Suharto regime, the Abdurrahman Wahid regime and quite possibly the Megawati Sukarnoputri regime, is quite in danger of being unduly influenced by the military.

But you must remember the majority of the Indonesian people seek democracy, seek pluralism and seek peace.

Tony Eastley: Is there still a resentment by the Indonesian military towards what happened in East Timor and Australia's involvement in that?

Wimar Witoelar: Certainly from the particular elements of the Indonesian military individuals, who were instrumental in the atrocities in East Timor, and those who were in the process of being prosecuted for human rights abuse during President Wahid's time -- you must remember that that government supervised the prosecution of human rights abuse, but now it's virtually stopped, plus the fact that the international world doesn't seem to pay too much attention to human rights nowadays.

Tony Eastley: We touched on -- in our earlier story by Margot O'Neill -- about the number of Indonesian warships sent in to accompany Megawati Sukarnoputri to the independence day celebrations. What do you make of that?

Wimar Witoelar: It's just a show-off force posturing by the Indonesian military to hide their weakness with the people and show they are in control of this Government and for the short term, it is quite frightening.

But we need the public to set up and the press to look and to say to the Government, to President Megawati Sukarnoputri, "Look, let's not get back into the trap of being dictated by the military because that's ridiculous. We've had enough suffering already.

Let's have some peace, let's have some reason, and don't bring your warships around when you visit next time."

Tony Eastley: But, Wimar Witoelar, who do you think was calling the shots there when the warships were coming into Dili Harbour?

Was it Megawati Sukarnoputri or her military? Would they have advised or asked her about whether those ships should come in?

Wimar Witoelar: The military don't ask, they just do. And Megawati Sukarnoputri never tells people what she thinks, because she never speaks in the first place. She just allows the military to have a free hand.

And in this particular event, and we hope in the next events, that, she will be more responsible and more responsive to what the people want.

The elected government of President Wahid certainly wanted the military to be put back in her place. She of course has a different story.

She is there in her position with the support of the military, and elements of the Parliament, so you can understand she has a different position vis-a-vis the military. We just hope she will go back to her roots as leader of the people.

Tony Eastley: It was hardly stealthy, clever Javanese politics.

It was clumsy in the way the military went in with six ships, when they knew the international media was focused on Dili harbour at that very time?

Wimar Witoelar: Certainly they are not gaining any international points or PR points from that manoeuvre, but what they are getting is making people look up and think again, if they think that the military was put back in its place.

Now they are resurrected People who were, as I said, under prosecution for human rights abuse, are now back in active roles. So it is an internal matter for Indonesia to look at the military, the presidency and keep them separate.

Tony Eastley: Those people you talk about, will they be made to account, do you think?

Wimar Witoelar: If this Government doesn't shape up or go back to the mandate, obviously that would be difficult.

But in that case, the whole government, the presidency would have to account to the people, and it's not a foregone conclusion that they will have a mandate longer than 2004 or even earlier.

Tony Eastley: When we look at East Timor and the size of it and its struggle so far, it will need propping up for some time to come.

Is there going to be a problem emerging with Australia helping East Timor and Indonesia looking on and wondering what Australia has in mind with propping East Timor up?

Wimar Witoelar: Indonesia depends on which government is in control. During President Wahid's time, we pleaded for assistance to be given to East Timor.

We sent our people to East Timor and President Xanana came to Jakarta often for a consultation. That that's the Indonesia that, I think, represents the future.

If this Government happens to look unfriendly to the East Timorese, then I hope people realise that this Government does not really represent the people in its attitude towards East Timor.

Tony Eastley: But do you see East Timor as a possible stumbling block to relations between Australia and Indonesia some time in the future?

Wimar Witoelar: I think the relationship between Indonesia and Australia is based more than a single issue, and is based more than a relationship between two particular Heads of Government.

There's a whole breadth and depth of relationships in other sectors -- business, academic, culture, people to people -- that make this bilateral very strong in the past and make it stronger in the future.

If we refuse to look at the Governments as being fully representative of the people, as democracy has not been enacted in Indonesia.

Tony Eastley: Wimar Witoelar, thank you for joining us on Lateline this evening.

Wimar Witoelar: Thank you for having me.

News & issues

Researcher identifies guerilla threat to East Timor

Radio Australia - May 24, 2002

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute says disaffected members of East Timor's guerilla group Falintil are forming into armed groups and pose a serious threat to security in the new nation.

At the Northern Territory University in Darwin, the Institute's Elsina Wainwright has released a study on security and defence issues relating to the new nation.

