Turning a blind eye

The mantra “I don’t recall” is the current phrase with which government and corporate machines evade responsibility. During the agony endured by the Timorese people throughout the Indonesian occupation, similar ignorance reigned for the same reason. “We didn’t know.” “We didn’t want to know.”

Australia has consistently claimed allegiance to the rule of law, to human rights instruments and to codes of civilised conduct in principle, but when it came to practice - in relation to human beings living in close proximity in East Timor  - Australia was found wanting.

Universals yes: particulars, no. Throughout the whole of the Indonesian occupation of East Timor, the actions of successive Australian governments sought to place Australia’s economic and political relationship with Indonesia ahead of human rights issues. The people of West Papua are experiencing the backwash of the same mindset. It appears that Australia has learned little. We love humankind but it is inconvenient people on our doorstep whom we cannot abide.

The recent report of the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation (CAVR) presents in compelling detail the causes of the deaths of up to 183,000 people in East Timor between 1974 and 1999. One of the strengths of the report is that it deals with the abuses committed by Timorese with the same scrutiny which it applies to the Indonesian occupiers. No one responsible for human rights abuses is spared. However, those at the highest levels in the Indonesian Government and its security forces are shown to be the main cause of the huge death toll.

This report presents its findings in dispassionate detail. The unlawful killings and disappearances; the forced displacement and induced famines; the detention; torture and ill-treatment of persons; the sexual violence and political trials; the violations of the rights of children: all these make confronting reading. Anyone who wants to know the truth of what happened can find it on the Internet.

Also on the public record is the extraordinary fact that few of those responsible for the violence have been called to account for their crimes. Most of the officers who operated in Timor remain in the Indonesian military although some are enjoying retirement. For example, Major Generals Tono Suratnam, and Zakky Anwar Makarim reside in Indonesian society with no obvious requirement to answer for the atrocities they committed.

Lists of those indicted for crimes against humanity occupy 55 pages of the report, and after brief statements of the charges against them, this phrase occurs repeatedly: “The indictees are believed to be at large in Indonesia.”

Some of those indicted were sent to West Papua straight after their tour of duty in Timor, for example, Major General Mahadin Simbolon, charged by UN prosecutors with crimes against humanity, was sent there as military commander. Timbul Silaen was the police chief in East Timor in 1999 and his next appointment was to West Papua in the same position, as police chief.

Others were promoted in the military or rose to high prominence in civil administration, for example, Muchdi Purwo Pranyoto who is reported as serving four times in East Timor, including some time “conducting interrogations” in 1980, became for a short time the Commander of Kopassus (the elite special forces group with the Indonesian military).

Rudini, who served for two years in the Airborne Battle Force II later became the Minister of the Interior and held the post for five years. Some well known names of military men who served in Timor occur in the report: Prabowo Subianto, President Soeharto’s son-in-law, became the Deputy Commander of Kopassus after four separate tours of duty in Timor between 1976 and 1989. The vice-President of Indonesia between 1993 and 1998, General Try Sutrisno, had operated as a Chief of Staff in Timor ten years before.

It was during the tenure of these career soldiers and so many others that the systematic starvation and destruction of Timor and its people took place.

Similar reports (pdf file 257KB) from West Papua are now also freely available. (Also see the report (pdf file 2.35MB)by John Wing and Peter King for the Centre for independent Studies.)

Disappearances, destabilisation, infiltration, the raising of militias, starvation, neglect of the education and health of indigenous people, an official policy of transmigration and consequent stacking of the population with foreigners, the strangling of language and culture, the blind opposition to all forms of national feeling, the subversion of the young, the rape of the women, the forced movement of people from tribal lands: are we talking about East Timor or West Papua? You be the judge. Read the reports.

The impunity enjoyed by the tormentors of Timor is a major cause of the mayhem in West Papua. Indonesia has not yet demonstrated the will to address the appalling treatment of people by its armed forces. It is nonsense to suggest that any military machine which has successfully evaded responsibility for rampant human rights abuses among a civilian population, whom it considered inferior, would not undertake the same activities in similar circumstances.

It is equally inconceivable that having been so recently defeated by civilians, with the consequent terrible loss of face, the same “scot free” machine would not be tempted to prevent a repeat. The international community, including Australia, by not calling Indonesia to account in one region, have thus given the green light for similar behaviour in others.

The desperation of the military to maintain control is heightened by the illegality of Indonesian sovereignty in both East Timor and West Papua, the former through invasion and the latter through a fraudulent “Act of Free Choice”. The vicious cycle of illegal claim to authority, resistance by the people and the use of increasing force to maintain power has exploded in mayhem and abuse.

