9 MAY 2001
LEIDEN, THE NETHERLANDS
On the occasion of the IIAS Annual Lecture:
East Timor, from Ashes to Nationhood
Interview with José Ramos-Horta
Twenty-four years of Indonesian occupation of East Timor ended with a public consultation on 30 August 1999, when an overwhelming majority of the people voted against a continued integration in Indonesia. Since then the East Timorese, together with the UN Transitional Administration for East Timor, have been preparing the country for independence.
* By FREEK COLOMBIJN
Last May, the IIAS jointly with ASiA (Asian Studies in Amsterdam), organized
a triptych on East Timor. ASiA arranged a series of introductory lectures
and convened a seminar about the 'building of a new nation-state'. On
9 May Dr José Ramos-Horta delivered the IIAS Annual Lecture 2001,
entitled 'East Timor, from Ashes to Nationhood, and its Place in the Region'.
WIM VREEBURG
José Ramos-Horta on the occasion of the
IIAS Annual Lecture, 9 May 2001
Since 1975, Ramos-Horta has been tirelessly championing the East Timor cause in international forums. In 1996 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (together with Bishop Belo). He is presently Minister of Foreign Affairs in the East Timorese Transitional Administration and Vice-President of the National Council of Timorese Resistance (CNRT). On the morning of the IIAS Annual Lecture, Freek Colombijn interviewed Ramos-Horta about the future of East Timor.
You have received seven degrees Doctor Honoris Causa, all after the Nobel Peace Prize gave recognition to the East Timorese cause. Is the academic world in the west afraid to confront established powers?
Unfortunately the main stream academia, the so-called respected scholars, always protect their interests, under the cloud of impartiality and objectivity, so that they can continue their visits to a particular country. Fortunately, there are other scholars, like Noam Chomsky, Ben Anderson, and Peter Carey, who have their conscience; and their academic, intellectual credentials are so strong that they can speak out their mind, and nothing happens to them. But it is also true that in many instances in the academic world, they were simply not aware of the problem of East Timor. And I can excuse them for that. East Timor is far away: a remote, isolated island.
In your view, which countries or alliances of countries would be most important for East Timor?
Of most significance and strategic importance is Australia, our closest neighbour, whose leadership in the multinational force that intervened in 1999 was crucial. The Australian people have been very generous in extending humanitarian and development assistance, and in the future our security will still be dependent on Australia's goodwill. It does not minimize the enormous importance of Portugal, which for twenty-five years championed the cause of East Timor and today has provided enormous generous assistance to East Timor. And not to forget Japan, which has also been extremely generous. Japan is the Number One donor to East Timor.
First let us return to Australia. What do you expect from the renegotiations with Australia about the Timor Gap?
We have to be realistic in that we cannot expect to have a treaty that benefits us only, where Australia would lose a lot of their revenues. The treaty has to be in such a way that we can call it a win-win situation. And in such situations it is never really win-win, because the two sides actually sound not entirely happy. If, in a remote case scenario, we were to go to the International Court of Justice to settle the dispute on the sovereignty over natural resources in the Timor Sea area, we know we would win the case. However, it would also mean a break-up in the relationship, and the idea of going to the Court is very far from our mind. Australia has some legitimate concerns and interests including that any renegotiations of the maritime boundary would affect Indonesia as well. So it means open a can of worms.
It also means you have to renegotiate with three parties at the same time?
The question has to do with maritime boundary, the lateral boundary of East Timor, which has been settled between Indonesia and Australia in 1972, but without involvement of East Timor. And if you look at the map, the maritime boundary does not correspond to a just definition of the boundary. A few miles on both sides, east and west, were taken away from us. And it is within these miles that were taken away from us, that we find huge reserves of oil, where Australia right now is taking away one million, one and a half million dollars a day.
But if we are going to go to the court to settle this boundary it necessarily involves Indonesia. So my personal position has been, let's freeze any discussions on the lateral maritime boundary and deal exclusively with revenue sharing in the area of Timor Gap. Discuss issues related to taxation, pipeline, but that remains between Australia and East Timor. And I am optimistic that in a month or two, we can conclude at least a provisional agreement to enable the oil companies to start working.
How do the East Timorese consider the presence of Portuguese policemen or soldiers in East Timor?
Excellent. The Portuguese army battalion has tremendous respect from among the people in East Timor. They are very professional militarily speaking, highly competent, but also they engage in a lot of humanitarian and development work. Because of their nature, the Portuguese can mingle with the people easily. And because the people know that for twenty-five years Portugal always supported us in the UN, in the European Union, in the Council of Europe. So we have seen them not as a neo-colonial force, but actually as one of our closest friends.