Dr Wainwright says the Australian Government should donate 30 million dollars to the East Timor Police Force over the next five years. She says efficient policing would help combat problems such as the one posed by Falintil members.

"East Timor faces the normal kind of law and order problems that any developing nation faces. But more particularly, it faces the problem of disaffected members of Falantil, former Falantil members, who haven't been selected for the East Timor defence force, and they're fairly bitter and angry about that and some of them are forming into organised armed groups."

Anxious wait for asylum seekers

Melbourne Age - May 21, 2002

Lyall Johnson -- As East Timor celebrated its nationhood yesterday, 1600 East Timorese asylum seekers living in Australia faced an anxious wait to see if they could remain in the country many have called home for more than a decade.

The Federal Government last year refused to grant special humanitarian visa status to the East Timorese, many of whom are ethnic Chinese, and is continuing to process their applications, which had been technically frozen since 1996.

"The government is saying people should return home but because they have been here for so long and their kids have grown up, it is very hard for them to go back," said Li Hian, a former East Timorese who has been in Melbourne since 1982 and is now a councillor with the City of Yarra.

"In many cases there is nothing left for them to return to," he said. "Their homes and their belongings, they have all gone, and the infrastructure is not there for their return."

Lawyers and community groups are outraged by the government's decision not to grant the Timorese special status.

Immigration lawyer Karen Anderson said many of the refugees had vastly changed personal circumstances and would have nothing to go back to.

"The government, I think, has really been quite unconscionable in the way they have postponed and delayed the processing of these applications until in their view it is safe to return," Ms Anderson said.

For some who were children when they came, East Timor is nothing but a distant memory.

The Minister for Immigration can intervene in the application process and the government has said it would take into consideration the changed political circumstances.

To-Sum Lay, 51, came to Australia in 1995, fleeing the harassment of Indonesian officials and militias. He says he is worried that his application, along with the applications of his family, will not be approved.

"Every day I think about it, it is very emotional for me," he said. "Of course it would be very hard to return because my family is here, all my brothers and sisters and kids are here."

Mr Lay's situation could mean that he and his wife are denied visas while his children could be allowed to stay, as they may qualify under special rules. He said it would be very hard if that was to happen.

Religion/Catholic Church

Alkatiri guarantees press freedom after expulsion call

Lusa - May 23, 2002

Reacting Thursday to calls from East Timor`s religious leader for the expulsion of a Portuguese correspondent from Dili, Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri said there will be freedom of the press in the new nation.

"I can guarantee that the media will have freedom in this country, as we fought for this, so that there would be freedom of thought, expression and information" said Timor`s head of government.

Alkatiri`s comments came in response to a letter published in a Dili newspaper Thursday from Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo, in which the Catholic prelate called for the expulsion of the Lusa news agency`s correspondent over "an article against the Timorese people and the Catholics of Dili".

The Bishop had lived through a period of severe restriction of liberty during the Indonesian occupation, Alkatiri said, adding that Belo "knows what the cost of free information is".

The prime minister, who is also leader of the governing Fretilin party, said he received Belo`s letter Monday, only reading the article in question Tuesday. "Yesterday [Wednesday] I read the Lusa report and wondered to myself ... if it was the same article that warranted this reaction, or a different one. I was in doubt as I don`t know if the article merited this response", said Alkatiri.

Asked to comment on the Bishop`s assertion that Lusa had offered a very poor service to East Timor, Alkatiri referred to the large number of pieces the agency published monthly on the country. "I have a positive appraisal of Lusa`s work. All of us kow what Lusa has done and what the Portuguese media have achieved in East Timor, particularly Lusa, Alkatiri said.

Portugal`s national journalist`union said it was "shocked" by the Bishop`s comments, pointing to the importance of respecting press freedom. The Lusa news agency`s head of information, Fernando Trigo, described the request for the Dili correspondent`s expulsion as an "unprecedented demand" and the Bishop`s accusation as "inappropriate".

Belo calls for withdrawal of Dili Lusa correspondent

Lusa - May 23, 2002

The head of East Timor`s Roman Catholic Church, Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo, has said that the Dili correspondent of the Portuguese Lusa news agency "should be withdrawn from East Timor" for having written an article on church power in the new country which was "full of insults and lack of education".

In a letter dated May 21 and published in Thursday`s edition of the Timor Post newspaper, Bishop Belo said a report filed last Friday by Lusa correspondent Antonio Sampaio was "an article against the Timorese people and the Catholics of Dili". "I must express my total rejection of the article", Belo said in the letter, which was addressed to "the Lusa representative in Dili".

