E. Timorese issues raised at campus
JAKARTA (JP): Discussions and exhibitions on East Timor at the University of Indonesia on Friday raised student curiosity over official versions of the territory's integration.
Citing the fact that some dispute official versions of integration, a university law school student asked: "If integration was not imposed, why are there demands for a referendum?"
A speaker from the Solidarity Forum for East Timor People (Fortilos), Hilmar Farid, answered indirectly, saying that government-recognized prointegration groups now had less influence in the province.
Former Udayana commander Maj. Gen. (ret) Theo Syafei, who had been scheduled to address the forum, was unable to attend, organizers said.
The talks and exhibitions on Friday were the culmination of the university's East Timor Week, which began on Monday.
During the discussion on Friday, a history professor raised the fact that there was a growing appreciation of the diverse opinions on the province.
"It should be acknowledged that life in this early era of reform has ... opened corridors for each party to appreciate differences of opinion, including those regarding the history of East Timor," Susanto Zuhdi wrote in a paper, East Timor in Contemporary History Studies.
Last month in Dare, East Timor, talks mediated by the Catholic Church between local figures resulted in a declaration recognizing at least two aspirations held by the province's populace: a preference for the government's special autonomy status and demands for a referendum.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Ali Alatas separately met activists representing both preferences on Thursday.
Friday's talks discussed a 1991 book by John G. Taylor, Indonesia's Forgotten War: The Hidden History of East Timor, which was recently published by Fortilos in Indonesian.
Organizer Novi Siti Julaeha said students' attention to East Timor had only recently increased because of access to several new translations.
Novi, who runs the school's Internet magazine KQ Online, was also one of the speakers on Thursday on violence experienced by East Timor women. She referred to recent studies and other new translations on the subject.
East Timor Week was organized, among others, by the university's School of Social and Political Sciences student senate and included a dialog with East Timor student associations.
Students expressed shock, Novi said, on seeing photographs of violence in the province. "We have no intention of discrediting anybody," she said, adding that the week was held to disclose information which had never been raised in lectures.
A lecturer on international relations, Andi Widjajanto, told the forum that the military's approach to the province had been ineffective.
Citing a study in several countries on internal wars between 1945 and 1989, the son of a former officer in the province said that while government military operations seek victory, "guerrillas in a separatist war seek to survive and maintain their influence on international public opinion" regardless of their small numbers. (anr)