Reconciling East Timor

Reconciling East Timor

All too frequently this nation has refused to come to terms with
its past. The circumstances surrounding historical events remain
blurred, the rhetoric that exalts heroes and condemns villains
left untested.

Our past, scripted for political interest rather than
historical purity, is a collection of slanted half-truths colored
by emotive perceptions. Still unaltered, our children's history
books contain little more than the vain conceits of the
powerholders who commissioned them.

Possessed by fear and suspicion, with agitated minds and
alarmed eyes, instead of coming to terms with the truth, and our
conduct, we desperately invent plans to avoid the inevitable.

Five years after mass violence swept the former province of
East Timor, Indonesia has not laid the ghosts it conjured up
there to rest.

As regards the disturbances in East Timor that claimed
thousands of lives in 1999, Indonesia was the protagonist, a
victim of circumstance or just plain negligent, depending on your
perspective. Whatever the case, the truth -- good or bad -- has
never been revealed.

The Ad Hoc Human Rights Tribunal that tried 18 defendants has
failed to satisfy many here, and infuriated most people abroad.
The tribunal only convicted six of the defendants, of which five
were eventually acquitted on appeal. Only civilian militia leader
Eurico Guterres is currently serving time behind bars -- albeit
after a higher court reduced his sentence from 10 to five years.

Against this background, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's
decision to appoint a commission of experts to review the
prosecution of human rights violations in East Timor is
understandable. Annan has selected India's Prafullachandra
Bhagwati, Fiji's Shaista Shameem and Japan's Yozo Yokota to
assess the judicial proceedings and present recommendations for
future action.

Despite Jakarta's protestations to the contrary, Indonesia's
home-grown legal process has abjectly failed to inspire
confidence that it is willing to assume responsibility for the
death and destruction that befell the East Timorese.

With the prospect of such a commission on the horizon,
Indonesia late last year hastily prodded East Timor to jointly
establish a Commission on Truth and Friendship.

We agree with senior Indonesian officials who argue that the
UN should respect the countries' own efforts. Nevertheless, given
Indonesia's record so far it may well be a case of defending the
indefensible.

The onus is thus on the Indonesian-East Timor commission to
work expeditiously towards a truly judicious outcome. Even if the
establishment of the commission has been contrived to thwart the
setting-up of a UN team, it must not be employed as a broom
designed solely for sweeping everything under the carpet.

Experience in other countries has shown that sometimes, albeit
very rarely, justice can be served without prosecution. But the
required prerequisite is that the truth -- an admission of guilt,
a detailing of the modus operandi and the exposure of intent --
must come out in full. Concessions made by victims through the
waiving of their rights to see justice being done in the criminal
courts is also a key element.

Furthermore, it is imperative that Indonesia does not be seen
as a bully on the joint commission. Despite being two sovereign
nations, real politik defines the relationship between Indonesia
and East Timor as an unequal one. We are a country of 220
million, a country so vast that it extends the width of the
American continent. Compare that to East Timor, which is about
the same size as a Jakarta municipality.

The styling of the body as a "truth and friendship commission"
will only be apt if it proves itself able to elaborate on what
really happened, and not simply serve as a body to make friends
and hide the truth.

According to officials, the term "friendship" was chosen
because, unlike in the circumstances under which other similarly
named commissions were established, Indonesia and East Timor have
gone beyond reconciliation and are now focusing on strengthening
friendship.

But the real question is whether Indonesia can come to terms
with its own history, or whether it will once again turn history
into fiction.