UN intervention in East Timor
I was surprised to read an article by former Australian Ambassador to the United Nations and Australian Ambassador to Indonesia, Mr. Richard Woolcott, published in this newspaper on Jan. 29, 2001. The article goes to great lengths to describe what the writer perceives as the negative consequences of the international intervention in East timor in September 1999. The essence of this article appears to be that the international intervention approved by a 15-0 vote of the United Nations Security Council was a mistake that has had numerous negative consequences for the entire region.
He cites a number of very tenuous arguments in support of his view, including the need to revise the Timor Gap Treaty in order that additional royalties accrue to the region's inhabitants at the expense of Australia and the proposition that Indonesia is less stable now than in 1998 (when I recall Jakarta was engulfed in massive riots and the rupiah plummeted in value to below Rp 15,000 to the U.S. dollar).
Woolcott makes some rather dubious negative comments about the role of the United Nations, and particularly Australia, in curtailing the post-ballot violence in the former Indonesian administered territory. However, he fails to address the critical question of what the cost might have been of a failure to act at this critical juncture in East Timor's history and the failure to bring a halt to the bloodshed at that time. My suggestion is that it would have been almost impossible both morally and politically for the UN not to have taken the action it did by a unanimous vote of the Security Council on Sept. 15, 1999 that led to the landing of Interfet forces in East Timor on Sept. 20
One might reasonably question not only the effect on East Timor of the Indonesian military's failure to stop the violence and apparent scorched-earth policy (despite the declaration of martial law on Sept. 7), but also the effect of a failure to act by the UN on Indonesia itself. However unpalatable it might be for some Indonesians to consider, it is likely that harsh Security Council resolutions would have been issued, forcing Indonesia to bring an end to the violence and to implement the results of the UN-supervised popular consultation on Aug. 30, 1999 in which 78.5 percent of East Timorese voted in favor of independence.
Given the behavior of the Indonesia military at the time, despite their wide-ranging power pursuant to the declaration of martial law some two weeks before the arrival of the international force, it might be reasonable to assume that there would have been no compliance with such a resolution. Having regard to the degree of international outrage at the time, Indonesia may well have been left in the position of a virtual pariah state with total cut-off of IMF, World Bank and other International funding and a consequent disastrous effect on the nation's struggling economy.
It is further worth noting that Mr. Woolcott does not have a particularly good track record in predicting the outcome of events in this country and the Indonesian people's desire for a more clean and democratic style of government. One need only quote his statements published in this newspaper in an article titled Indonesia is not about to erupt published on Aug. 31, 1996 in the wake of the July 27 riots in which he was quoted: "ABRI remains the guarantor of the security of the state. The next president in 1998 could still be Soeharto but, if not, it will be a Javanese Muslim with a military background like Soeharto" (wrong on two counts out of three). Even more tellingly, he goes on in the same article to state that "it would be misguided ... to expect rapid or radical change or even serious instability in the near future" in Indonesia.
ROGER SMITH
Jakarta