|
|
|
|
Volume 12, Number 1, February 2000
Contributors
Introduction: Past, Present, and Future of the East Timor Struggle by Brian Hallett, Ralph Summy
Peace through Nonviolent Action: The East Timorese Resistance Movement's Strategy for Engagement by Chisako M. Fukuda
The transition from violent struggle against the Indonesian occupation of East Timor to nonviolent resistance increased the chances of victory for the independence movement. This movement conforms to the theory of the efficacy of nonviolent political action. Aware of the difficulties facing their movement, East Timorese resistance leaders emphasised the need to advance their nonviolence strategy through links with concerned international groups. Links between the resistance movement in East Timor and the pro-democracy movement in Indonesia were also beneficial for the cause of East Timor's independence.
Promoting Reconciliation in East Timor: Imperatives for Transition to Self-Government by Michael E. Salla
Reconciliation is critical for societies like East Timor that have experienced intense levels of political violence. Reconciliation, however, is not a simple matter of forgiving and forgetting. It involves at least five levels - intrapersonal and interpersonal, intergroup, and national and international - all of which need to be promoted in order to counter the climate of fear and anger in East Timor, which can only increase political violence. Reconciliation in East Timor is challenged by the class dimension of the conflict. The success of this process hinges on the ability of the East Timorese to bridge over their differences by projecting their future interdependent relationship onto the present.
East Timor, the United Nations, and the International Community: Force Feeding Human Rights into the Institutionalised Jaws of Failure by Matthew Jardine
The United Nations General Assembly and Security Council passed a total of ten resolutions on East Timor from 1975 to 1982. Taken together, these resolutions criticised Indonesia's invasion of the territory, called for the withdrawal of Indonesian troops, and affirmed the right of the East Timorese people to self-determination. While East Timorese independence now seems imminent, it is occurring largely in spite of the United Nations. As the case of East Timor demonstrates, the United Nations is an organisation whose very structure favours its most powerful member states and their allies, and largely insulates them from serious pressure to respect international law. Certainly, elements of the United Nations, and a number of national governments and NGOs have played an important role in helping to advance the cause of East Timor in the international community. But the fact that the Indonesian military still had a presence in the territory and, along with so-called militia groups, was in a position to engage in a campaign of terror and destruction after East Timorese voters overwhelmingly opted for independence exposes the serious shortcomings of international legal and security mechanisms. It demonstrates the need to challenge the international structural factors that allowed Indonesia's invasion to take place in the first place, and that permitted the occupation to continue for so long with almost total impunity. To prevent comparable situations from recurring it is necessary to rethink international institutions charged with sustaining international law and human rights, and also to rethink international human rights advocacy.
The UN and East Timor by William Maley
The events surrounding the 30 August 1999 'consultation' in East Timor help shed light on some of the problems the United Nations organisation faces in attempting to promote political order in the post-Cold-War world. The UN became involved in East Timor in a number of ways following the Indonesian invasion of the territory in December 1975: the Security Council passed two resolutions demanding that Indonesia withdraw 'all its forces from the territory'; the General Assembly between December 1975 and November 1982 passed a series of complementary resolutions; and the Secretary-General sought (vainly) to exercise his 'Good Offices' through the endeavours of his Special Representative, Vittorio Winspeare Guicciardi. Despite these activities, the East Timor issue was neglected for many years, but the Dili massacre of 1991, the case of Portugal v. Australia in the International Court of Justice, and the award of the Nobel Peace Prize jointly to resistance spokesman Jose Ramos-Horta and to Bishop Carlos Belo helped give it new life. The collapse of the Suharto regime in May 1998 set the scene for real movement on the East Timor issue. The UN was an obvious partner in any attempt to advance the issue. Its experience in election monitoring strongly suggested that in an atmosphere of deep division a neutral security force is required to protect voters from retribution. Nonetheless, the 5 May 1999 Accords contained no provision for such a force, and in addition were very loosely worded. As UNAMET prepared to test the opinion of the East Timorese, it became clear that pro-integration militias, backed by the Indonesian military, were indeed a profound threat to the voters. In the aftermath of the 78.5% vote for independence rather than autonomy, they went on the rampage, and it became all too obvious that the UN lacked the resources to honour its promise not to abandon the East Timorese. While the Security Council's decision on 15 September to authorise the deployment to East Timor (with Indonesian consent) of an international force more or less ensures that East Timor will secure its independence, that independence comes at a price, measured in the loss of innocent lives and destruction of property, which might have been avoided had the approach of the UN and key member states not been premised on such wildly optimistic assumptions about likely Indonesian goodwill.
Communication From Kissinger to Albright: The US and East Timor by Jose Ramos-Horta
Communication Democracy in Indonesia and East Timor by Muhammad A. S. Hikam
Communication East Timor's Future: Penury or Prosperity? by Alan Dupont
Selected UN Documents