Special autonomy for E. Timor
By Johannes Nugroho
SURABAYA (JP): The post-Soeharto era has laudably brought soothing breezes to the East Timorese because their territory will soon enjoy a status of special autonomy.
The trilateral deliberation of Indonesia, Portugal and the United Nations (UN) has produced a joint communique, which will grant such a status to East Timor.
The communique has also mandated the recommencement of the All Inclusive Intra East Timorese Dialog (AIETD), which will enable the ostracized anti-integration faction to be more fairly represented.
On a more practical note, the Armed Forces (ABRI) has been retrenching its military presence in the province, leaving behind only "organic troops" to carry out "territorial operations intended for the improvement of the people's welfare".
Minister of Foreign Affairs Ali Alatas explained that under the new arrangement, Jakarta will permit East Timor to have a "wide-ranging autonomy", which will include self-determining rights in almost all affairs, except those in international relations, defense, monetary and fiscal matters. The introduction of such a semi-sovereign province will be an unprecedented first among all of Indonesia's provinces as far as autonomy is concerned.
Consequently, this new "state among provinces" will spell out more new arrangements in order to ensure that true progresses be implemented in East Timor.
On the political front, the province will probably have a separate legislative body almost similar to a state parliament in Australia or the United States, whose members will be elected at a different interval from the national general election.
Political parties in East Timor will perhaps possess a disparate nuance to any other region in Indonesia, owing to the territory's cultural and historical divergences from the rest of the country.
Jakarta should also anticipate the emergence of separatist political factions in East Timor, which may demand full independence.
In the face of such a potential development, Jakarta will have to refrain from utilizing military might to subdue the separatist movement. However, such a matter will rely heavily on who will rule Indonesia after the next general election, planned for May 1999, and whether ABRI will still exert transcendent influence on politics as it does now.
While Alatas has dismissed the question of a referendum in East Timor, the issue, considering the new autonomous status, is not entirely out of question. In fact, there still remains a fair chance that East Timor will one day hold a referendum on whether to secede from Indonesia or not.
History bears witness to Quebec separatism in Canada over a national identity. It was only a few years ago that the Canadian Francophone state held a referendum on whether it would remain in the Canadian federation. While the separatist movement in Canada was defeated in the referendum by a small margin, the fragile presence of Quebec within Canada is still open to debate.
Conceptually, Quebec and East Timor are comparable. First, the originally Portuguese-speaking East Timor is culturally divergent from the rest of Indonesia as the Francophone Quebec differs from the Anglophone states of Canada. Having realized this, Jakarta must take steps to warrant that the point of cultural and linguistic disparities be recognized.
In due course, the granting of autonomy to East Timor must necessarily include the recognition of East Timor's mother tongue, Portuguese, as the region's unofficial language.
Article 4, Clause 3 of the UN Declaration of the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious or Linguistic Minorities (G.A.res 47/135, 1993) specifies that governments around the world "should take appropriate measures so that wherever possible, persons belonging to minorities may have adequate opportunities to learn their mother tongue and to have instructions in their mother tongue".
The existing policy of "Indonesianization" through the teaching of the Indonesian language at East Timorese schools has been ignorant and abusive of the region's mother tongue as well as historical and cultural backgrounds. While, as a part of Indonesia, East Timor ought to recognize Indonesian as their official language, it is imperative that their mother tongue, Portuguese, be legalized. The two languages can go hand in hand in East Timorese state departments and schools.
The reconciliatory gesture would not be injurious to the unity and sovereignty of Indonesia as a whole. There are plenty of instances in history, wherein cultural and linguistic suppression later resulted in dissatisfaction and disintegration.
The policy of Russification in the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR) and its satellite countries, such as Finland, was much resented by ethnic minorities and did nothing to prevent the USSR from crumbling.
Even in the democratic United Kingdom, the cultural dominance of English has given rise to Scottish and Welsh separatist movements. The peoples of Scotland and Wales have been endeavoring to revive the use of their own indigenous tongues of Gaelic and Welsh.
