For the love of Indonesia

Several weeks before the Aug. 30 ballot in East Timor took place, the pro-Indonesia militias made it quite clear that they would rather die than be separated from their "beloved" Indonesia. The militias also promised that "fire and blood" would shower East Timor if the outcome of the ballot was not in their favor. And indeed, they kept their promise. Only two days after the UN announced the outcome of the vote for independence the pro-Indonesia militias gave the whole world a demonstration of their "overwhelming love" for Indonesia by turning East Timor into an inferno of horror.

In contradiction to their expressed love for Indonesia they did not even care that they were going to turn the red and white flag of their beloved country into a symbol of violence and terror. Since the Indonesian armed forces were -- for what ever reasons -- not able to control the militias, the government had no other choice than to invite a UN peacekeeping force to do the job.

Who are those militias? One can assume that most of them never had the privilege of enjoying an adequate education; most of them are unemployed and some of them are illiterate. One of their commanders, Mariano Goncalves, recently told the Straits Times of Singapore that "... many (of the militias) are bandits with little discipline". There are also reports that some of them have been seen drunk in the middle of the day. One can imagine how easily such people could be manipulated to fight a cruel and bloody war for a cause which most of them do not even understand.

Whoever those manipulators are, it is them who have to take the blame if Indonesia has been discredited in the eyes of the world. It is them who have to bear the responsibility that, for the first time since independence, foreign troops have landed on Indonesian soil and that Indonesia has to face an international inquiry for violations of human rights, both of which have been regarded as shameful by many Indonesians.

It is highly unfair if some politicians and parts of the general public are now blaming all this on Habibie, who has done nothing more than taking a brave and unavoidable decision which would have had to be taken anyway at a later stage. In my opinion, he is a man ahead of his time who unfortunately lacked the necessary political and public support for his rational policy on East Timor, which was guided by democratic principles.

MRS. HILDE MAY

Jakarta