Horta's referendum stand<\/p>\n
By Dino Patti Djalal<\/p>\n
LONDON (JP): At a recent 10-day seminar series East Timor
\nindependence leader Jose Ramos Horta used the occasion to speak
\non his most favorite subject: East Timor's referendum.<\/p>\n
The seminar which covered four North American cities, evolved
\naround a series of points and counterpoints traded between Horta,
\nfive pro-integration East Timorese and myself.<\/p>\n
The conversation began on Feb. 27 in Boston, Massachussets.
\nHorta was addressing a crowd at Harvard University, where he
\nspoke about East Timor's self-determination and called for a
\nreferendum.<\/p>\n
The session was going well for Horta, until Domingos
\nPolicarpo, an integrationist East Timorese, accused Horta of
\nhypocrisy. Domingos said Fretilin, of which Horta was a key
\nfigure, was not the least bit interested in a referendum in 1975.
\nHe said Fretilin was the only party which had boycotted all
\nnegotiations to implement self-determination.<\/p>\n
Of course it was Horta who unilaterally and forcefully
\ndeclared East Timor's \"independence\" in November 1975, an act
\nwhich constituted a flagrant desecration of the right of East
\nTimorese for self-determination.<\/p>\n
Horta was boxed in. He responded, quite astoundingly, by
\ndeclaring opposition to the Fretilin \"declaration of
\nindependence\", stating that it was a deed of his Fretilin
\ncolleagues, not his. Horta also said that he wrote about this in
\nhis book Funu: The unfinished saga of East Timor (1987), \"which I
\nam sure you have read, Mr. Djalal\".<\/p>\n
I have read Horta's book, and could not believe I had missed
\nthis crucial element. That night, I asked a member of staff at
\nthe Embassy in London to find the book and scan it to spot any
\nreference to Horta's opposition to the Fretilin \"declaration of
\nindependence\".<\/p>\n
Two days later he informed me that Horta made no such
\nreference in his book. In fact, in his book Horta indicated that
\nhis main reservation was regarding the date, not principle, of
\nsuch a declaration, preferring January 1976 instead of November
\n1975. Horta had managed to deceive us and his audience about the
\nbook. But at least now that Horta was reluctantly declaring his
\nopposition to the Fretilin \"declaration of independence\", the
\nconversation was going somewhere.<\/p>\n
The Fretilin \"declaration of independence\", of course, is
\ncompletely void of political and diplomatic currency. The
\ndeclaration was shunned by the international community, including
\nPortugal, Indonesia and the UN. Even scores of former Fretilin
\nleaders, including the first President of the \"Fretilin
\nGovernment\", Xavier do Amaral, have repudiated it. Nonetheless,
\nit was necessary to stick to it as a key point of debate to
\nhighlight Ramos Horta's self-contradiction on the question of the
\nreferendum.<\/p>\n
The debate continued in San Francisco. Here, it was my turn to
\nspeak from the podium. I said: \"The question of the referendum is
\nsomething Horta and his Fretilin colleagues no longer have a
\nright to profess in 1997, for they were precisely the ones who
\ndid everything they could to rob the East Timor people of this
\nGod-given right in 1975.\"<\/p>\n
Horta did not stay long enough to hear his East Timorese
\nfellows criticize him. Clementino Amaral, a member of the
\nNational Commission on Human Rights, lamented: \"I would like to
\nask the leaders of Fretilin, those like Horta, why they did not
\nhold a referendum when they held power for over 100 days in East
\nTimor?\" Domingos, who suffered from Fretilin brutality, claimed
\nthat \"Horta used the people of East Timor to score political
\npoints\".<\/p>\n
Domingos claims to speak for East Timor but he has never
\nstepped foot in East Timor in 20 years. \"You can't speak for
\nthose you don't know,\" said Francisco da Silva, chairman of the
\nForum for East Timor Studies.<\/p>\n
He added: \"For Horta to call a referendum, when his party and
\nthe Portuguese killed so many East Timorese, is not only
\nirresponsible, it is an insult to the memory of all killed in the
\ncivil war.\"<\/p>\n
Horta responded the following day when speaking at the
\nUniversity of Berkeley. But his argument had new elements. His
\nkey message was that Fretilin had done nothing wrong by declaring
\n\"independence\" unilaterally. Yes, he argued, they did it, but so
\ndid the Indonesians in 1945, and so did the Americans in 1776.
\nBoth the Indonesian and American proclamations of independence
\nwere \"unilateral acts\" and \"did not involve any referendum\". So
\nwhy should Fretilin be condemned for doing the same for East
\nTimor? Many in the audience agreed.<\/p>\n
Horta was dancing to our tune. But I was not about to let him
\nget away with his false analogy. After his speech, I said that
\nHorta's remarks on Indonesian and American independence only
\nshowed how much he misunderstood about the basics of self-
\ndetermination in East Timor.<\/p>\n
Indonesian and American unilateral proclamations of
\nindependence were entirely irrelevant to the case of East Timor.
