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East Timor review
Commissonfor the Rights of the Maubere People, (CDPM) - January & February 1997
Rather than produce an exhaustive list of the multiplicity of events occurred last year or try to place them in rigorous order of importance, the aim of this text is to identify the trajectories and underlying tendencies of the East Timor question during the period in question. It is, therefore, a fairly summarY account of how the problem evolved during 1996. Instead of the usual thematic approach we have chosen to focus on a limited but representative selection of aspects, while naturally including a look at key areas such as the Resistance, diplomatic activities and the international context.
The religious eruption
While the overall picture of repression continued to be extremely serious, significant changes in the pattern of urban conflict occurred in East Timor during 1996.
First of all, the level of conflict seemed to diminish, at least judging by the number of reported incidents and the intensity of the violence, and in terms of numbers of people killed. Even so, there were deaths enough. The following incidents were among the urban resistance actions (of varying degrees of violence) that took place: the riot at Becora prison, Dili, in January; the students' demonstration during the visit to Dili by foreign Catholic Bishops in February; the clashes with Indonesian immigrants and subsequent destruction to property, sparked off by the desecration of Christian churches by Indonesian soldiers in Viqueque and Baucau, in May and June respectively; the gathering of two hundred young Timorese at the Santa Cruz cemetery to mark the anniversary of the massacre; the November demonstrations in Dili and Baucau by thousands of Timorese in support of Bishop Belo, after he was criticised by the Indonesian press; the many hundreds of thousands of Timorese who gathered to welcome Ximenes Belo on his return from Oslo in December, and the violent clashes that occurred at that time involving other Timorese in the pay of Indonesian secret services.
The second noticeable change was the emergence of an element common to almost all the above mentioned incidents - religion. In 1996, the part played by the religious phenomenon was weightier than ever before. It become a driving force and catalytic factor in the popular protests. Other relevant aspects (though not entirely new ones) were the geographical spread (reaching nationwide scale) and enormous magnitude of some of the demonstrations.
Negotiations at a standstill
The negotiations involving Portugal and Indonesia, with the UN playing a mediating role, simply marked time in 1996.
Portugal made a spectacular start to the year by charging forward with the new Foreign Minister's announcement (in January) that he was willing to go and meet with Xanana Gusmao in Jakarta. That was followed (in February) by Prime Minister (PM) Guterres' dazzling media performance at the EU/ASEAN summit in Bangkok, where he confronted Suharto with Portugal's agreement to the establishment of interest sections in exchange for a real improvement (internationally recognised) in to human rights in the territory, and the release of Timorese political prisoners. Regrettably, no tangible progress was made at the two rounds of inter-Ministerial negotiations (in January and July) and neither did Indonesia appear to warm to the Portuguese PM's proposal. The most that can be gleaned from the 8th meeting's final statement is a reference to the fact that substantive issues (no clue as to which) were discussed in greater detail, and that agreement had been reached on the opening of a Cultural Centre in Dili.
Neither did the question of Timorese participation in the negotiating process see any progress in 1996 - it was limited to a second intra-Timorese meeting in March, which was totally manipulated by Indonesia, with the UN looking on complacently. There are still serious doubts about the usefulness of persevering with a process which drags on without any apparent results whatsoever, and which, objectively speaking, has done little more than to enhance Indonesia's international image.
Diplomacy
In contrast to negligible progress made in the bilateral Portugal-Indonesia negotiations, other diplomatic efforts gathered noticeable momentum in 1996.
Indonesia's almost only success (albeit an extremely important one) was achieved at the UN Commission and Sub- Commission on Human Rights. At the Commission, a consensual statement on East Timor was adopted which, in terms of forcefulness and exigency, was light years away from the 1993 and 1994 statements (In the April edition of this Bulletin, we described the wording of the statement as "disastrous".) Some of blame for this defeat must be placed on the EU's excessively backwards-looking negotiating strategy in Geneva, but the brunt must be borne by Portugal, that failed to put its points of view across convincingly. At the Sub-commission, Portugal also failed to get its specialist elected and was unable to get any statement on the question adopted.
Progress on the diplomatic front was considerable and varied. In Australia, there were slight alterations to the country's foreign policy following the election of a new government. In March, the Australian Ambassador to Jakarta was sent to Timor and, in June, an official report blamed Indonesia for the deaths of foreign journalists in East Timor in 1975. In October, the Australian Senate passed a motion in favour of the territory's self- determination. In Germany too, the issue generated high visibility. In April, the Indonesian Ambassador to Bonn was called on to give an explanation for the violent expulsion of young Timorese from the German Embassy in Jakarta. On two occasions (in October during his visit to Indonesia and in December after meeting with Bishop Belo), Chancellor Kohl publicly expressed concern about the situation in East Timor.
On two separate occasions (during the meeting with Indonesian Bishops in September, and at the audience with Ximenes Belo in December) Pope John II stated that he was in favour of finding a solution for East Timor. However, this did not prevent the Vatican from maintaining an ambiguous position on the issue.
Furthermore, in March the Indonesian regime was condemned by the US State Department for its human rights record (although in April, the US Congress agreed on a partial resumption of the IMET program). In November it was the Belgian Parliament's turn to criticise the Jakarta Government over human rights. The EU's common position on East Timor, made public in June was, unquestionably, a victory: it was the first such position adopted within the scope of Common Foreign and Security Policy. Another (indirect) victory was Portugal's election to the UN Security Council.
