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.