LONDON– If there had been no president Suharto there would have been no invasion and annexation of East Timor. Now he’s deposed, one of the world’s dwindling number of territorial injustices can be remedied in a week-end’s negociations–the leadership of East Timor is ready and waiting. If President B.J. Habibie, Suharto’s step-in, won’t do it then a newly elected president in the elections now being pushed for early next year will have to, if a new war is to be avoided.
Indonesia invaded East Timor, a Portuguese colony in the Indonesian archipelago in December, 1975. It was a massive assault, involving bombers, paratroopers and marines. The army wrecked havoc; there were indiscriminate killings and rape. Later, the Indonesian vice-governor admitted that 60,000 Timorese had been killed–more than a tenth of the population.
For too long the sounds of protest have been next to inaudible. But, gradually, the penny has dropped as nations have been woken up to the principles involved by the National Council of Timorese Resistance which in recent years has ratcheted up the decibels–for which it was awarded the Nobel peace prize two years ago.
It has lobbied and wooed the world’s governments with the facts. First and foremost, that Indonesia, despite its proximity, has no historic claim to the land it invaded. For 400 years East Timor was under Portuguese control. It was never a member of the Dutch Indonesian empire or at any time part of the archipelago’s political structure. The Indonesian claim is as far-fetched as would be a Cuban claim to Jamaica.
As late as the year before the invasion, the Indonesian foreign minister, Adam Malik, had been saying, “The independence of every country is the right of every nation, with no exception for the people in Timor”. But events and opportunity changed Suharto’s mind. The Salazar dictatorship in Portugal was overthrown. At the same time there were bitter internal struggles for power within East Timor and the victor, the radical Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor, unilaterally declared independence. This provided the excuse for Indones¡a’s invasion.
At the United Nations the initial response seemed promising. A majority, including the West, the Soviet bloc and the Third World, voted against Indonesia’s take-over and demanded its immediate withdrawal, arguing that East Timor was still legally part of Portugal and had a right to self-determination and, if it chose, independence.
But, over time, both Western and Soviet enthusiasm for the resolution eased. It was Third World nations that kept the issue alive but they too, with the passing years, lost interest. The U.S. and Europe, putting principle aside–the same principles Britain would later summon up in defense of the Falklands and the U.S. and western Europe in defense of Kuwait–began a strategic relationship, supplying arms to the Indonesian military as a way, they argued, of maintaining stability in a potentially volatile corner of the globe. Australia, only 480 kilometres to the south, even recognized the island as “part of Indonesia”.
Not only has Suharto now gone, so has his infamous son-in-law, Lt. General Prabowa Subianto, the man most hated in East Timor for his ruthless record. For many years he treated East Timor as his personal estate, encouraging his in-laws to exploit the island’s coffee, sandal wood and marble and using his troops with wanton abandon to suppress any criticism, organising youth gangs to abduct and eliminate East Timorese opposition leaders.
Despite the recent political eruptions in Indonesia, the East Timorese have shown extraordinary restraint, influenced by Xanana Guamao, the imprisoned leader of the resistance. It is a non-violent movement of immense self-discipline that has worked on a long timetable, convinced that one day circumstances would change and its voice would be heard.
Non-violence wasn’t always East Timor’s way. In the first five years of the struggle at least 10,000 Indonesian soldiers lost their lives and in the large-scale bombardment of villages, meant to suppress the revolt, the deaths were so huge that the late Professor Leo Kuper of the University of California, who was the world’s leading authority on mass killings, described it as “genocide”.
Expectations are now running high. If the world does not move more quickly to pressure the Habibie regime to get a move on and redress this wrong, the non-violent leaders could find their influence waning and the baton being passed to those who want a return to violence. But the last thing Indonesia needs in its present parlous state is another war on its hands. As much for Indonesia’s own sake as for that of the East Timorese, President Habibie needs to enter a week-end date in his diary and negociate an honourable conclusion to his predecessor’s great mistake.
