Essential reading for the military

Essential reading for the military

From the Place of the Dead, Bishop Belo and the Struggle for East
Timor; by Arnold S. Kohen; Published by Lion Publishing, Oxford,
England, 1999; 398 pages

JAKARTA (JP): Carlos Filipe Ximenes may have remained totally
unknown to the world but for a surprise decision by Pope John
Paul to elevate him as a young man to his current position as
Bishop of Dili. It may well prove to be one of the best decisions
of this long papacy.

Reading this inspiring biography of Bishop Belo -- the name
Belo is an additional one given to honor him as a grandfather --
it is tempting to say this most famous son of a small and tragic
nation will count among the great individuals of the passing
century. Too modest himself to say so, Bello deserves to be
remembered with Fridtj of Nansen, Nelson Mandela, Helen Keller
and others who have risen above the mire of an era marked by the
gravest of excesses.

From The Palace of The Dead should be compulsory reading in
Indonesian Military (TNI) barracks, but, of course it won't be.
It would be too much to ask that retired military officers whose
names occur equally as often in Arnold Kohen's highly readable
account might read it and "look in to the dark circle of their
crimes". Leonardus Benny Murdani: "we will crush them"; Try
Sutrisno: "delinquents, we will shoot them "; and Prabowo
Subianto, whose specter, some believe hung over East Timor in the
violence of 1999, would benefit from reading about the life of a
man who knows the meaning of personal integrity. But they won't
and it is left to others to unearth the crimes committed under
their jurisdiction and that of others; crimes which a brave and
often lonely bishop has repeatedly exposed and denounced.

Belo of course, has often himself been a target both of death
threats and attempts on his life. Kohen describes how one day "a
jittery woman" delivered a cake to his residence. The cake was
given to a dog, which died painfully.

All manner of means of intimidation, including a ludicrously
inept surveillance operation on the bishop in Dublin, Ireland by
two intelligent agents posing as insurance agents, were applied
by the Indonesian Military. The Soeharto regime had Bishop Belo
in its sights from very early in his tenure, manipulating even
some of the East Timorese priesthood and applying pressure on the
Vatican.

But Belo refused to bow even to the pressure that came from
within the Vatican bureaucracy, where some officials of that
notoriously secretive and possessive institution were bitterly
opposed to him. One bureaucrat sarcastically asked him after he
won the Nobel Peace Prize if he would bend the knee to the East
Timorese, and one wonders if there was not perhaps some racism at
play here.

As Kohen makes plain, Bishop Belo endured pressure from all
sides. He was often criticized by the proindependence faction,
especially the youth, for not appearing to stand up to the
occupation forces. But Belo is nothing if not prudent and saw no
point in throwing his people, who had already suffered so much,
onto the guns of a trigger-happy military, all too ready to kill.
After the Santa Cruz massacre -- let's dispense with the
Orwellian word "incident" -- Belo, who had not been informed of
the protest march that ABRI, the Indonesian Armed Forces -- now
called TNI, so mercilessly attacked, redoubled his efforts to
persuade the youth not to take futile risks.

If L. Benny Murdani, a Catholic himself, does not have pangs
of conscience for crimes against humanity committed in East
Timor, and the sinister Prabowo, one-time head of Kopassus, the
Army's Special Force that stalk through these pages, likewise,
perhaps a few more reasonable figures in Abdurrahman Wahid's new
Cabinet might find the time to read it. Then they would
understand the urgent need to press charges against one or more
of those responsible for the great stain on Indonesia's honor
that East Timor is.

-- David Jardine