Overall, it may be said that while 1996 saw clear, positive evolution in the positions adopted publicly by States, unfortunately, this has had few or no practical repercussions so far in these countries' relations (namely economic) with Indonesia.
A people that resists
Timorese society is still showing signs of its remarkable internal dynamics. One of the most interesting developments recently has been the slow but steady erosion of Indonesia's support base among the Timorese urban elite. During 1996, there was a widening of the rift between the scanty "hard core" of integrationists (personalities such as Lopes da Cruz and Abilio Soares, whose credibility both internally and externally is negligible) and the other sectors of the local ruling class. This is exemplified by the gradual detachment of members of the influential Carrascalao family from pro-Indonesia rationale, and their distancing from posts they had held in the administrative apparatus. At the same time, there were increasing signs of a new, discreet, "moderate" kind of dissidence emerging, which had no direct commitments in the political struggle, but which was clearly sympathetic to a solution "without Indonesia".
Indonesia's efforts to step up the "Timorisation" of the conflict are extremely worrying. They include the setting up of pro-integration militias (Gardapaksi), composed of young, unemployed, rootless Timorese, who the Indonesian military enlist and train. In 1996, these militias were seen to be present at many of the most violent confrontations that occurred in East Timor. They serve Indonesia as agents provocateurs, infiltrating, informing, and destabilising Timorese social fabric.
Infiltration has been spreading considerably in rural areas, where the guerrillas are active. Reports of Indonesian military operations carried out on the basis of information supplied by infiltrated civilian agents, are now commonplace.
Judging by the reports which reached the outside, guerrilla activity levels in 1996 remained stable or even rose slightly. This more dynamic guerrilla force was, for the first time, filmed in combat with Indonesian troops by a journalist in August. An estimated number of losses in combat may be calculated from the figures provided by opposing sources (Indonesian Armed Forces, in a statement in January to the Antara agency, and the guerrilla movement via Commander Alex speaking to RDPI in April): approximately 50 per year on each side (including guerrillas captured and surrendering).
The numbers of combatants on either side are not likely to have altered in 1996. Indonesia still put the figure of armed guerrillas at 200, while the Resistance reports that there are 20 Indonesian battalions operating in the territory.
In short, the conflict in military terms remained basically unchanged in 1996: low intensity warfare in a prolonged deadlock situation.
In search of an interlocutor
Bishop Belo is the figure who has gradually become the "alternative" to Xanana Gusmao - "alternative" being a naturally farfetched term since both men have totally different mandates and spheres of action. Even so, "alternative" is about right in the sense of "interlocutor par excellence". In the absence of Xanana - the most obvious and natural leader, Bishop Belo is unquestionably taking on that role, and is being recognised as such by all concerned (the Resistance, Portugal, Indonesia, the UN and the international community). In the intricate puzzle of interests that are in play, Monsignor Belo is currently the key common denominator of all the parties involved in the problem. The two most noteworthy aspects of the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize are the upgrading of the political component of the problem and the symbolic nature of the award. As a rule, the Nobel is only "given" to problems whose solutions (albeit long in coming) are really workable and viable, problems that have not gone down History's dead-end street. Realpolitik rather than good Samaritan spirit is what is really behind the choice of Nobel laureates. The award to Ramos Horta and Ximenes Belo is, therefore, less a recognition of the justice and rightfulness of the Maubere struggle, and more evidence of the realisation that the problem is about to reach the stage of maturity at which it may now start to be overcome.
Suharto closes the doors
Periodically, certain sectors bandy about the idea of a Timorese autonomy-within- Indonesia, as an 'alternative' to the demand for self-determination. However, this kind of half-way solution does not fit in to the concept of the Indonesian regime, and it was President Suharto himself who rejected such a possibility out of hand last May.
The Indonesian President also rejected in 1996 any chance of developing a process of controlled liberalisation, i.e. gradual and peaceful renewal of the regime. Gross governmental interference in the internal affairs of the PDI and Megawati Sukarnoputri's removal from the party's leadership - a process which was directly orchestrated by Suharto and his closest circle - culminated in the attack on the PDI headquarters in July, and unleashed the most serious rioting Jakarta has seen in the past 20 years.
It is not just the dictator who is getting old but very foundations of the regime itself. The country's intense social and economic dynamics and the alterations in global geostrategic alignment now call for profound political changes in Indonesia, at the risk of unpredictable social explosion. Suharto has shown that he is not willing to accept even the most modest of reforms, and closes the doors to any suggestion of political alternative.
1996 was, therefore, the year which saw confirmation of the regime's and its leader's unwillingness or inability to enter into a process of self-transformation and internal democratisation. However, it was also the year in which the opposition movement gathered the greatest impetus in recent decades, and the year in which it congregated around one figure (Megawati), who (and this is another new element) revealed herself to be a real and credible alternative to Suharto.
However minor the question of East Timor may seem compared to the immensity of the opposing forces within Indonesian society, it is the question which is now determining the basis of the alliances within the opposition movement, namely its alignment with regards the military.
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