\nFirst, by 1975, it was clear to all sides -- that there were
\nthree equally valid political options for East Timor: integration
\nwith Indonesia, a separate East Timor state or an arrangement
\nwith Portugal.<\/p>\n
Second, it was clear that these three options were to be
\ndetermined not by the elite members of the Fretilin central
\ncommittee, but by the people of East Timor. Whatever the
\ncircumstances on the ground, Fretilin never had the exclusive
\nright to make that decision for, and impose it upon, the East
\nTimorese, as it did blatantly on Nov. 28, 1975.<\/p>\n
Horta then said that Fretilin had to unilaterally declare this
\n\"independence\" in view of a prospective \"Indonesian invasion\".
\nBut then, oddly enough, he pleaded, \"But if we were wrong in 1975
\nfor declaring independence, then let's have another vote, let's
\nhave a referendum.\"<\/p>\n
I was not given the chance to refute Horta. But I knew that he
\nwas stretching his argument too far. The fact is that when Horta
\npresented his case before the UN Security Council in April 1976,
\nhe never justified the declaration as a preemptive measure.
\nInstead, Horta persistently conceived East Timor's self-
\ndetermination in terms of \"the people's armed struggle for
\nnational liberation under the leadership of Fretilin\".<\/p>\n
As he proudly stated to the Security Council: \"The people of
\nEast Timor, after defeating their internal enemies, proclaimed
\ntheir independence.\" In this long speech, he did not utter one
\nword of \"referendum\".<\/p>\n
After two weeks with Horta, my East Timorese colleagues and I
\nagreed that Horta's message was no more than an endless
\nassortment of contradictions:<\/p>\n
* Fretilin's unilateral and forceful \"declaration of
\nindependence\" contradicted their commitment to a democratic self-
\ndetermination by the people;<\/p>\n
* Horta's recent opposition to the \"declaration of
\nindependence\" contradicted the fact that he served as a very
\noutspoken Fretilin \"foreign minister\" who had launched a futile
\ncampaign to seek international support for such a declaration;<\/p>\n
* Fretilin's \"declaration of independence\" contradicted
\nHorta's current recognition of Portugal as East Timor's
\nadministering power. In fact, it was Horta himself who proclaimed
\nto the UN Security Council on April 12, 1976: \"The Central
\nCommittee of Fretilin considers as terminated any political ties
\nbetween East Timor and Portugal\", and that he \"repudiate any
\nsuggestion that Portugal is still the administering power\". To
\nadd insult to injury, Horta called Portugal \"the mysterious
\nadministering power of nothing\".<\/p>\n
* Horta's opposition to the declaration also contradicted
\nthe views of some of his Fretilin colleagues in Portugal and the
\nguerrilla factions in East Timor. Indeed, Horta may have some
\nexplaining to do.<\/p>\n
My last conversation with Horta took place in Vancouver,
\nCanada, on March 7. After making a short speech, Horta opened the
\nfloor to questions. I questioned his recent remarks in Boston,
\nand said that after having read his book, I still could not spot
\nthe part regarding his opposition to the Fretilin \"declaration of
\nindependence\". I then asked him to show me the page in question,
\nand walked up to him to hand over the book.<\/p>\n
Horta was not pleased, and he likened the situation to \"Jodie
\nFoster\" being followed by \"John Hincley\", a remark which was
\npicked up by the Canadian media the next day. I was rather
\nsurprised that Horta chose to evade the question. Horta did not
\ninspect the book I gave him, and proceeded to answer questions
\nfrom other people.<\/p>\n
When the question period ended, Horta still had not answered
\nmy question. The audience was leaving. I approached him for an
\nanswer. Horta, knowing that some members of the audience were
\ncuriously watching to see if he could show the page, flipped
\nthrough the book. \"It's here somewhere,\" he said. \"I am sure you
\nread it too fast.\" He stopped at a page, pretending to point to
\nit, and said in a voice only audible only to both of us, \"I will
\nshow you next time\".<\/p>\n
It was the end of our conversation. And it was Horta at his
\nbest.<\/p>\n
The writer is a London-based Indonesian diplomat. The views
\nexpressed here are strictly personal.<\/p>\n
Window: The Fretilin \"declaration of independence\", of course, is
\ncompletely void of political and diplomatic currency. The
\ndeclaration was shunned by the International community, including
\nPortugal, Indonesia and the UN.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/hortas-referendum-stand-1447893297",
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