East Timor policy causes havoc

By Bantarto Bandoro

JAKARTA (JP): Ever since the government announced in January that it would give East Timor either autonomy or independence, hardly a day has passed without people discussing the province.

But no one predicted that the announcement would create such havoc in the province. Neither does anyone really know the idea behind the government's policy, since it was issued at a time when the government was attempting to regain confidence amid the persistent economic crisis.

The situation in the territory, which was relatively calm before the announcement, quickly deteriorated into a new war between proindependence and prointegration groups.

Certainly, Indonesia should not leave the territory arbitrarily. It has a two-pronged responsibility to begin with. On an international level, it has to reach an agreement with Portugal. But the latest report reveals that despite progress, no significant deal has been reached. On a national level, the government faces two fronts, namely reducing violence in the territory and create a conducive climate at the negotiating table by sponsoring talks between the leaders of the warring groups.

The latter came into being when hostile East Timor factions signed a peace accord a week ago which is expected to halt the violence between the warring groups. The accord is seen as a beginning of renewed concerted efforts to put back on track the process to determine the future of East Timor. It can also be said that the peace accord and political settlement are not ends in themselves, but the beginning of a process. This would mean that a peace-building component needs to be included in the overall framework of the settlement, and the objective should be to prevent further conflict and the reemergence of instability.

The signing of a peace accord means that the warring factions should be committed to enforcing the accord throughout the territory. But perhaps their tasks go further than that. They should demonstrate the political will to lay foundations for reconciliation, restore stability and trust through a continued dialog process necessary to implementing the peace accord.

Peace is not static. It is a dynamic and fluid process that requires nurturing and support. Military commander Gen. Wiranto was perhaps right when he appealed to the warring factions to make known the peace accord to all supporters in villages, mountains and forests. On paper this may be possible, but on a practical level no one is sure that it can be easily achieved. The accord can successfully be disseminated and effectively implemented if only three conditions are met.

First, there should be an awareness that the idea of winning and losing has to be abandoned and replaced, and the idea of moving away from the present position has to be stressed. It means not to look back, not to let the past dictate or write the future, but to encourage and to speak about a common future.

In other words, as the accord lays ground for tension reduction, there is a need to start a process for the transformation of conflict in the course of which opposing interests become a problem to be solved jointly. Such a process could involve the adaption to a new condition including the adaption of new values. The warring parties should direct their efforts to achieve further common understanding.

Second, there is a need for awareness on the part of the warring parties that conflict is an integral part of human relations that does not have to be violent. Their awareness should reflect their wholehearted commitment to steadily move the conflict cycle they are facing away from violence and harness its more positive aspects in such a way as to benefit rather than harm society in the territory. This could be a (long-term) goal from which immediate benefits are not to be expected. The cessation of war among prointegration and proindependence groups is just the first step to a longer process toward the restoration of peace and stability in the territory. The warring factions must remember this and allow themselves to be discouraged.

Third, awareness on the part of the military to halt whatever support it renders to the prointegration faction and allow the warring groups to select and follow the best route to their destination and not to contaminate the process leading toward their desired direction. For the sake of an effective implementation of the East Timor accord, it is also important for the military not to exacerbate enmity between warring groups. One must remember that the military is part of the solution, because many believe it was and still is an active participant in the conflict.

The aforementioned perhaps reflects the hopes of those who really wish to witness the impartial and effective execution of the accord, including those of the signatories. Priorities must, of course, be given to a political and acceptable solution. The search for peace is political research conducted by diplomatic, not destructive, means. This demands laborious and tedious negotiation with all parties to the conflict. The signing of the peace accord is certainly welcome, and therefore it should also be endorsed by all important players.

The accord is sure to help lessen psychological pressure and tension among faction leaders. This is, of course, important and necessary but not quite sufficient to help eliminate enmity and create peace and stability on the ground level. For those on the battleground level, peace is not simply an absence of war. For them, perhaps peace can be sustained only if they keep the threat alive. This is exactly what is happening on the ground. Violence remains and continued to escalate even two days after the signing of the peace accord (The Jakarta Post, 23 April, 1999). Perhaps the warring parties are unaware that their leaders shook hands for the purpose of peace. The clashes indicate that the situation remains precarious and vulnerable. Whether peace prevails depends on the willingness of the warring parties to abide by the terms of the accord.

Familiarization of the accord among warring parties will be a difficult undertaking, since hatred and suspicion have been present for decades. To draw the warring parties to a stage where they can see and feel what peace really is will be even more difficult. Fighting, killing and violence have become part of their day-to-day activities for more than 10 years.

The signing of the peace accord is of course a positive sign. But one must remember that peace will not be preserved simply by their proclaimed love for it. It is perhaps not an exaggeration to say that for the warring groups, peace is the product of daily combat and ever-renewed vigilance. If one prescribes to such a believe then it would be extremely difficult for the parties to arrive at a compromise. There is little prospect that the peace accord will alter the attitude of those fighting on the ground and this also means that the accord will have limited success because it makes no reference to disarming the factions.

Conflict, tension and fighting in the territory will definitely continue in a mode short of total war despite the peace accord and progress in the negotiation brokered by the United Nations. But if there is to be a resolution, it appears it could result only from exhaustion after a lengthy test of endurance and arms.

The peace accord is understood to be meant as a process which will help the parties in the dispute confront the fact that in some sense their definition of the problem may need to be revised. The accord, however, does not explicitly say how the definition of their problem should be revised nor address the cause of conflict, and it merely appeals to the warring groups to support the peace efforts. Thus, the accord seems to provide only a settlement, not a resolution, that is an arrangement adopted by the parties to deal with the matter in dispute. It is the readiness to negotiate the matter.

In this approach, dispute settlement is the imposition of a resolution on conflicting parties by, for example, coercion or by other kinds of pressure. If the prointegration and proindependence groups' consciously or not prescribe to this kind of approach, then this would mean that the causes of the conflict were not being dealt with adequately. Therefore, a settlement, if ever reached, is likely to leave a lingering sense of grievances, with those on the ground feeling that the accord provides only an arrangement and not terms of resolution.

Of course they would like to have peace, and peace for the groups -- be they prointegration or proindependence -- continues to be a powerful wish and desire, a passion deeply felt and aspired for. But peace can also lead some to "action", even if this is in the form of "action against", which may result in further deterioration of stability in the territory. The situation on the ground reveals such a condition. Thus the East Timor peace accord will most likely fail to prevent the warring groups from taking action against each other.

Moreover, the implementation of the peace accord does not only create problems of political will; there is also the question of practical means. For example, the accord stipulates that all conflicting parties are obliged to take "necessary measures" to implement the peace accord involving both armed and unarmed supporters.

This obligation cannot be fulfilled because of the absence of assurances, on the ground level, that the warring groups will not attack each other once they show their goodwill by, for example, surrendering their arms. The imposition of the accord without any assurances will only bring insecurity instead of security to the territory.

One must acknowledged the fact that there is a lack of mutual trust and cooperation between warring groups, perhaps because the integration process in 1976 was created through war and violence, and therefore mutual trust and cooperation is unlikely to be achieved easily in the future, even when the decision on the future of the territory is fixed.

The 1999 East Timor peace accord is indeed a historic document and provides ground for new hope and conditions in the territory. But no one knows whether all East Timorese prescribe to the peace conveyed in the document.

If this is the case, the East Timor peace accord will definitely lead to no peace, and the question of what peace really means for the people of East Timor will remain unanswered, even after they have chosen one of the options offered by the government of Indonesia.

The writer is with Department of International Affairs, Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Jakarta