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