The debacle that is East Timor

Bishop Belo says in his autobiography, “I must have been the only person in Dili who was unaware of the service or the procession”. However, it is worth noting that the 5,000 people who took part marched just a few hundred metres from his house.

After the images were played on television the Free East Timor campaign took on new life. John Howard changed his government’s position, possibly to save Australia from appearing unfeeling, though I’m sure the official thinking, as it had been since Whitlam, was that East Timor was an artificial colonial entity without the resources necessary to be self-sustaining, and was geographically and historically part of Nusantara Indonesia.

The Santa Cruz massacre was a successful piece of propaganda that did a great deal of harm to the image of Indonesia. Any rational debate on the situation was taken over by emotional cries to free the East Timorese from Indonesia.

The referendum

As the downfall of Suharto became ever more inevitable Horta and Belo felt there was increased urgency to hold a referendum. This was despite the danger of violence that had been building for months. They knew without the New Order regime in power there would be less motivation for East Timor to secede.

In 1999 President Habibie allowed the referendum. Some say he was convinced that the vote would be positive: others say he thought he would be rewarded by being allowed to keep the presidency.

As voting day neared frustration and fear built up into a dangerous situation. After an overwhelmingly high vote in favour of separation and a request for an investigation into the result was denied, violence was inevitable. Gusmoa said, on international TV, “Arm yourselves”.

After initial TV images from East Timor there was no news, leading to wild speculation as to the whereabouts of 180,000 people. Had they gone missing? Did they ever even exist? Several days later the story was dropped and forgotten. Maybe these people were fictitious and only on the rolls.

Calls to check the legitimacy of the referendum were ignored by the United Nations.

The predictions of the border seething with militia, and camps filled with refugees intimidated by militia were, over time, shown to be false.

Christianity

Another major colonial legacy is Christianity. It plays a central role in the separatist movement.

People seem to forget Christianity was a totally foreign concept and has played a large part in destroying traditional cultures, in East Timor, Irian Jaya and many other places. The first thing Indonesia should have done in East Timor is deport the Catholic clergy before they became the underground network that kept the conflict going. They now virtually own East Timor, along with the Portuguese elite.

Maybe Sukarno was the one who should have solved the East Timor question back in 1949 when he declared Indonesia Merdeka, “from Sabang to Merauke”. He was anti-imperialist but he neglected the opportunity to expel the Portuguese who, I’m sure, would have gone without a struggle.

The East Timor debacle was a very bad for Indonesia-Australia relations. The Australian Government didn’t want to change its policy concerning East Timor, but was put in a difficult position by pressure groups in Australia, whose Free East Timor marches were so visible on TV. Unless you really understood what was going on, and the vast majority of Australians didn’t, it seemed the right thing to do.

And John Howard’s priority was to be democratically re-elected.

Events today reinforce my opinion that in 1979 it was East Timorese against East Timorese, as it was during the violence following the referendum, and that is what it continues to be.