East Timor, causes and consequences

East Timor, causes and consequences

During the Dutch colonial era, my history teacher in junior
high school once said that Indonesians have gentle characters,
but when they are oppressed intensely or for a prolonged period
they will run amok, indiscriminately attack everything or
everyone around them, often in a trance-like condition.

For years the government of Indonesia said that a ballot on
self-determination in East Timor, something that Ramos Horta had
incessantly proposed, would cause chaos and calamity. So it was a
big and unpleasant surprise for everyone when then president
Habibie, who perhaps had become upset at being lectured by the
Australian prime minister, made an announcement that there would
be a referendum in East Timor.

Foreign minister Ali Alatas, who had always opposed the idea
because of his fear of the potential consequences, had no other
choice but to follow the President's order. Or maybe he himself
had become tired of bearing the burden for so many years as a
foreign minister and had never been able to solve the crisis in
East Timor.

Peculiarities occurred during the preparation for the ballot
which was carried out by the UN body UNAMET. Both Habibie and
Alatas had always pledged that the ballot would be carried out in
a fair and honest manner. That was not how it turned out. The
fact has been pointed out by many people, among them Mr. Benjamin
Mangkudilaga, who without doubt is a person with high integrity,
and a foreigner who lived in Dili, who wrote a letter titled
UNAMET off the rails which appeared in Your Letters in The
Jakarta Post on Aug. 19, 1999.

I strongly believe that the ballot carried out by UN/Unamet
was engineered so the proindependence side would win. As a
consequence of a ballot that was won in an unfair and dishonest
manner, there was chaos. The prointegration group ran amok. The
non-Timorese who had lived there for years ran amok and burned
their own houses. Perhaps some of the Indonesian Military
personnel also ran amok, because for years they had been
terrorized by the proindependence groups and pressured by the
international community.

As an Indonesian, I sadly admit that what my history teacher
said back in the late 1930s is somewhat true and this phenomenon
still happens to this day. Look at all the examples recently of
people running amok in many parts of our country.

It is a sad fact that only the government officials (the civil
service, the police force and the military) have been blamed for
what happened in East Timor; B.J. Habibie, in his then capacity
of commander in chief, has been left untouched. It is also
disheartening to see that no effort has been made to lodge a
complaint to the UN about UNAMET chairman Ian Martin, who carried
out the ballot in an unfair and dishonest manner. The UN and
UNAMET made big mistakes in handling the case of East Timor.

The government should have the guts to unveil all the facts
now.

Habibie, the UN/UNAMET, particularly Ian Martin, are most of
all to blame for the chaos in East Timor. It is simply a law of
cause and consequences.

I hope that all institutions involved in East Timor can put
these facts and this opinion in perspective.

PRANOWO HADIWIDJOJO

Jakarta