The sentiments of being "sidelined" and "patronized" by the predominant English, sections of the Scottish population have even demanded opting out of the union with England. In the last decade, Scotland has changed its national anthem from God Save The Queen to Flowers of Scotland, even going as far as attaining their own parliament in 1996.
Numerous Scots also feel that their own history has been treated as subordinate to English history. Mailboxes across Scotland in the 1980s were in danger of being blown up due to the fact that they bore the royal insignia EIIR (Elizabetha Secundae Reginae), meaning Queen Elizabeth The Second.
The Scottish separatist groups claimed that Queen Elizabeth I (1553-1603) was the queen of England and not of Scotland. The unification of the two kingdoms had not taken place until the death of the unmarried Elizabeth I, whereupon James of Scotland went to London to become the king of both England and Scotland. Therefore, the present Elizabeth is really Queen Elizabeth I as far as Scotland is concerned.
By the same token, the ex-Portuguese colony of East Timor is historically distinct from the formerly Dutch colonized Indonesia. In consequence, it is fair to assume that the East Timorese should be allowed to pursue the studies of their own history. The 1993 UN Declaration of the Rights of Minorities Article 4 Clause 4 affirms such rights.
Thus the education curriculum ought to be left in the hands of the planned autonomous regional government. It is paradoxical that East Timorese students are imbibed with lessons on Sultan Hassanudin and Sultan Agung of Mataram against the Dutch East Indies Company (VOC), while they bear no historical relevance whatsoever to their native land.
On the economic front, the autonomous East Timor will have to be allowed to run an independent regional budget. In so doing, East Timor will need to be endowed with the rights to exploit their own natural resources, such as the hydrocarbon resources in the Timor Gap. The centralized system of government has so far disadvantaged East Timor in obtaining maximum benefits from the lucrative oil-mining venture in the gap.
A taxation system between Jakarta and Dili will have to be worked out in the future. The distinction between state (Dili) and federal (Jakarta) taxation systems will need to be thoroughly defined. Negotiations will be carried out concerning federal (Jakarta) grants to the autonomous region.
On the legal front, the East Timorese legislative council will endorse its own criminal law, which might differ in content from the one for the rest of Indonesia. This system is employed in countries such as Australia, the United States and Canada, where every state has its own set of laws. Yet the East Timorese attorney general will still be required to cooperate with the Attorney General's Office in Jakarta. The precise legal relations between the two offices would need to be clearly defined.
Moreover, East Timorese will need to form their own police force, separate from the National Police (POLRI) to dispel any assumption of interference by Jakarta in the region's internal affairs. It would also have to be emphasized that POLRI would have no jurisdiction over East Timor. The system of appeal must also be clarified in order to avoid legal and constitutional disarray.
The region must also be able to negotiate with Jakarta in relation to the size of military presence there. The sensitive issue needs to be finalized in the most delicate way which will be acceptable to the people of East Timor, the Indonesian government, Portugal and the UN.
The latest developments in Indonesia's "thorn in the flesh" area are indeed encouraging. The autonomy status for East Timor will be a testimony in Indonesia's commitment to uphold human rights in the eyes of the international community. Together, Indonesia, Portugal and the UN have shown that there is still hope for everlasting peace on the globe.
Yet, in East Timor's case, what has been lacking in the past four centuries is consultation with the East Timorese themselves. The Portuguese never consulted them when they took away their sovereignty, only to be abandoned without consultation three-and- a-half centuries later.
Indonesia did not exactly conduct an all-encompassing consultation when it integrated the region, while Soeharto's regime was deaf to the cries of East Timorese. It is therefore crucial that the East Timorese be consulted in the future development of their own native land.
The writer works at the International Language Program in Surabaya, East Java.
Window: In due course, the granting of autonomy to East Timor must necessarily include the recognition of East Timor's mother tongue, Portuguese, as the region's unofficial language.