Keep E. Timor out of local politics

Keep E. Timor out of local politics

By Onghokham

JAKARTA (JP): On the occasion of Bishop Carlos Felipe Ximenes
Belo receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, for which we heartily
congratulate him, some thoughts on East Timor are called for.

The Portuguese have been in East Timor for a very long time.
Although their first arrival and settlement has been forgotten,
in l520, more than 70 years before the Dutch arrived in the
Indonesian archipelago, it appears they had built some fortresses
on the island.

Some time after l640, when Portugal "regained" its
independence from Spain by rejecting its union with that country
through the establishment of its own royal house, the Dutch
recognized the Portuguese settlement in East Timor. A treaty with
the king of Kupang (West Timor) allowed the Dutch to build a
fortress on that side of the island.

For centuries, the two sides lived more or less in peace,
although the final boundaries between Dutch West Timor and
Portuguese East Timor were not demarcated by treaty until l908
through the arbitration of a Swiss diplomat, except during the
outbreak of the Pacific War (l941-1945), when a Dutch-Australian
army occupied Portuguese Timor in order to prevent the Japanese
from taking it over. The Japanese eventually occupied it though,
as they did with almost the entire archipelago.

After the war, East Timor was returned to Portugal.
For centuries, Dutch West Timor and Portuguese East Timor could
coexist peacefully and were not in any way disturbing each other
because the island of Timor was not on the main trading routes
and was relatively poor. Probably only pure historical accidents
led to the early settlements by European powers. For a brief
period, the island might have been a place of contention among
the two great European powers, because Holland as well as
Portugal could be called great powers during the l6th and l7th
centuries.

However, Portuguese Timor might have lived in peace were it
not for the fact that it was situated in what became a Dutch
archipelago and a Dutch sea, presently known as the Indonesian
Ocean. In other words, it was isolated for centuries. Meanwhile,
Portugal itself declined following its heyday in the l6th
century, having become the first European empire in the East and
a pioneer in colonialism, a source of its national pride until
today.

Portugal, one should remember, has always been considered as
an underdeveloped country. It was poor, meaning there was almost
no government representation in its colonies, especially those
colonies which did not produce anything. Although the writer has
no statistics on the number of colonial officials in East Timor,
one might suppose that it was very small.

The church and missionaries, instead of the metropolitan
authorities, might have run the island, just as Spain did in the
Philippines. Compare this with the rich Netherlands, which had
two or three times more Dutch (European) civil servants to run
their empire than the British in India. The Dutch were
suffocating the Indonesians with their concerns, as many foreign
observers (such as Furnivall, Bousquet and Amry Vandenbosch)
remarked.

It has been said that many post-colonial states have often
adopted the ways -- in an even more extreme fashion -- of their
former colonial powers. In other words, Indonesia might be
considered as behaving as the Dutch did in the colonial period,
when they played the role of "nursing maid" in even more extreme
ways.

Perhaps in most parts of the archipelago, people might prefer
less government. Nowhere is this need for less government
perhaps more felt than in East Timor. East Timor was practically
autonomous because of the sorry state of its colonial power.
Though this power was weak and could easily be overthrown, the
people of East Timor did not feel the need to do anything about
it because it was almost non-existent. A nurse's role is of
course always well-meant and if rejected, the consequences can be
very painful.

However, colonial nurses must face realities.

Even aid, financial subsidies and all other physical
improvements could be viewed as objectionable, although well-
intentioned. For example, American aid during the Cold War era
often had this effect.

Moreover, East Timorese society is poor and the region perhaps
a bit arid, which are sources of depression and frustration to
government officials, police, Army members and others who are
sent there from other parts of Indonesia.

Even in Jakarta, Java and other areas of the archipelago,
there have been reports of excesses by the government apparatus.
Recently, a young man was thrown into the Kali Malang River in
Central Jakarta when the government apparatus raided stalls along
the river. The man could not swim and later died. Human rights
bodies are now busy investigating the case. There are many such
instances in Jakarta, Java and elsewhere, and not only in East
Timor.