There is a lack of appreciation by both Indonesia and Australia that oppression in West Papua, as in East Timor, is more likely to fuel nationalist sentiment than to quell it. The governments of Indonesia and Australia are dishonest when they accuse human rights supporters of destabilising the Republic of Indonesia. There would be far fewer problems if the Papuan people had been treated as human beings deserve, and if the efforts to establish autonomy had been sincere.

Indonesia’s anger at Australia’s recent granting of temporary protection visas to 42 West Papuans resulted in the suggestion that the cases of future asylum seekers may “have to take into account the views of the countries applicants are fleeing”. It is deeply troubling that such a proposal could even be contemplated. It has been run up the Australian flag pole, and although hastily withdrawn, has served to test the waters, to soften up the population, perhaps for its re-introduction, perhaps for something worse.

An equally disgraceful proposal certainly followed hot on its heels, i.e. to consider the whole of Australia not to be Australia for migration purposes, so that asylum seekers who reach the mainland would be processed offshore, and sent elsewhere for refuge.

The house is alight and the neighbours are fleeing, but we lock our door on them in case we might upset their negligent landlord.

Indonesia may be making some creditable steps towards democracy, but while atrocities such as those endured by the Timorese people remain unaddressed and the perpetrators remain at large in positions of authority and esteem, claims of progress are weakened.

One of the requirements of democracy is accountability; the refusal to shoulder responsibility betrays elements more appropriate to dictatorships and autocrats. Whiffs of such behaviour occur even in a long-standing democracy like Australia where senior ministers can evade responsibility by telling lies: claiming an inability to recall facts, to lack personal knowledge of major issues within their brief, or to claim being kept in the dark by their departments.

The CAVR Report illustrates the extreme to which the exercise of power without responsibility can lead. When individuals or governments are not held accountable for their actions, they are emboldened to repeat those actions, as is being convincingly demonstrated by Indonesia.

It must be understood that the responsibility for assisting Indonesia to see that accountability and respect for human rights are requirements of democracy cannot lie with East Timor. The Timorese have had to shoulder the burden of serving other nations’ interests for too long, for example, in protecting us during World War II by helping our soldiers; suffering because of Australian complicity during the Indonesian occupation; and sharing their oil with us after independence.

East Timor should be allowed to get on with its task of establishing sound government, feeding its people and making good relationships in the region. The responsibility for addressing the many recommendations in the CAVR Report and assisting Indonesia on the path towards full democracy lies with those like Australia, Britain, Canada and the US who have had the benefits of democracy for generations, whose longer democratic experience brings the burden of providing good example and whose refusal to call Indonesia to account has contributed to the oppression of Timorese and Papuan alike.

No one now can say that they do not know what is happening in West Papua unless they don’t want to know. Knowledge brings responsibility. Our human rights responsibilities always override other political or economic issues or else we uphold the claims of all of history’s dictators, forever willing to sacrifice the weak on the altar of a short-sighted grasp of “national interest”.

These issues are not merely internal matters for Indonesia, as human rights are never merely political but have their place among the deepest religious and ethical questions we face. Advocating genuine dialogue between the Papuan people and the Indonesian Government with the involvement of international mediators would not be interference, despite the crushed feelings or other posturing which may ensue: it would rather be the advice of a true friend.

In a curious use of grammar, there is a telling point in John 19:13 where Jesus is led out to the crowd by Pilate for judgment. The Greek verb “to sit” used here can be either transitive or intransitive, so that v.13 can be translated either “Pilate led out Jesus and sat down on the judgment seat” or “Pilate led out Jesus and sat him down on the judgment seat”. Who sat where is immaterial, and the thought of Jesus being given the role of judge by the governor is theological theatre, but the question it poses is worthy of reflection: who, indeed, is the judge?

With centuries of assimilation into western culture of the image of Christ as judge, we are readily able to ascribe to him the role of “judge” in this scene where he himself faces the death sentence. But Jesus’ own identification of himself with humanity, especially with the poor and afflicted (Matt 25) raises the question of who is the judge in the present realities in which we are embroiled.

Along with Christ, all who suffer sit in judgment on their tormentors. The murdered and the tortured accuse the greed, fear and cruelty of those with power over them. As we look into the eyes of a starving child in a photograph taken in East Timor in 1979 we are looking at the judge. The judgment on our head is there, and remains for history to see: our fear, denial, inaction, subservience.

How did Australia’s relationship with Indonesia prosper by the official refusal, both political and religious, to act on the evidence of images like that? Who gained anything? Who benefited from the soft words, the blind eye, the smoothing over, the diplomatic niceties, the deals?

Actions unworthy of human beings are being played out in West Papua in an intolerable repetition of what happened in East Timor. Therefore, the governments of Australia and Indonesia are put on notice that there are citizens in both nations who do know and who can recall, and who will continue to work for the human rights and dignity of oppressed people.