East Timor's ticking tragedy

May 2, 1999

UNITED NATIONS -- The clock stopped in East Timor a quarter-century ago. After four centuries of Portuguese rule, Lisbon's torpid tropical enclave was invaded by neighboring Indonesia who imposed a New Order on this tiny island. Only now has the clock resumed--this time ticking to a possible new round of violence in the long sputtering separatist conflict.

The lines are drawn between those wanting independence from Indonesia and others favoring autonomous integration within Indonesia. Alas, the contemporary situation ironically mirrors the island's chaotic political landscape during the tumultuous days of 1975. Portugal's precipitous pullout from its colony left a power vacuum quickly filled by opposing Timorese factions who soon turned on themselves, presenting Indonesia's generals with the excuse to intervene.

Events in East Timor must be seen in the context of those times--a leftist Portuguese military junta cut loose from Africa and East Timor; the North Vietnamese had forcibly reunited Vietnam; Pol Pot was running Cambodia. There's no question that Jakarta had genuine and legitimate security interests in this tiny island amid the Indonesian archipelago. Tragically, those concerns paled amid the orgy of violence which soon befell the tiny Roman Catholic enclave soon to be submerged in the vastness of Islamic Indonesia.

In 1996 both Bishop Carlos Belo and Jose Ramos Horta received the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts for justice. The citation added, "it has been estimated that one third of the population of East Timor lost their lives due to starvation, epidemics, war and terror during the Indonesia's rule." That Jakarta has literally gotten away with murder in East Timor--far from the attention of the world's press--remains a grisly legacy. At least 200,000 people have perished.

Ramos Horta once told me that the Indonesians had perfected ethnic cleansing in East Timor long before the breakup of Yugoslavia brought the concept to Europe's doorstep.

It's richly ironic that Indonesia, a country which long cultivated its anti-colonial credentials, in fact has practiced blatant neo-colonialism in East Timor. Faced with a reality of ethnic resistance, Jakarta decided to reinvent the reality--namely to change the island's demography through ethnic Indonesian settlers from Java who would submerge the local Timorese in the Indonesian Republic. Forced relocations, the settlers, and the banning of the local language and religion, were all part of the political plan which integrated East Timor into Indonesia as its 27th province.

After the fall of President Suharto last year, Indonesia's new President B.J. Habibie has been realistic enough to confound his critics and allow for compromise. Facing a crippling economic and fiscal crisis in Indonesia and international political fallout from the long festering Timor issue, President Habibie decided to cross the political Rubicon.

After years of deleterious U.N. sponsored negotiations, both Portugal and Indonesia finally agreed on a formula which allows for a vote on Timor's future--details have yet to be ironed out as to whether armed or unarmed United Nations peacekeepers or election observers will be allowed to monitor the vote set for 8 August. Significantly, which countries will contribute troops and observers to an operation which will likely be shadowed with internecine violence? Australia, Japan and Malaysia are key contenders. U.N. sources stress that final details may be in flux pending the outcome of Indonesia's national elections set for June.

Yet, a seemingly logical election outcome in tiny Timor could kick the cornerstone of the fragile Indonesian state as other restive regions such as the Mulocca Islands, question their status in the Indonesian state. Much like former Yugoslavia, the 200 million people of the 17,000 islands throughout the Indonesian archipelago, are not quite all on Jakarta's political page.

John J. Metzler is a U.N. correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues who writes weekly for World Tribune.com.