East Timor status

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