UN presence in E. Timor a must

UN presence in E. Timor a must

By Budiawan Purwadi and Marcelino Ximenes Magno

SINGAPORE (JP): Some analysts argue that Alexandre "Xanana"
Gusmao's call on his supporters "to take arms against the
Indonesian Armed Forces (ABRI) and pro-Indonesian forces in East
Timor" should be understood as an act of self-defense against the
aggression of ABRI-armed East Timorese civilians. As Xanana
himself said, "I call on the people to prepare themselves..., do
not die like an animal, people cannot be killed just like that,"
(The Jakarta Post, April 8, 1999).

That call reflects how desperate the recent development of the
East Timor situation is, following the either "broad autonomy" or
"independent" option announced by President B.J. Habibie last
January. The Liquisa tragedy, in which, according to Bishop Belo,
25 people were killed, is just one example of the terrible
situation. It is understandable, then, if Xanana -- from his
detention house in Jakarta -- called for a UN peacekeeping force
in East Timor to disarm the civilian population and halt violence
in the incomplete decolonized Portuguese colony annexed by
Indonesia in December 1975. But ABRI Chief Gen. Wiranto rejected
the call. He insisted that problems in East Timor are "the
internal concerns of the Republic of Indonesia"; one argument
which seems to have been so dominant that it is taken for granted
in the Indonesian public discourse.

So long as such arguments still persist, the problem of East
Timor will never be solved. It is because the key solution lies
in the intensive and extensive intervention of an international
organization, in this case the United Nations (UN). In addition,
as it has been considered as a non self-governed territory, East
Timor's legal status is still under the UN protectorate -- since
1960. So, the UN does not only deserve to, but is also obliged to
interfere to East Timor.

It is, indeed, acknowledgeable that the UN has, so far,
facilitated various levels of talks and meetings concerning the
search for a solution on the problem of East Timor. But, this is
not enough, even though several talks and meetings have seemed
prospective. If UN involvement is just limited to such a level,
any results can still be manipulated in the field. So, it is the
UN presence in East Timor which is urgently needed to achieve a
comprehensive and effective solution.

Some parties have, as has Xanana himself, proposed a UN
presence in East Timor as a peacekeeping force. We think that
this proposal should be rectified. Since there is no peace yet,
or at least a kind of firm consensus to make peace, it is not a
peacekeeping force which must be present, but a peace-building
forces, instead.

Such an idea has been proposed by an Australian scholar who is
very deeply concerned with the issue of East Timor. The scholar,
Geoffrey C. Gunn, in his East Timor and the United Nations: The
Case for Intervention (1997), said that to achieve a
comprehensive and effective solution for the problem of East
Timor, the UN should play "a specific 'peace-building' role".
What he meant by this idea was that the UN should play as prime
mover in a peace-building process and even in the management of
East Timor.

Opening a permanent UN human rights office in Dili is, indeed,
a matter of high priority. But, Gunn argued, that it is not
enough. A further step should be the creation of a UN
Transitional Authority on East Timor (UNTAET). This body is
expected to serve as an umbrella organization for all components
of a UN mission in East Timor for a specified time in the run-up
to a referendum and the reconstitution of civil society.

Gunn specifically referred the term "peace-building" in the
sense of the one used by Boutros Boutros-Ghali in his June 1992
report, An Agenda for Peace: Preventive Diplomacy and
Peacekeeping. Peace-building, as such, involves the disarming of
warring parties and the restoration of order, the repatriation of
refugees, the monitoring of elections, the protection of human
rights, the meeting of humanitarian needs and the rebuilding of
civil society. This all is quite different from peacekeeping, the
one that comes after the war, the conflict, or the civil strife,
and is designed to prevent a lapse into war.

In the case of East Timor, Gunn wrote, peacekeeping comes
after the UN body failed to act on its own resolutions, actions
which may have prevented the tragedy. Given the right political
cues, then, the emphasis of peace-building is on the civilian
rather than the military aspects of the problem.

By definition, Gunn continued, the East Timor case should be
easier to handle than almost any recent UN mission. The military
equation is so lopsided in Indonesia's favor that a conflict, or
"civil-war" dimension (such as in Angola), is almost entirely
lacking. Elements of the situation in East Timor bear more
resemblance to post-1979 Cambodia where the withdrawal of Vietnam
was the "conditio sine qua non" of a political solution as part
of UN involvement. The immediate problem in East Timor is the
imperativeness for the demilitarization of East Timor through the
drawdown of the Indonesian military presence. The tenor of
reports confirms the linkage between breakdown of civil society
in East Timor and militarization, as can be clearly seen in the
recent tragedies.

A UN presence, Gunn assured, could monitor and verify the
withdrawal of ABRI. At the same time, it can assist in the
demobilization of local Timorese adjuncts of ABRI. Falantil, or
at least the surviving rump of the Fretilin armed forces, has
already signaled its willingness for a cease-fire, as was said
repeatedly by Xanana before the recent Liquisa tragedy. It would
not necessarily be the task of the UN to enforce the withdrawal
of Indonesian military forces from East Timor. Rather, it would
be the international legal obligation of Indonesia to take that
step, just as the Vietnamese armed forces made their timely and
largely verified exit from Cambodia during the start-up phase of
the UN operation in that country.

Thus, the doctrine of UN involvement/intervention in East
Timor must rest on a political solution, namely Indonesian
acquiescence in a UN-brokered solution. Necessarily, a UN
presence in East Timor would be a graduated process, just as the
character of a UNTAET mission would change, in line with new
political realities engendered by each stage of the peace
process. Broadly, the transition would be from the strictly
humanitarian to the political.

But, again, this all requires the immediate withdrawal of the
Indonesian Armed Forces from East Timor. This is precisely the
very first problem which should be overcome, since ABRI seems to
have its own agenda, which may be quite different from Habibie's.
Stronger international pressure might be able to help to break
down this very first door to achieving a comprehensive and
effective solution for the problem of East Timor.

Budiawan Purwadi, a graduate student of Southeast Asian
Studies Program, National University of Singapore. Marcelino X.
Magno is a member of the East Timor Study Group.

Window: The immediate problem in East Timor is the imperativeness
for the demilitarization of East Timor through the drawdown of
the Indonesian military presence.