Weighing on the 'ifs' of East Timor

Weighing on the 'ifs' of East Timor

By Aboeprijadi Santoso

LISBON, Portugal (JP): A former Australian diplomat believes a
letter the Indonesian foreign minister Adam Malik wrote in 1974,
in which he promised support for East Timor's independence, was
brushed aside by president Soeharto and the leading generals at
that time.

Former Indonesia specialist at Canberra Foreign Affairs and
writer of Timor: A People Betrayed (1983) James Dunn, 72, said,
had it been followed up, Adam Malik's message "would have
resulted in a radically different world for Indonesia and East
Timor. The democratization would have started much earlier".

Dunn served as Australian consul in Dili (1962-1964), and
returned to East Timor in 1974. In an interview with The Jakarta
Post in Lisbon, where he attended a conference on East Timor
earlier this month, he reflects on some crucial moments of the
conflict.

In June 1974, Adam Malik, in a meeting with Jose Ramos-Horta,
volunteered to write a letter, which, according to Dunn, "should
have been a turning point, because, unlike even Portugal or
Australia, who were not saying East Timor should be independent,
but merely should make a decision, Adam Malik wrote, 'The
independence of every country is the right of every nation and,
for East Timor, there could be 'no exception'."

"The letter went on to say that not only would Indonesia
support self-determination, but it would also endorse the
independence of East Timor," Dunn said.

He recalled Ramos-Horta's delighted response. "He said, 'pak
Malik has been so good; if Indonesian leaders are going to be
generous like this, I can persuade Fretilin (proindependence)
leaders to agree to a settlement that would give Indonesia power
over foreign affairs and defense, otherwise East Timor would be
free. Wonderful."

Was Adam Malik sincere? "Yes, (because) his letter was written
very early in the conflict, only a couple of months after the
coup in Portugal (April 1974). It was his personal response, but
he was not aware that was a view that the military did not
accept," Dunn said.

"The military had already began to meet and talk about taking
actions that would make sure East Timor a part of Indonesia."

In the mid-1960s Dunn was assigned to Moscow when Adam was the
Indonesian ambassador there. "We talked several times. Adam Malik
was a leading international diplomat. Later, as foreign minister,
he had a much clearer understanding of the situation (in East
Timor). As a consul (in Dili), I did not meet him, but I met him
again in Canberra. Really, his response (Malik's letter) was one
that surely should have been followed up."

In contrast to many, Adam did not seem to be impressed by cold
war rumors in East Timor in the mid-1970s. "I believed he had a
better view of the situation, because, after all, there was no
communist influence to speak of in East Timor," Dunn said.

"The major communist powers had no representation there, and
they showed no interest in it. So, really, from that point of
view, there was no threat to Indonesia."

Dunn added that "Adam Malik's view was perceptive."

"If what he had written was acted upon, the situation would
have been vastly different. Thousands of people, Indonesians as
well as Timorese, would not have been killed. You would today
have an independent East Timor, but it would be a special
relationship. Instead, we have a whole generation of 25 years of
conflict, bitterness and a situation which was terribly
humiliating to Indonesia."

Why did Jakarta miss the opportunity?
"Our embassy in Jakarta had been advised that Malik really had no
influence as far as the generals were concerned," he replied.

"The generals, I mean Ali Moertopo, Benny Moerdani and Yoga
Soegama, were making the policy. This (letter) was ridiculous and
unacceptable. We should disregard that letter, my colleagues
said."

Dunn continued: "Jakarta failed (because) even some of the
Portuguese, but certainly Indonesian leaders, like the military,
had a total misunderstanding of the situation in East Timor. It
wasn't that the Timorese were hostile to Indonesia. Simply, they
had had a very separate experience as a colony of Portugal.
Theirs was a different kind of society, and they wanted to go
their own way. It was a natural instinct in the process of self-
determination.

"The colonial experience, for good or bad reasons, created a
separate environment. So, the natural instinct of people who are
liberated, or offered liberation, is to gain independence. It was
difficult for me to understand that very intelligent people like
Benny Moerdani and Ali Moertopo didn't seem to understand that,
especially in a country which itself had fought so courageously
for its own independence."

According to Dunn, "the military leaders couldn't persuade the
East Timorese by political means simply because their approach
involved for months a hostile (radio) propaganda against the
political parties. That created hostility. Originally that
hostility was not there. But as it mounted, the Timorese said
they didn't want to join the country next door."

As Adam Malik's letter failed to materialize, what, then, was
the turning point which made the military takeover of East Timor
possible?

"That was created largely by Indonesia, but I have to say
Australia helped. When prime minister Gough Whitlam went to
Wonosobo to have his meeting with president Soeharto (September
1974), he astonished the Indonesians by making it very clear that
his preferred solution was that East Timor to go to Indonesia. I
have a lot of information that suggests the Indonesians didn't
expect Australia to be so generous. Whitlams's words encouraged
the military to believe that this was the way to go.

"By mid-1975, even though the two major parties (Fretilin and
the Timorese Democratic Union (UDT)) came into conflict, both
were against integration. I had a letter from UDT leaders at that
time who made it clear that what they wanted was independence,
but they wanted first to purge Fretilin of its left wing."

The Wonosobo meeting, therefore, was the turning point.

"That was the green light to start 'Operasi Komodo' to bring
about integration. President Soeharto feared that it might end up
in embarrassment, so he delayed giving the order for the military
intervention. I knew this from my own diplomatic sources, but
what was important was, had the external community, and in
particular my own country, Australia, gone to president Soeharto
and reinforced his position, the invasion would not have taken
place."

"One can't forgive the president. Soeharto wanted East Timor
as well. The only reservation he had was about the military
action, but he was finally persuaded in September 1975, two weeks
before the attack on Balibo, by the generals who had obtained
information that the major Western powers really wouldn't object
to Indonesia's move into East Timor at that time.

"The U.S. actually knew more than a week beforehand. The
Australians also knew. If they wanted to protest, they had time
to do so. This is the complicity of Western powers in what was
the rape of a small nation. It would have been possible for the
West to persuade Jakarta not to proceed, but they didn't do it."

"The militarization as the solution to East Timor," he says,
"led to a greater military influence in Indonesia, because the
military had to suppress press freedom, so that the information
could not get through to the people. The crisis (1997) was in
part because of the corruption, which has to be related to the
fact that it was able to develop, from the mid-1970s onward, a
greater capacity to suppress dissents."

All these, of course, combine to form a "big if", but Dunn
said, "I'm absolutely convinced that had Adam Malik's opportunity
been taken up, the outcome would have been radically different.
East Timor would have a population of 1.2 million instead of
about 800,000. Not because Indonesian soldiers went to kill tens
of thousands people, but because the military operation had an
enormous impact on Timor in terms of forcing people into the
interior, denying them medical assistance and food."

"So many died of starvation and disease, or were killed in the
military actions. Perhaps more than 150,000. For a period, in
1976, the Indonesian Military used napalm. Imagine what napalm
bombs can do to villagers in the dry season. That was terrible."

The writer is a journalist, based in Amsterdam, the
Netherlands.