Ramos-Horta speaks on East Timor independence ballot

Ramos-Horta speaks on East Timor independence ballot

By Aboeprijadi Santoso

In an exclusive interview with The Jakarta Post, the co-winner
of the 1996 Noble Peace Prize,Jose Ramos-Horta, reiterates his
support for the New York agreement on a United-Nations-supervised
ballot. However, he reserves strong criticism for the planned
security arrangements, which will be the responsibility of
Indonesia.

AMSTERDAM, the Netherlands (JP): In an attempt to clarify the
position of East Timorese resistance to the New York agreement,
Special Representative of the National Council for Timorese
Resistance (CNRT) Jose Manuel Ramos-Horta, has accused the
Indonesian Military (TNI) of supporting the prointegration
militias. However, he praised President B.J. Habibie for paving
the way toward independence in the province.

"President Habibie is doing his very best, within enormous
constraints and difficulties. I respect him. Like former French
president Charles de Gaulle, Habibie has the courage to want to
get out of 'Indonesia's Algerian war'," Ramos-Horta told The
Jakarta Post in The Hague recently.

The interview was given only a few days before Minister of
Information Mohammad Yunus suggested that proindependence
Timorese exiled leaders could meet with Xanana Gusmao and with
the prointegration camp in Jakarta.

Question: Are you planning to go home for the Aug. 8 vote?

Ramos-Horta: I wouldn't go just for the vote. One clause of
the (unpublished) memorandum (from the UN secretary-general on
May 5) is for complete freedom to campaign for everyone
concerned. That means CNRT leaders abroad or inside the country
should be able to campaign freely. It is seizing on that
memorandum that I intend to request the UN to offer me the
guarantee and facilities to go to East Timor. Obviously this
applies also to Xanana Gusmao. It will be a demonstration of bad
faith if Jakarta releases him only after the Aug. 8 ballot.

Q: The Indonesian government seems serious about giving an
opportunity to the East Timorese to decide on their future. You
have the New York Agreement and Minister of Foreign Affairs Ali
Alatas met with both camps in Bali. Do you trust the efforts?

A: Everyone knows, the Irish Foreign Minister knows with his own
eyes, the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the Australian
Ambassador and the Americans know, they all know how the
Indonesian Army has actively promoted violence in East Timor.
Indonesia has an illegal occupation army in East Timor. It is a
bit like asking Saddam Hussein to meet with all Kurdish factions,
or to trust Milosevic to meet with the Kosovars. (Gen.) Wiranto
went to Dili a few weeks ago with the two bishops, with some CNRT
people, and signed a so-called cease-fire. And what happened? On
the same day, the same people whom they gave weapons to continued
the killings till today.

Q: But Indonesia has a lot at stake to be trusted by the
international community. The country is in transition. It is
changing a lot. President Habibie's adviser Dr Dewi Fortuna Anwar
said that if the referendum fails because of insecurity,
Indonesia could become a Myanmar or Serbia.

A: Yes, you have President Habibie, Dr. Dewi Fortuna Anwar and
maybe Minister of Justice Muladi and many others. They are
reform-minded people, people with a sense of dignity of what
Indonesia should be as a respected member of the international
community. But the Army is still there. They are the ones who are
defying and challenging their own President and the foreign
minister who made a commitment to honor the agreement in New
York. As long as we have to depend on the Indonesian Army for
peace and security in East Timor, it will be like depending on
Saddam Hussein to guarantee peace and security in Iraq. That's
the tragedy of Indonesia. Yes, there are extraordinary courageous
people on the civilian side, in the media, in student (groups),
in the academy. But Indonesia will go through a very tragic fate,
as Dewi Anwar said, maybe like Myanmar or Serbia, if the Army
continues to operate with total impunity.

Q: So if you go to East Timor, would you meet with President
Habibie in Jakarta?

A: Of course, I respect President Habibie. He is doing the very
best within enormous constraints and difficulties; I respect him
and his advisers for that. So obviously I would be pleased and
honored to see him.

Q: What would you say to him?