You didn't mention Indonesia?
Indonesia is important for obvious reasons. It's our neighbour, responsible for the worst genocide ever in East Timor. The twenty-five years of Indonesian occupation brought far more suffering and destruction to East Timor, than the five hundred years of Portuguese colonial rule, or the three years of Japanese occupation. There is no comparison, whatsoever. However, past is past. We cannot choose our neighbours, or change geography. We have to live with Indonesia for the rest of our lives. So, since the liberation a year-and-a-half ago, we have made every effort to reconcile with Indonesia, to normalize relations, but it is very difficult because the sense of justice, the sense of remorse or repentance does not exist in Indonesia. The recent trial and verdict on the militia gangs who murdered three international humanitarian workers is grotesque, is an affront to the world community - ten to twenty months. It tells a lot about how corrupted, how immoral the whole political body in Indonesia is.
How do you think about the separatism in Aceh and West Papua?
The issue of East Timor, historically and according to international law, was always different from the problems existing in Indonesia. The issue of East Timor is one of decolonization. The cases of West Papua and other provinces that face rebellion are an internal insurgency against national policies. The military continue to use the methods they know, and that is terror. And as long as you use terror on the people, you are not going to resolve the problem. You will exacerbate them. My question is: 'haven't they learnt, the Indonesian army?'
Will you support their separatist movements?
No, from a human rights point of view, obviously the violations of human rights taking place in Aceh, West Papua, Ambon, are a scandal. However, this does not mean that we are going to support claims to independence. We just cannot do that. If East Timor, or any country, would be supporting the independence of Aceh or West Papua, where and when would we stop and define the limits? There are many other secessionist claims in Asia, in Africa.
Western Sahara is different. The case of Western Sahara is almost a legal carbon copy of the case of East Timor. It is a decolonization issue that has been on the agenda of the UN since the sixties, and obviously we continue to support the right of the people of the Western Sahara to decide their future under UN supervision.
What I find interesting of Tibet is the Dalai Lama never talks about self-determination. The Dalai Lama has always been explicit in demanding cultural autonomy. The Dalai Lama himself, in a recent interview, stated quite categorically that the issue of East Timor and Tibet is different: 'The East Timorese want independence, we don't want.' What is interesting is that the western supporters of Tibet keep talking about independence for Tibet and by doing that they are doing a disservice to the Tibetan cause. Why? They fuse suspicions in China that the Dalai Lama wants to split Tibet from China. That is not what his Holiness wants.
Is it possible to rebuild a viable economy in East Timor?
Certainly, East Timor has tremendous potential. In the agricultural sector, if we have the right policies in five years maximum, East Timor can be self-sufficient in basic food production, such as rice, corn, and potatoes. Fishery is also very rich. We have the best coffee in the world. East Timor is the only country in the world that produces entirely organic coffee. We have already begun the export of coffee for many months now, for a year. We are conquering markets, because Timor coffee is really good. Starbucks, for instance, buys our coffee. And we can really make East Timorese coffee like a fashionable product. We also have an oil and gas potential, which is already happening in the next few months and years that will bring several hundred million dollars a year to the East Timor economy. All we need, and that is a big question mark, are right policies, and right leadership. I am optimistic that we will succeed in building a viable, democratic, stable, and prosperous state.
Is it correct that the road system in East Timor was mainly built by the Indonesian army for military, strategic reasons, and is not fit for, or not geared towards an economic development?
Well, I would say that the primary consideration by the Indonesians was to serve security, military purposes. Obviously in a country like East Timor that is very mountainous, if you don't have proper roads, there is no way you can fight an insurgency. So they built a huge network of roads. There was also some economic motivation and in fairness we cannot just completely dismiss their intentions. There was some intentional, actual development in East Timor and some of the roads today are useful for the circulation of goods from one agricultural region to another.
Is it better for the development of East Timor to bet on the small entrepreneurs, or on the big developments?
We should reconcile the two. The limited resources of our country should go to supporting micro enterprises, small business, medium-sized businesses, farmers, widows to make them self-sufficient. But obviously this does not make East Timor rich. We also have to encourage tourism development. But not like Club Med and others. We favour eco-tourism with a low scale of construction using local material and offering the rugged terrain of East Timor for mountain climbing. Fortunately, we don't have land mines. That is one problem we don't have in East Timor.
