Global Flop, Local Mess:
Indonesia betrayed by East Timor and the West
'We are being slandered', 'Indonesia is wrecked' ('Kita dihujat', 'Indonesia terpuruk'), these were the words that were heard again and again at the time of the East Timor crisis in September 1999. Public opinion vented its frustration and anger both at the rejection of integration by the East Timorese in the 30 August referendum and at the international outrage that followed the violence by the pro-Jakarta militias. While such a reaction was deeply emotional, and easily dismissed by foreign observers, little has been said of the Indonesian view of the East Timor affair. This imbalance has impaired the interaction between the actors involved in the crisis. The Western press, governments, and public opinion were out of sync with Indonesia's officials, military, and politicians, and vice versa.
By FRANÇOIS RAILLON
To grasp Indonesia's overreaction, it should be borne in mind that the country was in a very serious condition when the crisis broke out: it was barely recovering from an unprecedented economic and social meltdown, it was led by a weak, transitional government, and although a successful general election had just been held in June, the political future was fraught with uncertainty. More specifically, the relationship to the outside world was characterized by suspicion and distrust. Beyond local bad governance, hostile global forces were regarded as a major factor in the Indonesian crisis. Seen as a compound of erratic capital flows, IMF blind dictates, and US hardly-hidden agendas, globalization was considered a Western attempt to undermine Asian values and miracles.When the UN Mission in East Timor (UNAMET) proclaimed the results of the referendum indicating a very clear rejection of Indonesia's rule (by 78.5%), the Jakarta press was indignant: while East Timorese ingratitude was no doubt blamed, the fairness of the poll itself was questioned. UNAMET was accused of being biased, even of cheating on a large scale. As new, scrupulous practitioners of democracy, the Indonesians complained that the UN had disclosed results ahead of the schedule, without sufficient time for checking, that it had mixed together all returns from the various districts, while scrutineers lacked objectivity since 'they were all independentistas'. Such a 'rigged' outcome was the reason for the 'desperate' response of pro-integration Timorese: they burned down their own houses in Dili before fleeing, while the militias went on a terrible rampage with the assistance of Timorese deserters from the Indonesian army. The 15,000 troops stationed in the territory included some 6,000 Timorese recruits. When President Habibie and General Wiranto acknowledged the victory of the independentistas, they felt betrayed and joined the pro-integration militias in the sack of Dili. So, according to Jakarta's rationale, post-referendum excesses were a 'civil war' among Timorese.
Answering the Indonesian Commission on Human Right Violations concerning army involvement, General Wiranto denied any part in the violence: 'Morally we wanted the pro-integration side to win, but we did not do anything to help them win (-) Of course, the militias were organically under the army; in some cases we armed them. But they had existed long before the referendum' ('Doa di Ruang Pemeriksaan', Gatra 1 January 2000).
Mass killings were also denied. The number of victims admitted by the military ran in the hundreds, as compared to the 10,000 claimed by Bishop Belo. So far and based on findings on the field, the number of actual victims of the September devastation remains relatively low (less than two hundred). However, it is difficult to make a proper assessment, as some 200,000 East Timorese fled or were deported. Unsurprisingly, Jakarta officials object to the term 'deportation' to characterize this massive migration. They label it as the 'evacuation of refugees' with military assistance, as was done in the cases of the Ambon or Pontianak conflicts earlier in the same year. In their view, people fled 'spontaneously', either to West Timor (those who had sided with Indonesia), or to the hills south of Dili to seek the protection of the Falintil independence forces.
Negative reports or 'disinformation' were attributed to 'propaganda' from the 'Republic's foes', led by Portugal and Western NGOs. It was admitted that they had successfully given credence to the idea of a genocide perpetrated by the military in the early period of Indonesian rule in East Timor. Jakarta rejects both the accusation of genocide and the 200,000 figure regularly mentioned by Fretilin and Portuguese sources. The actual figure, says Jakarta, is much less than 100,000 casualties (which is still a very high figure), and is not due to military atrocities but to various circumstances: the civil war in East Timor before the December 1975 Indonesian assault, the invasion proper, and especially the large-scale famine that was caused by the failed harvest in 1978 when tens of thousands died (for details, see my 'Timor oriental, vu d'Indonésie', in Lettre de l'AFRASE #49, Paris, November 1999).
A last grudge was the fact that Habibie had to give in to irresistible Western pressure and accept an international force in East Timor (INTERFET), in order to restore peace and order. It was humiliating, since Indonesia was proven to be unable to do the job, while it was not longer able to defy the UN as it had done at the time of Konfrontasi. To make matters worse, Jakarta had to accept Australia as the backbone of the force. Australia, which had formerly recognized Timor's annexation by Indonesia, was no longer to be counted among friendly countries: it was now the spearhead of the West's unrelenting crusade against Indonesia.
The whole affair then was seen as an incomprehensible mess: Indonesia had taken over East Timor with America's blessings in 1975, and now under the pressure of Western powers it had to release the territory. A few days after the East Timor debacle, Aceh's independence movement demanded a referendum, starting a process of what could be Indonesia's unravelling. Considering Kosovo and Chechnya, Indonesians ominously found they had been treated like another Yugoslavia rather than Russia. Despite the size of the archipelago, they were treated like a second-rate power, and did not receive the relative forbearance enjoyed by a former, but still nuclear, superpower.
The Timorese miscarriage was due to a double bind: Indonesia failed to appraise the post-cold war era and her own dependency on the outside world, while the international community failed to read Jakarta's sensitivities and to assess the consequences of East Timor's divorce on other provinces in Indonesia.
By the close of 1999, with mixed feelings Indonesians witnessed the return of another former Portuguese colony to an Asian non-democracy: Macau was taken over by the PRC. However, Beijing never forcibly invaded Macau, and was smart enough to negotiate its peaceful handover.
Yet nationalism is still running high in Indonesia. Commenting on Indonesia's own, pre-emptive, investigation on human right abuses in East Timor, Alwi Shihab, President Wahid's foreign minister, reiterated: 'We don't want outsiders to sentence or even try our people' *
Dr François Raillon, CNRS/EHESS, can be reached at: E-mail: francois.raillon@wanadoo.fr.