A: I would thank him for having had the statesmanship to make the
policy changes. President Habibie reminds me of Charles de
Gaulle, the former French president, because de Gaulle is a great
French patriot who told France to get out of the Algerian war. De
Gaulle was a great statesman because he knew the best interests
of France. The dignity and honor of France was not to continue
the colonial war in Algeria. And Habibie is doing the same. Why
should Indonesia stay on in East Timor? What is at stake? The
national interest of Indonesia! So, I say, there is a similarity
to De Gaulle in Habibie's courage to want to get out of
'Indonesia's Algerian war'.

Q: But France at that time, unlike Indonesia now, was not in
transition. And President Habibie considers Gen. Wiranto a
reformist...

A: Well if Wiranto is a reformist, I would say Habibie must be a
Jeffersonian democrat. If so, Milosevic must also be a reformist,
and Saddam Hussein must be the most liberal politician in the
world.

Q: The current issues are still the disarmament of militias and
other groups carrying weapons. But the New York agreement does
not indicate any mechanism for disarmament. UN Secretary-General
Kofi Annan only asked Indonesia to control and discipline, not
disarm, the militias. So this is still a big problem, isn't it?

A: Of course, if violence continues, there will be no vote, and
everyone knows whose responsibility (that would be), because
Indonesia said they are the ones to supervise the security. They
insisted on it, and it is in the agreement. Can the Indonesian
Army truly play an independent and neutral role and provide the
security, or not? If they cannot, then let the UN Security
Council meet to send an armed peacekeeping force to East Timor.
As Ali Alatas said recently, if the Indonesian Army is not
capable of disarming the militias, pressure is going to mount
from Portugal, the European Union, the Americans, and by us
(CNRT) for a UN Security Council mandate for a UN peacekeeping
force.

Q: So, would you consider Alatas also a reformist like Habibie?

A: Well, I would say that Ali Alatas was a very loyal supporter
of Soeharto for many years, he is a loyal supporter of Habibie
maybe, I don't know what I would consider Alatas at the moment.

Q: You really don't know?

A: I don't know... If at this stage the Minister of Foreign
Affairs Ali Alatas realizes it's time for him to gain some
credibility before he retires, if he has the courage to speak
out, yes, he would go down in history as a man of courage and
honor. But, he has to make a break with those who are ruining the
name of Indonesia, and that is the Indonesian Army.

Q: What if in the next few years Alatas will be mentioned again
as a candidate for secretary-general at the UN. Would you support
him?

A: In three to five years, who knows, I myself might also be a
candidate for secretary-general of the UN, so I certainly could
not support Alatas.

Q: You would obviously advise the East Timorese to reject the
autonomy proposal, but what reasons are you going to give them?

A: Knowing how the Indonesian economy is, with millions of
Indonesians unable to go to school and US$160 billion in external
debt, do you think the East Timorese will see any material
incentive to join Indonesia? We don't even have to talk about
invasion, occupation, the two hundred thousand people killed, the
raping of women, the continuing torture, even if we look from the
pragmatic point of view, who would want to join Indonesia? What
is the material incentive?

Anyone who votes for autonomy has to take full responsibility
for the future. Because once the issue is off the UN agenda, it
will be far more difficult for economic justice, political
justice and social justice to be implemented in East Timor. Those
who vote as such are condemning East Timor into a situation of no
more opportunities for the future.

But, at the same time I'll be campaigning for nonviolence. I
do not agree with many things that many elements in the
resistance have done as well.

Many people in Dili use the name of the resistance. I don't
know whether they are the resistance or not, but one day they
will have to explain. I will also ask the UN to investigate what
the role of the resistance in Dili has been in the last few
months, of provoking people, insulting people, of taking away or
extorting money. I said, even before Soeharto fell, that I don't
want to see one single Indonesian migrant abused.

Q: There are now about 26,000 Indonesian migrants in West Timor.
The Indonesian government said they are there because of threats
from the resistance groups, months before the pro-Jakarta
militia's came (on the scene)...

A: No, no, the leaders of the resistance have been very clear.
The Falintil (guerrillas) never once attacked an Indonesian
migrant. What happened was essentially things by young people in
Dili, who were angry with what has happened for 23 years and
seized the opportunity. It is still wrong. Indonesian migrants
who decide to stay in East Timor in the future must be respected
and protected.