If events like these happen in East Timor, they become
political, because the whole world is watching them. In Jakarta
and other parts of Indonesia, they become the concern of human
rights bodies, students and others. In East Timor, however, they
are politically sensitive. Clearly, if Indonesia wants to win its
case in East Timor, there should be an extraordinary high degree
of discipline among its government apparatus. Human rights abuses
in Indonesia are of a local or at most national scale. But those
same events in East Timor are of a global scale. Ironically, it
was the Indonesian government which put East Timor on the map.

How sensitive people can be about colonial officials'
attitudes toward and treatment of the people, Indonesians can
testify. Remember that until today, the Dutch colonial posture of
arms akimbo (while giving orders), is until now considered by
society as very rude. The other thing is touching one's head or
hair, which might have been thought of as the most patronizing
gesture. Those arrogant attitudes of colonial officials created a
nationalist anticolonial movement once.

Until now, officials' arrogance has only created problems in
East Timor. However, with a rising middle class in many regions
of Indonesia, attitudes of officials might create tensions. It is
not possible to have a well-educated and well-to-do society with
a government apparatus still behaving as if it was l965 or l966.

As mentioned above, Indonesia brought East Timor into the
globalization process. Indonesia "freed" it from its centuries-
old isolation of being a Portuguese enclave in a Dutch sea and
later Indonesian ocean. All the problems of a sudden overwhelming
governing apparatus with rules and regulations in schools and
standardization of everything, in a place where there were no
rules before, aggravated the situation in East Timor.

We, Indonesians must realize from our own historical
experience how painful a process internationalization can be.
Think of the terrible events of Dutch colonial history. It is
even more painful if it comes suddenly and with all the modern
technology of the 20th century, rather than that of the l8th and
l9th centuries.

On the other hand, the results of this internationalization
for East Timor has been sensational. The two Nobel Peace Prize
recipients speak for themselves. The award, on an international
level, is indeed highly esteemed, yet painful. But it might also
be rewarding and prideful.

This was similarly the case with Indonesia's struggle for
independence, which had perhaps caused more loss of lives and
suffering than during the entire length of the colonial period,
especially since it was contemporary and still fresh in our
memories.

We must remember that Asia's modern history has often been
very brutal. True imperialist powers were partly to blame in
every circumstance: the opium war, Armritsal, the so-called
police actions and others. Nevertheless, determining the origin
of this brutality and who is to blame solves very little in life.
In making judgments, one should keep historical perspectives in
mind. Until now, the problem of East Timor has only been
discussed as an international problem. However, in the end, it
has a national impact on us and perhaps largely through our own
doing.

First of all, the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize this year
has internationalized Indonesia's own human rights problems,
which fill newspapers and keep human rights bodies busy these
days. Perhaps even less than East Timor itself.

Indonesian society and government has been less prepared to
enter globalization in this field. Its reactions were very sharp
as we know from the protest against Bishop Belo.

This national impact is even more alarming. It did not come
suddenly. It started with the November 1994 incident when Bugis,
an ethnic group from South Sulawesi, and other migrants were
driven out of East Timor following the stabbing of an East
Timorese by a Buginese. It was a racial and religious riot
against the national majority on an island where they were a
minority. This in itself could be divisive. Worst still, the
controversy surrounding Bishop Belo was almost along religious
lines and seemingly allowed to develop as such. This is like
feeding a cancer on a relatively healthy body and swelling it
artificially.

East Timor should be kept away as much as possible from the
realm of national politics. It could really become a cancer
threatening us with disintegration and the sorrows which the U.S.
involvement in Vietnam brought on that nation or the Russian
involvement in Afghanistan.

We certainly would not like to endure the same divisiveness as
experienced by the two great superpowers just for a victory in
East Timor. The price could be too high. Both countries allowed
international affairs to deeply impact the national politics of
their respective societies.

The colonial history of any country has always shown that it
should never be a part of the national politics of the
metropolitan societies. Therefore, colonial expansion has always
been paid for by the people of the colonies and never by the
metropolitan power. However, one usually never learns from
history. If we did, then we all might be happier.

The writer is a historian based in Jakarta.