Indonesia should send right message to E. Timor<\/p>\n
Aboeprijadi Santoso, Radio Netherlands, Amsterdam<\/p>\n
It is odd, to say the least, that some legislators should
\npress the President not to attend the celebration of East Timor's
\nproclamation of independence on May 20.<\/p>\n
If invited, it would be even more appropriate for the House of
\nRepresentatives (DPR), and the People's Consultative Assembly
\n(MPR) as the holder of the people's sovereignty in this country,
\nto attend the celebration.<\/p>\n
After all, had not the DPR and the MPR under the New Order
\nsilently agreed with the Dec. 7 invasion 1975, subsequently
\nallowed the territory to be forcefully \"integrated\" into the
\nRepublic, formalized the annexation, and remained docile as human
\nrights abuses went on under Jakarta's responsibility?<\/p>\n
Since the current President and the legislative institutions
\nwere elected through the post-1998 reform and the free and
\nlegitimate general elections of 1999, their presence at East
\nTimor's independence day would be symbolically significant as a
\nhonorable stand of the new Indonesia. It is a great opportunity
\nfor the President, DPR and MPR to correct the wrongdoings
\nSoeharto's New Order did to the people of East Timor.<\/p>\n
Instead, the chairman of DPR Committee for Foreign, Defense
\nand Security Affairs, Ibrahim Ambong (Golkar), has called for a
\nboycott of East Timor's May 20 celebration. His predecessor,
\nstill a member of the committee, Aisyah Amini (PPP), told Radio
\nNetherlands that she dislikes the word \"boycott\", but fully
\nsupports Ambong's view.<\/p>\n
They argued that the presence of President Megawati
\nSoekarnoputri would hurt thousands of East Timorese \"refugees\"
\nwhom they apparently assumed to have preferred autonomy under
\nIndonesia at the UN held vote in 1999. \"It will only worsen
\n(their) yet unhealed wounds,\" said Ambong.<\/p>\n
The problem is, since the violence of September 1999, the
\nissue of the East Timorese \"refugees\" in Indonesia's Timor has
\napparently been deliberately mystified. Unlike the spontaneous
\nrefugees leaving East Timor since President Habibie's 'second
\noption offer' in Jan. 1999, those who flee just before or after
\nSept. 4, 1999 were victims of (threats of) violence.<\/p>\n
Evidence is abundant that, as the militiamen started to guard
\nthe city gates (Dili airport, haven and highways) around that
\ndate, those victims -- reportedly about 200.000 people -- were
\nbeing transported by Indonesian military's Hercules flights,
\nships, and trucks or had to walk to Atambua, while being guarded
\nby hundreds of armed pro-Jakarta militiamen. The purpose remains
\nunclear, but, many, including this writer, witnessed the events.<\/p>\n
Two years on, these \"refugees\" appear to have become political
\nhostages, whose life depends on the availability of the foreign
\nand domestic funds. This, in turn, leads to a controversy about
\nthe total figure of those who (choose or being forced to) stay;
\nsome 128,000 according to Jakarta, about 80,000, others said.<\/p>\n
Yet the fact that the regional military commander Maj.Gen.
\nWillem T. da Costa has recently succeeded to persuade and
\nrepatriate many of them, and is now accused of intimidation by
\nthe ex-militiamen, suggest that the latter were no longer useful
\nas proxies. In other words, Ambong's \"unhealed wounds\" has little
\nto do with \"refugees\".<\/p>\n
Ambong and Aisyah's problems are the UN-held 1999 referendum
\nand the fact that Indonesia had to lose East Timor. Legislator
\nAisyah maintained an outdated allegation that the vote was
\nunfair. Why, she insisted, should our president attend the
\ncelebration if \"Australia had manipulated the UNAMET (the UN body
\nwhich held the vote) in such a way as to deceive us by recruiting
\nEast Timorese pro-independent elements?\"<\/p>\n
Did she seriously believe that the \"East Timorese pro-
\nindependent elements\" could have forced some 80 percent of the
\nvoters to choose independence at the ballots without being
\nnoticed by hundreds of international observers and journalists,
\nincluding many from Indonesia?<\/p>\n
In any case, the vote results had been internationally
\nconfirmed and should be fully respected. Aisyah said, she, too
\nrespects them, but added that, because of the allegedly
\nmanipulative vote processes, the result would be \"a state that is
\nartificially created\". For her, the new independent state of East
\nTimor is wrong even before it is born.<\/p>\n
Ambong, meanwhile, mixed up serious issues. \"So many
\nIndonesian heroes died in East Timor while fighting for the unity
\nof the people and the land, but the people decided to separate
\nthemselves from Indonesia anyway,\" he said.<\/p>\n
One should indeed respect soldier-compatriots who died for the
\ncountry (even if it was because they were instructed by the
\nirresponsible generals to go to war), yet one need not do so by
\njustifying the war and denying other people's rights to self-
\ndetermination.<\/p>\n
To confuse these principles is precisely what the Dutch war-
\nveterans did as they condemned the
\nDutch-soldier-turn-Indonesia's-independence-hero, the late J.
\n\"Poncke\" Princen; his death is \"our liberation,\" they recently
\nsaid.<\/p>\n
This is part of the sickening trauma of a painful de-
\ncolonization. The same goes for other ex-colonial soldiers like
\nmany French Algeria-war-veterans. For bad losers, the war simply
\ngoes on as a ritual of the passing era.<\/p>\n
Our legislators' cry, therefore, only reminds us yet again,
\nthat while East Timor has been freed from Indonesia, the opposite
\nhas not been the case: Indonesia needs, that is, to be liberated
\nfrom Timor's trauma.<\/p>\n
With due respect to the above legislators, instead of spoiling
\nthe May 20 celebration, our legislators would do better to de-
\nmystify East Timor's tragic saga, to demand the Indonesian
\nmilitary to open a White Book on East Timor, and, as Ambong
\npossibly implies, to care for the welfare, materially and
\nspiritually, of thousands of widows and families of Timor war-
\nveterans.<\/p>\n
Many of the latter, as this writer recalls when visiting them
\nat the Seroja complex, Bekasi, in 1999, had misperceptions of the
\nwar in East Timor and felt being marginalized and treated
\nunjustly.<\/p>\n
That is the place where the truly \"unhealed wounds\" should be
\nfound. To heal them is Indonesia's responsibility, not a burden
\nfor East Timor. No revenge or vindictive sentiments can be
\nhelpful for the two nations.<\/p>",
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