East and West in Timor borderline

NEW DELHI: Life in East Timor is an enduring catastrophe. Roughly 80,000 homes were destroyed in the violence unleashed by pro-Jakarta militias, backed by the Indonesian Army, last year, very few of which have been rebuilt.

Much of the infrastructure is gone and most of the population remains unemployed. The Timorese desperately need foreign assistance to help them rebuild their country.

Foreign investors, of course, are unenthusiastic because of the situation created by frequent cross-border raids. The United Nations refugee operations in that part of the island have been brought to a dead halt; the border is held precariously by the 7000 UN peacekeeping troops.

The problem is obviously with the Indonesian Army which doesn't seem interested in keeping its part of the deal. There has been no effort to disarm the militias or even to rein them in, without which their stranglehold on the refugees remaining in the camps in West Timor cannot be broken.

The fear of reprisal is undoubtedly being kept alive. The capital, Dili, is not far from the border and was a renegade stronghold before independence. Tensions also exist between the refugees that returned, loyalties suspect, and those who remained behind.

The installation of a universal franchise regime will go some way in alleviating these tensions, by giving a voice to all parties, but before that some kind of arrangement has to be reached with the militias. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has spoken to Abdurrahman Wahid at the millennium summit; the Indonesian President must have given his usual soporific assurances.

There is a question mark over how much influence Abdurrahman Wahid has over the Indonesian Army which he needs for all kinds of other paramilitary situations. East Timor will take some time to raise its own troops and even then may not be able to effectively counter the Indonesian Army's proxy aggression. The only answer, therefore, is international pressure on Jakarta. Plus some money for East Timor.

-- The Statesman, New Delhi