One way for East Timor

One way for East Timor

The recent attempts by Indonesian President Bacharuddin
Habibie to offer what he considers a solution to the East Timor
question only serve to emphasize the intractability of the
problem. Of all the challenges facing his new presidency, this is
likely to prove among the hardest to deal with unless Indonesia
is prepared to give up its claim to the territory.

Although not rejected out of hand by the influential Nobel
laureate Bishop Carlos Belo, President Habibie's offer to grant
special status to the former Portuguese colony and withdraw
15,000 Indonesian troops stationed there comes nowhere near
satisfying the aspirations of the East Timorese.

After almost 24 years of occupation -- marked by massacres,
torture, extra judicial killings and disappearances'' -- the end
of the Soeharto regime has given new vigor to demands for self-
determination, and raised fresh hopes.

Not even the offer of early release for the jailed resistance
leader, Xanana Gusmao, jaw dampened calls for a referendum on the
future of the territory. Making Gusmao's freedom conditional on
the international community recognizing East Timor as an integral
and permanent part of Indonesia simply ensured that the move
would be rejected.

Since the United Nations has never recognized Indonesia's
claim to the territory, the issue will taint Jakarta's
international relationships until it comes up with a proposal the
Timorese can accept.

If, as Bishop Belo appeared to imply, special status could be
used as an interim measure, there might be reason to hope that
the offer could be accepted as an initial step to independence.
But that would require much more international and domestic
pressure on the government in Jakarta. Even if the government
proved ready to yield, it is doubtful if the military would
support the move.

The brutal crackdown by riot police on demonstrators earlier
this month showed that, beneath the surface, repression remains
the main means of stifling calls for self-determination. Only if
Gusmao is released unconditionally, together with all remaining
political prisoners, and President Habibie offers a new agenda on
reform, can there be any real prospect of progress.

In Indonesian terms, special status is largely symbolic. The
only fundamental way forward is for East Timor to be given the
right to decide its own destiny.

-- South China Morning Post, Hong Kong