East Timor's blighted independence
By Todd Crowell
HUA HIN, Thailand - The turmoil in East Timor and the subsequent deployment of
Australian and other peacekeeping troops has prompted much soul-searching,
especially among human-rights activists for whom the cause of an independent
East Timor was an article of faith.
Has East Timor become, four years after it gained formal independence from
Indonesia, just another failed state or, as Australian Defense Minister Brendon
Nelson said recently, "a haven perhaps for transnational crime, for terrorism
and indeed humanitarian disaster and justice"?
Such a description seems too strong for East Timor, which, though sunk into
lawlessness, has not, to my knowledge, harbored any terrorists. The question is
more whether this territory
of fewer than a million people is or can become a viable country. Was
independence a mistake?
Writing in The Monthly magazine, Don Watson, former Australian prime minister
Paul Keating's speechwriter, created something of a stir when he wrote, "Life
under a murderous occupation might be a little better than life in a failed
state, albeit one perennially dependent on Australian aid and Australian
policing.
"What was more, in an imperfect world, Suharto's Indonesia was a lot better
than its critics were willing to concede, or able to see from their lofty
Pilgeresque perches" - a reference to John Pilger, a fierce critic of Suharto.
Keating, his country's last Labor Party prime minister, took a markedly
pro-Indonesia position (and took a lot of flak for it from the left wing of his
party) because he was keen on positioning his country as being a part of Asia.
(His successor, John Howard, is much less interested in the "Australia is a
part of Asia" business.)
Wrote Watson: "The relationship was important because Indonesia was the most
populous Muslim country in the world. It was a developing country offering
numerous complementary interests. A successful relationship was a precondition
of a successful engagement with Asia."
Watson went on to argue that the years of stability in Indonesia under
president Suharto's New Order government made it possible to drop the "White
Australia" policy, welcome Asian immigrants and make Australia a more open and
tolerant country.
"Suharto gave us nothing less than an ability to shed our ancient fear of Asia.
Liberalism in Australia profited from despotism in Indonesia. What we took for
our own courage was just the profit of Suharto's ruthlessness."
Nevertheless, the history of appeasing Suharto still leaves a bad taste in
Watson's mouth, since he concludes, "It was good policy, but nevertheless
cowardice as well."
Pilger would no doubt agree. The fiery, unreconstructed activist recently wrote
a piece in Antiwar.com accusing Canberra of deliberately provoking disorder to
remove East Timorese prime minister Mari Alkatiri, in effect an act of regime
change.
Civil order has returned to East Timor. Former foreign minister Jose
Ramos-Horta has replaced Alkatiri as premier. It is probably too early to
dismiss East Timor as a failed state. But it is certainly a fragile state.
Instead of becoming what it is and likely to remain for many years, a poor,
independent country and perpetual ward of the United Nations, non-governmental
organizations, Australia and Portugal, it could have remained part of a dynamic
and now democratic Indonesian nation.
This notion, of course, would be heresy to many, even as they lament the chaos
that overtook the country a few weeks ago. Did not the Indonesian army murder
tens of thousands of Timorese during its 25-year occupation?
It can certainly be argued that Jakarta long ago lost the mandate of heaven to
govern East Timor because of its harsh occupation. But one also has to ask
whether it is right that a national border in Asia be determined by which
European colonizer settled where.
Why couldn't the Timorese have followed the example of Goa? India and Indonesia
were in very similar positions at the close of World War II. In both cases the
main European colonizer - the British in India and the Dutch in Indonesia -
withdrew but left behind small Portuguese enclaves, which Lisbon clung to
fiercely.
New Delhi finally lost patience, and in 1961 invaded the largest of its
enclaves and forcefully expelled the Portuguese. The world condemned India, but
the affair was soon forgotten. Goa settled down peacefully, eventually becoming
a full-fledged state of the Indian union.
Fast-forward to 1975. The Carnation Revolution ousted Portuguese dictator
Marcelo Caetano, and Lisbon was shedding its overseas empire. East Timor
declared independence, and the Indonesian army invaded. But in this case years
of guerrilla warfare against the occupation ensued until in 1999 East Timorese
voted for independence.
One wonders whether East Timorese might be having buyers' remorse today. Are
they so different from their former countrymen in other parts of Indonesia that
they should be independent? If this is true for East Timor, why not for Aceh or
Bali or Papua? That, of course, was always Jakarta's argument.
And if ethnic differences are such important criteria, then how important is it
that East Timor is divided into the Kaladis of the west and the Firakus to the
east? Should the country be further divided into the Republics of East East
Timor and West East Timor (throw in a Republic of Oecussi-Ambeno, the small
enclave in West Timor administered from Dili)?
On independence, East Timor adopted Portuguese as one of its official
languages, presumably as another way to set itself apart from its former
countrymen. Portuguese teachers flocked to the new country to offer
instruction, so that in addition to their other disadvantages, the Timorese
would learn a language that is virtually useless for them in Asia.
By contrast, Indonesians couldn't care less about studying Dutch or learning
about their Dutch heritage. Instead they cultivated Bahasa Indonesia as a
language that would unite the disparate groups that make up their nation.
The great irony of the East Timor struggle is that just as it finally reached
its goal of independence in 2002, Indonesia was becoming fully democratic.
Meanwhile, in Goa they celebrate December 16, the day India invaded, as
"Liberation Day".
Todd Crowell is an Asia Times Online correspondent based in Thailand.