What should become the language, for East Timorese to talk to each other?
The reality is that we have three languages: Tetum, the main native language that everybody is very proud of, is still a very rudimentary language, not really functioning for a modern state. Therefore, we call it a national language, and not an official language. We are already setting up a scientific commission to study and develop Tetum. We have chosen Portuguese deliberately and some of the famous western experts criticize us, saying that it was a decision by the older generation that studied in Portugal. Well, that is not the case. Let me put it this way: Did anyone question Mozambique when they chose Portuguese as their official language?
But there is a difference between East Timor and Mozambique, for in East Timor for twenty-five years children learnt Indonesian and not Portuguese.
Certainly. Okay. I just concluded Portuguese is important because it is part of our historical identity. Without the Portuguese there would be no Catholicism in East Timor, and without Catholicism there would be no people such as the people of East Timor. What is: the people of East Timor? It was forged in the context of the Portuguese colonization and this identity is provided to us by the Portuguese language, Catholic religion, and Tetum language. It does not mean that we are xenophobic about the Indonesian language. No, it is a rich language. Many people speak it now in East Timor and we never said we are going to ban it, to stop it. So ten years from now we will have a linguistic reality map of East Timor looking something like this: we will have a very large number of people speaking Tetum, modernized with many more words of Portuguese into it. We will have Portuguese, which is spreading fast now, because of the massive investment made by the Portuguese right now, and Bahasa Malay.
Is the creation of national symbols high on your list of priorities?
Not really. Unlike Sukarno - when Indonesia became independent, the first thing to build was a monument to himself, or to whatever. The very first thing we did after Interfet (International Force - East Timor) arrived in East Timor - we inaugurated the change of a street name. We called it Human Rights Avenue, Avenida dos Direitos Humanos. Before, one section was called Avenida Almirante Américo Tomas, the last president in Portugal, before the revolution. A complete idiot of an admiral and we knew that the Portuguese didn't mind if we changed it.
Could a Truth and Reconciliation Commission as is functioning in South Africa play a role in East Timor?
In East Timor we had a foreign occupation army that did 99 per cent of the violations. So there are some significant differences between East Timor's experience and South Africa's.
The militias are not responsible for the violence, or only for 1 per cent?
Everybody talks about pro-Jakarta militias as if everybody was East Timorese. No. Thousands walked across from West Timor. And it was impossible for any disorganized groups such as the militias to have destroyed East Timor in less than a month the way it was destroyed. Only the German Nazi army was equally efficient in destroying infrastructures and so on. So the Indonesian army over twenty-five years was responsible for more than ninety per cent of the violations in East Timor. And even many of the Timorese militias were victims, coerced to do what they did. Some obviously did it willingly, because they were paid and they enjoyed the money. But many others, the foot soldiers, were victims themselves.
But recently a mosque was burnt down and Protestant churches were attacked.
Again it was very much a complete misrepresentation of the incident by the UN itself. There was an incident among the youth group near the mosque. The Jordanian Rapid Reaction Unit intervened forcefully, but the Jordanian Rapid Reaction Force is not very popular in the area. Not because they are Jordanians or Arabs or Muslims, but because there are allegations of misbehaving by the Jordanian Unit. So when they intervened, people were angry and turned on something they associated with the Jordanians and that was the mosque. It was not an anti-Muslim reaction.
The so-called 'violence against Protestants' was again totally misrepresented by groups like Amnesty and Human Rights Watch. In June last year, some Protestant youth started making jokes about the Virgin Mary while a procession was going on. So the youth reacted and that is when they attacked the Protestant church. Immediately after they agreed that it was their youth that provoked the incident. I do not know a single case where the Catholics went out deliberately looking for Muslims and Protestants to attack them.
I am a little disappointed you are not wearing your characteristic bow-tie, will you wear it this afternoon when you give the IIAS lecture?
Not really, I find it silly; I don't know why I wore it for so long. *
Notes
1. Autumn 2000, three members of UN personnel were attacked and killed. The Indonesian Court of Justice's initial charge of 'murder' came to be reduced to amuk massa (rioting).
Editor's Note:
The above excerpt amounts to around half of the whole interview, itself
to be found on: www.iias.nl/iiasn/25/general/
ramoshorta.html.
Dr
Freek Colombijn is an anthropologist and historian specializing in
Indonesia. He is a research fellow at the IIAS, and lectures at Leiden
University, the Netherlands.
E-mail: f.colombijn@let.leidenuniv.nl