Students deserve peace prize<\/p>\n
By Olle Tornquist<\/p>\n
OSLO, Norway: The crisis in East Timor and Indonesia has again
\nbecome acute. What went wrong? Is there any solution? What are
\nthe forces at play and how can they be influenced?<\/p>\n
Those of us who live in small countries must be able to act
\nthrough the United Nations. Its lack of alternative plans --
\nagainst the possibility of militia attacks -- was inconceivable.<\/p>\n
As for the rest, everybody, including the independence
\nmovement, agreed to brave the risks and seize the unique
\nopportunity that arose when President B.J. Habibie sought to
\ntrade East Timor for international support.<\/p>\n
So let us instead discuss the "truth of the day": that the UN
\nought to have been able, without hindrance, to sanction armed
\nintervention when all hell broke lose, but that China especially,
\nand several other developing countries opposed the move.<\/p>\n
That indeed can be said. But it was the United States which
\napproved Indonesia's occupation of East Timor, and Australia
\nwhich recognized its annexation. Both countries sponsored
\nJakarta's special forces. Sweden and Norway, among others, gave
\ntop priority to business dealings with Soeharto's Indonesia; and
\nit was the entire West which adopted the principle of
\nnonintervention in the area, even in the face of genocide (by
\nbacking the Khmer Rouge regime).<\/p>\n
East Timor certainly shows that international emergency
\nassistance must be a matter of course when people are being
\nterrorized and murdered, as surely as when they are starving and
\ndying. Yet the basic question is, will an intervention strengthen
\nthe forces of democracy, which must be capable of assuming the
\nleadership?<\/p>\n
Presuming that we do not propose making most countries in the
\nworld into Western protectorates with UN soldiers in every bush,
\nI myself persist in the view that an armed intervention without
\nJakarta's consent would have made it possible for the Indonesian
\nmilitary and militias to transform their terror and murder into a
\nwar of national self-defense. They would then have been able to
\neliminate the independence movement and reintroduce autocratic
\nrule into Indonesia. In such a scenario, not even the brave
\nstudents would have been able to stand in their way.<\/p>\n
Luckily however, the West was not able to start a war, and the
\nInternational Monetary Fund itself wanted to put the squeeze on
\nJakarta (over the Bali bank scandal). So the democrats were able
\nto stand up to the military.<\/p>\n
If help can now reach all those needing it, and Jose Alexandre
\n"Xanana" Gusmao is able to undertake his policy of
\nreconciliation, three main problems will remain. These are that
\nthe militias have an escape hatch in the western half of Timor,
\nthat about 150,000 refugees are stranded with them there, and
\nthat all atrocities must be investigated and their perpetrators
\njudged.<\/p>\n
Thus we are back in Indonesia, without which the problems
\ncannot be solved. Until about a week ago (Sept. 23 and Sept. 24),
\nthe situation looked grim indeed. The military was fanning the
\nflames of extreme nationalism, and it had pushed through a law
\nenabling a constitutional coup d'etat should it and the President
\ntake the view that people are protesting too much and threatening
\nnational stability.<\/p>\n
In the long run, it would have been easier for the military to
\npreserve its power -- either by entering into a conservative
\nalliance with Megawati Soekarnoputri (the strongest presidential
\ncandidate), or by "saving the nation" from protests against
\nHabibie (should he be able to buy himself enough votes enough to
\nwin the presidency).<\/p>\n
So the line in diplomatic and business quarters (and among
\nscholars nourished by them) was that now was not the time to push
\ntoo hard, for everything might then lead to rack and ruin.<\/p>\n
Fortunately however, the students intervened instead.
\nCollectively they should get the peace prize! Yet again it was
\nthey, who along with a few reformist politicians, came to the
\nsuccor of Indonesia's dawning democracy.<\/p>\n
And they did so by using the only method that really bites:
\nresolute popular actions. The military and its allies retired.
\nThe respite is but a temporary one of course. But this is the way
\nit has to go.<\/p>\n
For the powerful in Indonesia, real political democracy is as
\ndangerous as the loss of ownership prerogatives. So compromises
\nare more difficult than in Spain, Chile or South Africa. And
\naccordingly, heavy-duty pressure is needed. It would be a good
\nthing if the "international community" were finally to learn
\nthis.<\/p>\n
For this is not the first time. In the final analysis it was
\nnot the economic crisis and negotiations that persuaded the elite
\nto dump Soeharto, but rather -- in the absence of a strong
\ndemocracy movement -- student demonstrations and riots.<\/p>\n
Subsequently, the democracy movement was ignored again and the
\nstudents abandoned. No transitional government was set up and no
\nretreat by the military was undertaken. Finally, the kind of
\nelections that the West went on to support helped to create the
\npolitical vacuum and space for the military that paved the way
\nfor the human catastrophe in East Timor and the renewed attacks
\non democracy in Indonesia.<\/p>\n
Basic problems -- such as protests in the provinces -- could
\nstill not find an outlet in the open political system (in which
\nlocal parties are not even allowed). So such problems were
\nconsigned to the military and to the parliament of the street.<\/p>\n
And while the democracy movement was marginalized in the
\nprocess of liberal electoralism, the military and the old
\nconglomerates were granted continued political representation.<\/p>\n
The elected politicians became dependent on the unelected 34
\npercent of the delegates, who are now to select a new president.<\/p>\n
The worst thing is that the violence was committed by the
\nmilitary or supported by it. East Timor has taught the entire
\nworld how it works.<\/p>\n
Violence became established state policy in the massacres of
\n1965 and 1966. The military and the militias acted the same way
\nthen as now. Conflicts and antagonisms are consciously
\nexacerbated.<\/p>\n
People become so afraid -- both of the military and of each
\nother (including those people who have reasons to take vengeance)
\n-- that the military has been able to make itself seem
\nindispensable, by virtue of its "protection against instability".
\nIn East Timor however, the military lost control.<\/p>\n
Indonesia calls to mind Germany just after World War II and
\nthe Holocaust, and still more so to South Africa before it
\nsettled its accounts with apartheid.<\/p>\n
The truth cannot be repressed if reconciliation and a
\nreasonably functioning democracy is to be made possible. But no
\nNelson Mandela is in sight, nor any ANC.<\/p>\n
So now, when the democracy movement must be able to recreate
\nthat part of Sukarno's and Mohammad Hatta's national project
\nwhich built on equality and freedom -- as opposed to autocracy
\nplus xenophobia -- what is needed is extra encouragement for such
\na renewed and refined project.<\/p>\n
What is not needed is a mixture of unilateral interventions
\nand concessions to the rulers, in combination with a blind
\naversion to all kinds of nationalism.<\/p>\n
The writer is a professor of Political Science and Development
\nResearch at the University of Oslo. The above comment was first
\npublished in the Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet on Sept. 28 and
\nthe Norwegian Ny Tid on Oct. 1.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/students-deserve-peace-prize-1447893297",
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