The Bishop`s communication, however, was not received by Lusa`s Dili bureau. Belo`s letter was also sent to priests and congregations in the diocese of Dili, as well as the Timorese authorities. The Bishop, a 1996 Nobel Peace Prize winner, also said that "Lusa has only supplied a very bad service to the Timorese nation and its people".

Language & culture

Opinion: A language challenge for Timorese schools

International Herald Tribune - May 24, 2002

Michael Richardson, Uotolari -- Paradoxically, the neat figure of the Reverend Damianus Wagur seated behind a school desk in his office epitomizes the complexity of East Timor's recent history. Wagur, a missionary teacher from Flores, a predominantly Christian island of Indonesia, directs the senior high school in this town about 250 kilometers southeast of Dili. He is one of the last good vestiges of 24 years of Indonesian rule of East Timor until 1999 as he tries to raise educational standards in difficult circumstances.

"We have 200 students studying in what was formerly an elementary school," he said the other day. "The working conditions are not good and many of the 15 Timorese teachers lack proper professional qualifications."

The education system of East Timor, an overwhelmingly Catholic country, is the legacy of foreign control -- but by two colonial powers that had very different priorities. For most of the more than 400 years that Portugal was in charge, it showed little interest in mass education. Nearly all the schools and other places of learning that existed were run by the Catholic Church. When Indonesia invaded and occupied East Timor in 1975, the literacy rate was only around 5 percent.

By building roads, bridges, schools and village health clinics Indonesia sought to show itself as a benevolent power. Jakarta saw universal primary education as an important part of the process of "Indonesianizing" the East Timorese. Use of Portuguese in schools was forbidden.

East Timorese who wanted to deal with the administration had to do so in the Indonesian language. Because of the frequent brutality that accompanied its rule, Indonesia failed to win the hearts and minds of many local people. But it did succeed in raising literacy levels and educational standards. By 1999, the final year of Indonesian control, the adult literacy rate in East Timor was 50 percent for men and 34 percent for women.

The Indonesian withdrawal included the burning and destruction of many schools by the military and its Timorese militia allies. Many were rebuilt or restored to basic operating level during the two and half years of UN administration that ended at midnight Sunday.

More than 240,000 primary and secondary students headed back to the classroom in October 2001, at the start of the new school year. Nearly eight out of ten children of primary school age are enrolled. But there is another complication. East Timor's new leaders have decided that Portuguese as well as Tetum, the most widely spoken of the country's 15 or so indigenous languages, will be the two official languages. They have relegated Indonesian to the status of a "working" language.

The leadership did so partly because of an emotional attachment to Portuguese, which they used during the resistance to Indonesian rule. They also feel indebted to Portugal and Portuguese-speaking countries such as Brazil, Mozambique and Angola for supporting the independence struggle.

But only about 5 percent of East Timorese speak Portuguese, compared with an estimated 63 percent who speak Indonesian and 91 percent who speak Tetum. The latter needs development, including a much enlarged vocabulary and improved grammatical structure, before it can become a really expressive national language. That will take at least a decade.

In education, the policy is to introduce Portuguese progressively as the language of instruction, starting in primary grades one and two in the current school year, while teaching Portuguese as a second language in higher grades. The aim is to extend instruction in Portuguese throughout the school system over the next 13 years.

Wagur points to just one of many problems facing East Timor educators when he notes out that only one of the 15 teachers at school can speak, read and write Portuguese. They are being assisted by a teacher from Portugal, one of about 140 on loan from that country under an educational and language aid program.

Still, a considerable number of young East Timorese are unhappy with the decision to use Portuguese, saying that it is discriminatory and undermines their employment prospects. "Some of my students ask: Why should we have to learn this colonial language?" Wagur said.

International solidarity

GAM congratulates East Timorese

Jakarta Post - May 21, 2002

Jakarta -- The Free Aceh Movement armed wing (AGAM) joined the worldwide chorus of congratulations for the people of East Timor on their independence and the inauguration of Xanana Gusmao as the country's first president.

In a statement released on Sunday, AGAM spokesman Muzakir Manaf said that the people of Aceh and the resistance groups wished the East Timorese "good luck and success in bringing the people of Timor Lorosae prosperity and a bright future." "The people of Aceh and Timor Lorosae are of the same entity and background: the conquered and oppressed," the statement in English said.

Muzakir said he expected future cooperation between East Timor and Aceh.

