East Timor: Vote now, get ready to die later?

By Gwynne Dyer

LONDON (JP): It worked for Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in 1991; it seems to be working for East Timor now; and it could even work for Tibet in the future. When an imperial power finally democratizes, there is a brief period when conquered countries may be able to break away without a war. But the window of opportunity doesn't stay open long, and sometimes countries get caught halfway through, with horrible results: look at Chechnya.

This month is East Timor's chance. The former Portuguese colony, which was invaded by Indonesia just after it got its freedom from Lisbon in 1975, votes on Aug. 30 in a referendum that should restore its lost independence. A United Nations mission is monitoring the poll, and the great majority of East Timor's 800,000 people will vote to leave Indonesia -- but that's just the start of the ride, and it may be a wild one.

The East Timorese will vote to leave because around a third of the population has been killed by bullets, bombs or starvation since 1975 as the Indonesian army tried to eradicate the pro- independence guerrillas and terrorize the civilians into submission. It is not the referendum that is in doubt; it is the aftermath.

The referendum marks the end of what the UN calls 'Phase I'. This is the period that began last January when Indonesian President B.J. Habibie said East Timor could leave if it wanted, and then agreed to UN supervision of a vote in which its people could accept or reject a package offering broad autonomy within Indonesia. If they said no to autonomy, Jakarta would take that as a vote for independence and act accordingly.

That convoluted formula at first seemed to be a harmless face- saving device by which Indonesia avoided an explicit vote by the East Timorese to break their ties with Indonesia. After all, Habibie has already set the date on which the Indonesian parliament will meet to grant East Timor's independence if the vote goes against Jakarta.

That date is Nov. 8, and immediately afterwards 'Phase III' kicks in, with 10,000 UN troops coming in to supervise the evacuation of Indonesian troops and the creation of an elected East Timorese government. The problem is that in between lies 'Phase II': two months of limbo when no foreign troops will be present, and the Indonesian army can do its worst.

The civilian government in Jakarta has reconciled itself to letting East Timor go, but the Indonesian army is entirely another matter. During the dictator Soeharto's long rule, it brought much of Indonesia's wealth and political power under its own control. It is not eager to surrender all that to the new democracy.

The Indonesian army has a well-tried strategy for making itself seem indispensable to the state: it stirs up violence in outlying provinces of Indonesia, and then presents itself as the only force that can bring peace and stability. That is why we are now seeing a wave of ethnic and religious killings in Ambon and Borneo, and a resurgence of the separatist revolt in Aceh.

The army stands aside and lets the violence get out of hand, or even deliberately uses agents provocateurs to feed the flames. Then, according to the army's script, a desperate government makes a deal that preserves the soldiers' privileges in return for a restoration of order, or else democracy itself is discredited by the rising tide of violence.

This is precisely the strategy we have seen in East Timor this year. Suddenly, dozens of 'pro-integration' militias sprang up and began attacking anyone who dared to speak openly of independence (a role previously reserved to the army itself). Hundreds have been killed, and almost 10 percent of the province's population have been driven from their homes.

The Indonesian army then warns of all-out civil war if East Timor votes for independence -- but of course it's the army itself that creates, arms and pays these militias, and then arranges to be elsewhere when they go on a rampage.

The UN observers on the ground, the U.S. State Department, Amnesty International, and every other independent source confirm that this is happening. Two weeks ago former U.S. president Jimmy Carter said flatly that "the Indonesian military and other government agencies are supporting, directing and arming pro- integration militias to create a climate of fear and intimidation."

The army hasn't managed to stop the vote from going ahead (though UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan had to postpone it twice because of the violence). It certainly won't stop most East Timorese from choosing independence. But it still has one card up its sleeve: to pull out all its troops out of East Timor immediately after a pro-independence vote next week, leaving the heavily armed pro-integration militias to try to seize power before UN troops arrive in November.

The pro-independence guerrillas, who have largely kept this year's ceasefire, would come down from the hills to resist this attack on the referendum result -- and the Indonesian army, alleging 'civil war', would then wade back in with its armored brigades and re-impose military control over the whole territory.

It may happen -- but after 24 years of non-stop killing, the vast majority of it by the Indonesian army, what have the East Timorese got to lose by trying? "The important thing is what you do with a window of opportunity," said Jamsheed Marker, UN special envoy for East Timor, when he visited the territory last July just after Soeharto's fall. "You have to jump through it."