East Timor: Waiting for Pandora's Box?

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.