International relations

US must examine its role in new nation's bloody past

Pacific News Service - May 20, 2002

Ben Terrall -- As the world's newest nation looks forward, the US must look back at its complicity in East Timor's bloody past. Recently declassified documents reveal that the United States gave a "green light" to Indonesian dictator Suharto before his invasion of East Timor. It's no time, writes PNS contributor Ben Terrall, to renew military aid to Indonesia.

As it celebrates its hard-won independence, East Timor, the world's newest nation, fully deserves the congratulations it is receiving from the United States. But along with the praise should come an apology for Washington's support for the brutal, 24-year Indonesian military (TNI) occupation of East Timor, which killed 200,000 East Timorese.

East Timor's inspiring birth -- and the recent release of documents revealing US approval Indonesia's 1975 military invasion -- should challenge the gathering Washington consensus to renew military aid to Indonesia, cut two years ago when the TNI laid waste to East Timor.

Portuguese colonialism in East Timor was drawing to a close in 1974. It became clear that the half-island nation (West Timor was already part of Indonesia) would opt for a government prioritizing literacy and health care for all. Jakarta feared such a development would inspire those yearning for self- determination in areas of Indonesia proper. Exploiting the language of the Cold War, Indonesian generals attacked East Timorese aspirations as a communist menace. Declassified documents recently released by the National Security Archive show that in a meeting in Jakarta on December 6, 1975, then-US President Gerald Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger assured Indonesian dictator Suharto that America supported his plans to invade East Timor. Kissinger told Suharto, "We understand your problem and the need to move quickly, but I am only saying that it would be better if it were done after we returned." Shortly after Kissinger and Ford left Indonesian airspace, the Suharto regime attacked East Timor's capital Dili with massive aerial bombing and ground troops. Ninety percent of the weapons used were from the United States.

A State Department official explained this support in early 1976, noting that "we regard Indonesia as a friendly, non-aligned nation -- a nation we do a lot of business with." From Ford to Clinton, Washington consistently sided with Indonesia's rulers, providing key military, economic and diplomatic support.

Ford's representative to the United Nations, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, admitted in his memoirs that he worked to block implementation of UN

resolutions condemning the occupation, as "the Department of State desired that the United Nations prove utterly ineffective in whatever measures it took (on East Timor)." US officials discredited reports of horrific atrocities in the occupied territory, and mainstream US media followed suit.

In the 1990s, US activists sparked grassroots and congressional pressure against US policy on Indonesia, and blocked some military training of the TNI and weapons transfers. International solidarity pressure also contributed to Suharto's successor B.J. Habibie allowing a UN-administered referendum to take place on East Timor's future.

The East Timorese resistance, mainly a non-violent clandestine front, ultimately triumphed over Indonesian military-backed violence and intimidation, as the population voted overwhelming for independence on August 30, 1999. The TNI and its militia proxies responded by killing at least 2,000 people, raping hundreds of women and girls, displacing three-quarters of the population, and destroying over 70 percent of the territory's infrastructure.

Through intelligence intercepts, the United States knew of plans for this scorched-earth campaign, but declined to discourage such mass violence by threatening a cut-off in military or economic aid. After a week of television images of the destruction, however, grassroots and congressional pressure forced Bill Clinton to cut military ties to Jakarta.

In January 2000, a UN commission recommended that the TNI be brought before an international human rights tribunal on East Timor. Such a court has not been formed, and apologists for Jakarta point to the Indonesian ad hoc Human Rights Court on East Timor as an adequate substitute. But that body's mandate is limited to examining atrocities in only three of East Timor's 13 districts, in just two months of 1999. Only a few mid-ranking officers will be tried, while the systematic planning and execution of 1999's devastation will remain unexamined and massacres committed over the previous 24 years will be ignored.

Sidney Jones, the Indonesia director of the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think-tank, reports that, "In the sloppiness of their work, the prosecutors have not only helped the defendants, they have trivialized the whole concept of crimes against humanity."

The Bush administration should not be allowed to follow through on current plans to restart aid to the TNI via $8 million for training a counter-terrorism unit and $8 million more for a domestic peacekeeping force. Congress must push the administration instead to support an international tribunal on East Timor, as called for by House Concurrent Resolution 60 and Senate Concurrent Resolution 9 (which have yet to be voted on). And members of Congress should also begin investigations of the US role in East Timor's bloody past.

Ben Terrall is coordinator of the San Francisco chapter of the East Timor Action Network.

