East Timor: Waiting for Pandora's Box?

By Aboeprijadi Santoso

YOGYAKARTA (JP): UN envoy Jamsheed Marker's recent visit indicates the seriousness of international concerns on post- ballot security in East Timor.

However, the East Timorese are no more prone to internal conflict than any other people. The society should rather be viewed as a Pandora's box, which time and again tends to open whenever an outside force meddles without regards to the inhabiting people.

After centuries of colonialism and ignorance, the former Portuguese colony seems to harbor forces that can mobilize and (re)energize its society whenever it processes a chance to acquire greater freedom.

The first opening of Pandora's box came when school teachers in Viqueque protested against the colonial education system in 1959. The uprising -- which might incidentally have been encouraged by Indonesian refugees in the aftermath of the Permesta rebellion -- was quickly crushed by the Portuguese army.

Of far greater significance was the second Pandora's box opening: the Anjer revolution in Portugal in 1974. As soon as some freedom was introduced in East Timor, political parties sprang up, with a few forces even grabbing power. The result is well known: civil war, invasion and decades of fighting and occupation.

But two fundamental aspects should be noticed. First, as John Taylor and others have shown, Fretilin, the most popular political party, was capable of mobilizing and energizing the people because they introduced the alphabet and land reform so as to gain greater leverage vis-a-vis other forces.

Second, this social movement could only be halted when a mighty military force brutally intervened in the development.

The significance of the 1975 "civil war" should therefore be seen against the background of foreign military intervention, which started a year earlier with a military campaign to destabilize the society.

As Col. Dading Kalbuadi, who led this military-intelligence operation, told the writer in 1995, the operation was inspired by the myth of Lawrence of Arabia's colonial adventure in the Middle East. A series of attacks to stimulate a local rebellion in the western districts against society's mainstream were carried out - that is against the kind of social life under Fretilin's rule.

The 1974-1975 aggression and invasion were fundamental because they started a totally different cycle of trouble.

Once East Timor was harshly put under Soeharto's New Order military, which came into full force in the seventies and eighties, the chances of a new Pandora box being opened, became very dim indeed.

Increasing suffering and political frustrations strengthened the Catholicism as a new powerful ideological force. Simultaneously, resistance grew as the first ever negotiated cease fire, agreed by Fretilin's commander Jose Alessandro "Key Rala Xanana" Gusmao and Col. Purwanto and implemented with the consent of then ABRI Commander Gen. M. Jusuf, failed when Gen. L. Benny Moerdani in 1983 took over the command and renewed the war.

However, thanks to the efforts of the new Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ali Alatas, the decade ended with the opening up of the territory.

The next Pandora's box opening, therefore, came with the Papal visit and new diplomacy. Bishop Carlos Belo's intercepted letter requesting a United Nations referendum, and the unrest, the flying chairs and the call for referendum at a mass meeting welcoming Pope John Paul-II in 1989 -- were clear signs of the rising popular resistance.

But it was not until two years later that Pandora's box was reopened resulting in bloody repression. A new initiative to gauge the opinion of the East Timorese by the Portuguese parliamentarians and the international press incited great expectations.

But the initiative failed, and hopes were dashed resulting in a strong public call for independence at the Santa Cruz cemetery on Nov. 12, 1991. It ended with massacres and the world witnessed the Timor Pandora's box being brutally shut up again. The impact was great.

In real terms, though, East Timor remains truly part and parcel of the Indonesian fabric of state and society. For as Indonesia changed resulting in the ousting of Soeharto, East Timor too gained a new momentum.

The fourth Pandora's box opening came as May 1998 saw a new student movement campaigning for transitional autonomy under the leadership of the East Timor Students and Youths Solidarity Council (DSMPTT).

At the same time the hitherto clandestine resistance came into the open and joined the new movement. As the pro-independence campaigns were widespread, hundreds pro-Indonesia residents, mostly teachers, fled.

However, the state's response, this time, was not a sudden action -- but no less violent. As President Habibie surprised the world with the two-option policy last January, it became obvious that some state elements had started to (re)activate armed militias that were staunchly pro-Indonesia.

To let East Timor be an independent neighbor would fully expose the army's past atrocities and do a great damage to its esprit de corps.

The answer, therefore, is -- alas -- violence with impunity. Will Pandora's box be closed again by a repetition of "1974- scenario" and in the presence of the UN?

Given this perspective, it seems logical there would be many concerns about the post-ballot situation. The Pandora's box dialectic and the issue of "the morning after (Aug. 30)" should remind us of the founding fathers of this republic.

Instead of drawing inspiration from a British colonial officer known as "Lawrence of Arabia", it would be truly wise to learn from one of our own guru bangsa (national teacher), Ki Hadjar Dewantara.

Had not Ki Hadjar in 1915 already warned state rulers and pressed them to respect small, different ethnic groups in state life in order to be able to stand tall with dignity? Ki Hadjar Dewantara wrote it passionately in Dutch in a pamphlet called Als ik eens een Nederlander was (If I, for a while, become a Dutchman) that warned the Dutch colonialists of the injustice they did to the Indonesians.

Incidentally, sometime in the 1980s, an anonymous East Timorese student, ironically not knowing anything of Ki Hadjar, wrote an unpublished pamphlet with a similar title: Andaikata Saya Orang Indonesia (If I were an Indonesian). Like Ki Hadjar, he too raised his voice against "colonialism".

The UN direct ballot will hopefully end the tragic Pandora's box cycle with the kind of spirit and justice demanded by Ki Hadjar Dewantara and many others.

The writer is an Indonesian journalist based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.