NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #26/NN_1992_26.iso/spool/misc/activism/progress/8316

Text File | 1992-11-11 | 10.3 KB | 195 lines

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From: Loren Ryter <[e-mail]>
Subject:      Timor: One Year After Santa Cruz
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Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 01:16:03 GMT
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November 12, 1992

by Loren Ryter

Today marks the first anniversary of the Santa Cruz massacre in
East Timor.  One year ago today, we sat horrified, wondering if
November 12 would soon become just another date of another tragic
but transient third world "disaster" which would wash by like a
flood or reverberate with the momentary rumble of a tremor after
an earthquake.  After all, in the American mind, violence,
especially that which occurs beyond our borders, is a natural
occurrence, untied to our  actions, dehistoricized, a lamentable
but unavoidable calamity.  We wondered how we could scratch away
at the ideological gloss of freedom and democracy to reveal one
example of the direct connection between American interests and
foreign state-sponsored violence, all while making sure that
November 12, 1991 would not be forgotten.  We are encouraged by
the outcome.  A year ago today, when we mentioned "East Timor" we
paused to brace ourselves for the inevitable "East what?"  Today,
we are heartened to hear, "What is happening now?"

East Timor today rests half way between freedom and oblivion.
Hopes for a just political solution to what the United Nations
still calls "the question of East Timor" look brighter than they
have in seventeen years, but at the same time repression within
East Timor is as intense as it has been in a decade.  Indonesia
is simultaneously bracing itself to make concessions and pushing
the East Timorese to willfully submit to integration through a
combination of coercion and persuasion.  (An example of
persuasion:  the Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture
recently ordered the drafting of a "history of East Timor" to
teach the East Timorese about "the struggle of their parents for
integration with Indonesia.")  Indonesia is playing the same firm
but tender strategy it has been playing for a decade, but the
stakes are higher, and the Indonesians and the East Timorese both
know that change is coming, it is just a question of when, how
much, and in which direction.

To make sure that the independence demonstration cum massacre of
last November 12 remains a memory of a regrettable past
aberration, rather than a mark of an unfaltering permanent
determination, the Indonesian army has taken precautions to
guarantee there won't be any public displays of dissent today.
The military today concludes Indonesia's biggest military
exercise in the nation's history, a two week operation involving
over 15,000 troops.  Also in the past two weeks, the army has
conducted sweeping house to house identity checks, arresting at
least one thousand East Timorese by Brigadier General Theo
Syafei's own admission and bringing them in for "questioning."
Anyone found to be outside of his or her district is being made
to return home within 24 hours.  Anyone wishing to visit the
Santa Cruz cemetery to pay homage to loved ones on the
anniversary of their death must register with the military
police.  Explaining the recent clamp down, General Syafei
remarked, "I must be realistic. [The East Timorese] are also
looking for the right moment to do something...I would be
deceiving myself if I did not consider those dates as moments for
them to use.  I don't want them to run away with the idea that we
are vacillating, still less that we are weak."

East Timor remains totally closed to outside observers, and
Amnesty International was explicitly denied entry after making a
special request to monitor the situation this past week.  Early
in October, observers were stunned that Indonesia unexpectedly
granted permission to a team of Australian parliamentarians to
visit East Timor-that is until that permission was suddenly
withdrawn.  The delegation had insisted on coming October 28, the
day of the death of Sebastio Gomes, whose funeral memorial
procession on November 12 sparked the massacre.  Syafei explained
that this was a clear indication that the Australians were coming
with an intent to "stir up" trouble.

Recent reports suggest that the number of people killed last
November may have exceeded even the highest estimates.  East
Timorese external representative Jose Ramos-Horta, whose eldest
brother recently died mysteriously in a Dili hospital, becoming
his fourth brother to die since the invasion, revealed the
findings of an extensive inquiry involving 72 researchers working
"round the clock for three months" to determine the extent of the
Santa Cruz casualties.  At a press conference last week in
Australia, Ramos-Horta showed reporters a list of the names of
273 killed, 355 "disappeared" and 376 wounded East Timorese
civilians.  It is unlikely that these figures will ever be
independently verified.