The price of independence

Baltimore Sun - May 20, 2002

Ben Terrall, Oakland, California -- East Timor will celebrate its independence today after throwing off a 24-year Indonesian military occupation that killed 200,000 East Timorese.

But while the world should rightly congratulate the East Timorese people on their incredible accomplishment, it is important to remember that for more than two decades the United States provided bipartisan support for the Indonesian military (TNI), not the East Timorese.

For that, Washington should formally apologize to the world's newest nation, situated 400 miles north of Australia, as the first step in a broader process of accountability for its role in financing TNI terror.

Declassified documents released in December by the National Security Archive show that on December 6, 1975, then-President Gerald R. Ford and Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger gave Indonesian dictator Suharto a green light to invade East Timor, which his regime did the next day. The United States supplied 90 percent of the weapons used in the military occupation, which was characterized by indiscriminate slaughter.

For the next 24 years, from Mr. Ford to Bill Clinton, the United States consistently sided with Indonesia's rulers. Mr. Clinton will represent President Bush at the independence festivities.

As assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs under President Jimmy Carter, Richard Holbrooke, who was accompanying Mr. Clinton, oversaw the shipment of 16 A-4 Skyhawk jets that were used during the intensification of attacks on tens of thousands of East Timorese civilians.

Although the United Nations passed resolutions condemning Indonesia's illegal occupation, Mr. Ford's ambassador to the United Nations, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, acknowledged in his memoirs that he worked to make UN efforts "utterly ineffective."

In the 1990s, grassroots and congressional pressure did push US policy on Indonesia, and activists managed to help stop some military training of the TNI and block weapon sales.

In 1999, the East Timorese resistance triumphed over Indonesian military-backed violence and intimidation and the people voted overwhelming for independence in a UN-administered referendum. Indonesian police and military, and their militia proxies, responded by killing between 1,500 and 2,000 people, raping hundreds of women and girls, displacing three-fourths of the population and destroying more than 70 percent of the territory's infrastructure.

Through Australian intelligence intercepts, the United States knew such a scorched-earth campaign was being planned but declined to discourage such mass violence by threatening a cutoff in military or economic aid. But after a week of TV images of the destruction, grassroots and congressional pressure forced Mr. Clinton to cut military aid to Jakarta.

In January 2000, a UN commission recommended that the Indonesian military be brought before an international human rights tribunal on East Timor.

Such a court has not been formed, and apologists for Jakarta point to the Indonesian ad hoc Human Rights Court on East Timor as an adequate substitute. But that court's mandate is limited to two months in 1999 and three of East Timor's 13 districts.

Only a few mid-level officers, including three generals who are not among the top tier in the chain of command, will be tried, the systematic planning and execution of 1999's devastation will go unexamined and massacres committed over the previous 24 years will be ignored.

Generals present in court serve to intimidate witnesses, and the Indonesia program director of the International Crisis Group, Sidney Jones, reported that "In the sloppiness of their work, the prosecutors have not only helped the defendants, they have trivialized the whole concept of crimes against humanity." The Brussels-based International Crisis Group is a think tank devoted to containing conflicts worldwide.

The Bush Administration should not be allowed to follow through on current plans to restart aid to the Indonesian military with $8 million to train a counter-terrorism unit and $8 million more for domestic peacekeeping.

Congress must push the administration to instead support an international tribunal on East Timor to try Indonesian military and political leaders for their roles in the destruction of East Timor in September 1999, as called for by House and Senate resolutions (which have yet to be voted on). And to be consistent, Congress should also begin investigations of the US role in East Timor's invasion and occupation.

[Ben Terrall is coordinator of the San Francisco chapter of the East Timor Action Network.]

Tainted Jakarta lobby left stranded by history

Scott Burchill - May 20, 2002

As the East Timorese celebrated their hard-won independence overnight, spare a thought for the Jakarta lobby in Australia, including luminaries such as Dick Woolcott, Gough Whitlam, Gareth Evans and Paul Keating, to name only a few. How must they feel?

These men have dedicated much of their professional lives to opposing just such an event.

Some of them schemed with the Indonesians prior to the 1975 invasion, receiving a detailed forewarning of the attack without passing it on to the East Timorese. The result was the greatest mass killing, as a proportion of the total population, since the Holocaust.

A number sought to regularly protect and exculpate the Suharto regime from international criticism by understating or even denying Jakarta's crimes in the territory, while branding critics of the regime's brutality "anti-Indonesian" and "racist" (Woolcott). Others used space in Australian newspapers to urge the East Timorese to accept that their occupation by Indonesia was "irreversible" (Evans) and to give up their independence struggle as a "lost cause" (Woolcott).

