East Timor status

The year was 1978, the time 1 p.m., the location, Parliament House, Canberra. The then Australian prime minister, Malcolm Fraser, had just told me his government would recognize Indonesia's presence in East Timor from de facto to de jure status after bilateral talks between Indonesia and Australia on the seabed boundaries between Timor and Australia had been resumed.

My lovely escort from the Australian foreign office could not fight off her sleepiness and had long gone so that I was left alone to file my report.

Bilateral relations had cooled down, causing a diplomatic impasse at that time when Indonesian ambassador Nur Mathias and Malcolm Fraser both refused to touch the sensitive issue.

As a reporter, I was delighted to break the ice and thus also contribute to news dissemination of regional, if not international, significance worthy of appearing in the Straits Times and quoted by the Australian Associated Press (AAP).

The following morning I also had an opportunity to interview the then head of the opposition, Bill Hayden who later became Australia's governor general. I asked him if Australia felt Indonesia was a threat to Australia's security.

Now more than 20 years later, I have in front of me a big political chessboard on East Timor which contains so many complicated possibilities that would surely make Utut, Anand or Karpov happy for finding the right move.

But in politics, of course, everything is different when dishonesty may lead to the best solution. What amazes me is that almost nobody has reminded us of the fact that the origin of the East Timor crisis, as with any other major national issues, lies with the ousted head of state for allowing the sending of Indonesian troops at that time.

Only one should bear in mind the cold war atmosphere was then still raging and there was fear among western powers that the territory, left vacant by the Portuguese administration, would invite a big power from the north to infiltrate and be assisted by leftist elements in Indonesia.

Strategic, rather than human rights, considerations were apparently the deciding factor for the invasion.

With shock, I notice that the Portuguese left only two pawns for hard thinking and hard working Ali Alatas to play with, to submit the case to the new People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) after the general election (which is a bad move) or to cut relations altogether, hoping for a stalemate.

Habibie himself, after thorough analysis, shrugged his shoulders and signified he did not mind giving up, but then again his chances for reelection may vanish. Political parties with a huge number of supporters in the territory are against independent status for the barren former colony.

The White Rooks and double Bishops are isolated and only the Queen (Armed Forces) can still roam around freely.

What they all seem to have overlooked is the fact that the referee comes from Brooklyn and that the game is played in New York, not in Surakarta!

I have a strong hunch that the saber -- rattling, as it were -- will end up in a UN supervised referendum, something not welcomed by East Timor strategist Alatas. I only hope that history writers will not liken the episode to the Anschlus of Austria by the Germans, Mongolia by the Japanese and the Black Sea states by Stalin.

I believe that after the end of the forceful honeymoon and the territory struggling as an independent state, it will rejoin Indonesia under a mutually beneficial cooperation scheme.

GANDHI SUKARDI

Jakarta