Yet as if to confirm his findings, even the new governor of Dili,
an East Timorese collaborator named Abilio Jose Osorio Soares who
boasts of his pre-"integration" contacts with high placed
Indonesian intelligence officers, is now admitting that several
times the official estimate of 50 people died last year.  In an
interview with an Indonesian weekly, he granted that more than
100, perhaps 200 out of one thousand demonstrators had died.
Then he minimized the deaths, rhetorically asking "And what
percent is this?... Why only that much?  Why did not all the
thousand die?"

On the bright side, unlike a year ago today, the international
community can no longer get away with ignoring these sorts of
shockingly frank comments.  After Soares' remarks were widely
reported in Australia, Australian MPs fell just short of
demanding a retraction, saying they sincerely hoped the governor
had been misquoted.  Soares later remarked he had been
misunderstood.  The cutting off of US military training aid to
Indonesia for FY 93 has committed the US Congress to acknowledge
the severity of the situation in East Timor.  For seventeen years
it has been an uphill struggle to get members of congress even to
sign letters of concern, but now we can expect support to be far
more forthcoming.

Indonesian and Portuguese foreign ministers will resume talks on
East Timor in New York in December for the first time since talks
were broken off when the planned Portuguese parliamentary
delegation was canceled in October of last year.  Because of the
level of international pressure, this time Indonesia will be
playing with a weakened hand, and it is even possible that East
Timorese will be able to directly participate in the talks, an
arrangement that Indonesia has thus far refused to consider.
Evidence suggests that the Indonesian foreign ministry is tiring
of focusing its entire diplomatic energies on diffusing criticism
of East Timor.  Alluding to the stubbornness of some other
leaders over the issue, Foreign Minister Ali Alatas likened East
Timor to a stone in one's shoe, commenting that one "could keep
on running," but only implying the logical conclusion.

Soon after the election of Bill Clinton, Ali Alatas sought to
moderate the tough stand of some Indonesian generals who continue
to publicly state that they will "tolerate no meddling."  Alatas
commented that Indonesia has no intention of having a
confrontation with the West over human rights, and that Indonesia
has  "the right to put forward [its] basic views" and "should
discuss them together [with the West] and reach an agreement."
This comes as a marked departure for Indonesia, who just last
April refused all aid from the Netherlands after they had pressed
Indonesia on human rights, and has since toughened its position
that the West should not impose its standards of human rights on
developing countries.

This surreal dance over "human rights imperialism" deserves a
word of caution.  Indonesia and like minded countries should be
granted that the developed countries  often hypocritically invoke
"human rights" for ulterior political motives.  But this
cheapening of human rights is also much despised by concerned
people who see "human rights" as more than a piece of rhetorical
flim-flam, and recognize that they should mean the rights of
human beings not to be arbitrarily executed, disappeared, or
tortured for narrow political motives.

Whether or not Indonesia's concerns that the Clinton
administration will be tougher on human rights are justified
remains to be seen.  Clinton may hit the ground running with his
objections to human rights abuses in China and Cuba, but be
paralyzed when it comes to countries like Indonesia, continuing a
bipartisan tradition of shouting loudly about human rights abuses
in countries whose borders are not wide open to American direct
investment and remaining conspicuously silent about human rights
abuses in countries which welcome American companies to exploit
their enforced cheap labor and abundant natural resources.  All
this is part and parcel of Clinton's pledge to shore up a
faltering American economy:  when it comes to potential threats
to the profits of American companies operating abroad (translated
for domestic consumption as a potential loss of American jobs),
we can be sure that human rights will be politely asked to return
to the land of rhetoric where they properly belong.  Clinton has
already commented in no uncertain terms that when US "security
needs or economic interests" are at stake, the US will prudently
restrain "our commitment to democracy and human rights."  Clinton
added, "we cannot support every group's hopes for
self-determination."

These sentiments do not bode well for the hopes of the East
Timorese, although we should not be surprised to see business as
usual from an American president.  But with our congressional
success redeeming a modicum of confidence in the political
process, we must remember that we can keep the "question of East
Timor" on the agenda _despite_ realpolitik, in order to help
sharpen that irritating stone in Indonesia's shoe.  As we mark
the first anniversary of the Santa Cruz massacre, we look
forward, not back.