Old foes say cheese, but old scars remain

Old foes say cheese, but old scars remain

IT may not have quite the power of the image of Nelson Mandela
applauding his former jailer, F.W. de Klerk, when the two were
awarded the Nobel peace prize in 1993, but Monday's beaming photo
in The Australian of East Timorese President Xanana Gusmao and
Indonesian presidential candidate General Wiranto was a stunner.
As the leader of Fretilin during the Indonesian occupation, Mr
Gusmao spent more than six years in Indonesian jails and under
house arrest.

As the former commander of Indonesia's armed forces, General
Wiranto bears direct chain-of-command responsibility for the
bloody rampage in Dili that cost 1500 civilian lives after the
1999 independence referendum. While the photo is a powerful image
of reconciliation, it is also a symbol of the pragmatism of East
Timor's leadership. In a country where 41 per cent of the
population lives below the poverty line, there are more urgent
issues than settling old scores.

That does not mean there is any question of forgiving and
forgetting the slaughter, rape and robbery that Indonesian forces
carried out in 1999. The UN-funded Serious Crimes Unit has
indicted 369 people for those crimes, including General Wiranto
himself. But ever since the warrant for Wiranto was issued,
senior East Timorese officials, including Mr Gusmao and Foreign
Minister Jose Ramos Horta, have been playing down the possibility
it will be carried out.

Wiranto is the chosen candidate of Golkar, the old Soeharto
political machine, in the Indonesian presidential elections due
to begin in less than five weeks. The last thing East Timor, with
its population of less than a million, needs is to make a lasting
enemy of the 220-million-strong nation that sprawls to its east,
west and north. It is realism that dictates Mr Gusmao's smile,
even through gritted teeth.

-- The Australian, Sydney