A range of strategies was employed in the effort to thwart East Timor's independence. Australians were told that Indonesia's boundaries would "Balkanise" if East Timor was "allowed" to become independent. In one instance history was rewritten so that the 1990 Dili massacre, just one in a long sequence of Indonesian atrocities, could be presented as an "aberrant act" (Evans).

Canberra was convinced to train Kopassus officers, the most brutal human rights violators in Indonesia's armed forces, and then sign a resource agreement to share with Jakarta the spoils of their occupation. Even the right to self-determination was attacked as "not a sacred cow," at least when it came to East Timor (Woolcott).

Perhaps most shameful of all was Canberra's decision to extend diplomatic recognition of Indonesia's occupation of East Timor, in defiance of the UN and the overwhelming wishes of the international community.

Throughout the dark years from 1975-1999, the Jakarta lobby showed greater understanding to the perpetrators of crimes committed in East Timor than for their victims. None has apologised for their behaviour or admitted their mistakes.

Last night's festivities were not just a remarkable tribute to a people who fought against enormous odds to win their freedom. It also marks the moment of ultimate failure for a group of Australians who worked so assiduously to prevent them from ever taking place.

[Scott Burchill is a lecturer in international relations at Deakin University in Melbourne.]

Economy & investment

East Timor sees tourism future from natural beauty

Reuters - May 21, 2002

Dean Yates, Dili -- About the only thing pro-Jakarta militias didn't destroy in their rampage after East Timor voted in 1999 to break free was something they couldn't touch -- the territory's stunning natural beauty.

Now, newly independent East Timor hopes to cash in on scuba diving, rugged mountain walks and spectacular sunsets -- a potential paradise for tourists seeking adventure.

"They are starting from a low-base, but ... now East Timor is independent and at peace, tourism can also be used to help change its image to the outside world," said Craig Wilson, an economic policy adviser who helped draw up a national development plan for East Timor.

Around half the size of Belgium and a little smaller than Hawai, East Timor became the world's newest nation on Monday after centuries of Portuguese colonisation and more recently, 24 years of brutal Indonesian control.

The territory voted in 1999 to split from Indonesia, triggering a vengeful response from pro-Jakarta militias who, with backing from the Indonesian military, left most of East Timor in ruins. The United Nations ran East Timor up until independence.

Officials say they want to begin by focusing on eco-tourism or adventure travel in Asia's poorest country, attracting the sort of people who can make do without five-star service.

That's just as well, because anyone expecting amenities or service like Indonesia's famous resort island of Bali, a 90- minute flight to the west, is in for a shock.

Targets are modest, with East Timor seeking 5,000 tourists by 2007 from virtually none. That will hardly drive the economy, but officials say it will diversify income from the current sources of largely untapped offshore oil reserves and coffee plantations.

Indonesian statistics show just 1,374 foreigners visited East Timor in 1996, a time of tension during its occupation and low- level guerrilla conflict.

Plenty to offer?

East Timor offers mountain bike riding, hiking along horse trails dating from Portuguese times, white-sand beaches and stunning vistas from the hilltops that rise up from many parts of the coastline. And the scuba diving does not get any easier.

Drive any distance out of the capital, Dili, park your car, put on your gear and walk into the ocean. Generally, the beach quickly drops away to pristine reefs and a dazzling array of fish.

Some foreign residents say former independence guerrillas could take a leaf out of Vietnam's book, where ex-Viet Cong fighters take tourists on tours of the Cu Chi tunnel complex that made life a misery for US soldiers during the Vietnam War.

In East Timor, ex-guerrillas could become guides, retracing the trails they used fighting Indonesian soldiers, they say.

But one thing that may turn tourists away is the cost. East Timor has adopted the US dollar as its currency, and due to the large UN presence leading up to independence, prices can be excessive.

Basic accommodation in Dili -- no TV or air-conditioning -- can go for $30-40 a night, several times higher than similar standard lodgings in Bali.

Getting to East Timor is also not easy, with direct flights only from either Darwin in northern Australia or Bali.

Of East Timor's towns that were badly destroyed in 1999, Dili has regained some charm, helped by its curved seafront and jagged mountains that rise up nearby. Mountain Maubisse, two hours to the south, is also popular.

As for the Timorese, they are ready with open arms. "Please tell tourists to come. Then I can sell more of these," said one waif- like boy hawking independence day T-shirts.