Subject: Nation: Gusmao: Golkar will intimidate ET
voters
Date: Fri, 04 Jun 1999 17:40:53 -0400
From: "John M. Miller" <fbp@igc.apc.org>Received from Joyo Indonesian
News:
The Nation [Bangkok] Thursday, 3 June 1999
Gusmao: Golkar will intimidate ET voters BY YINDEE LERTCHAROENCHOK
JAKARTA -- East Timor's jailed resistance leader Xanana Gusmao yesterday said he
believed the East Timorese would be intimidated and coerced into voting for the
military-supported Golkar Party, which has ruled Indonesia single-handedly and without any
opposition challenge for the past three decades.
But Golkar's victory in East Timor in the June 7 general elections would have no
influential impact on the scheduled United Nations-sponsored referendum for the former
Portuguese enclave on August 8, when its people will decide whether the island should
become independent or remain a part of Indonesia, he said.
Gusmao praised three major contesting political parties for their policy of supporting
the East Timor referendum and the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-Perjuangan)
of popular leader Megawati Sukarnoputri, who, on Tuesday, seemed to have adopted a more
sympathetic view towards the enclave's future during her campaign visit there.
In an interview with The Nation at the residence of his house arrest, Gusmao said that
although the East Timorese resistance movement had no policy to boycott the Indonesian
general elections and did not prohibit the people from participating in them, he knew that
the people there did not want to take part because they are ''more concerned'' with the UN
referendum on the island.
But with the ''big and strong'' presence of the Golkar structure at the local
administrative level and the lingering ''trauma'' from the past five months of killings
and intimidation, carried out by pro-integration militia forces armed by the Indonesian
military, the people of East Timor would be forced to vote for Golkar, he said.
''During the last five months, there were many killings and intimidation. Because of
the intimidating climate, we guess the people will be forced to participate in the
elections. And because we know that Golkar still has big and strong structures at the
local administrative level, they will force the population to vote. I think Golkar will
win there,'' Gusmao said.
''It will be very, very paradoxical that here in Jakarta, nobody accepts Golkar during
their campaigning. But in East Timor, the result of the election will be for them,'' he
added.
He said the UN presence in East Timor to monitor the general elections was too small
''to ensure the security'' of the people against all forms of intimidation and coercion.
''You must understand that the East Timorese people have been living in trauma for the
past five months. It will be very difficult for the people to avoid it [voting for Golkar]
because they are afraid of reprisal. I guess their participation will be bigger than we
can imagine,'' he said.
The 53-year-old resistance leader said he believed the East Timorese would boycott the
general elections -- the first supposedly free and fair polls since 1955 and the first
after the fall in May last year of Golkar-supported president Suharto -- ''if there is no
violence, intimidation against them''.
Commenting on the East Timor policy of key political parties which are predicted to win
in the general elections, Gusmao said the National Mandate Party of reformist Amien Rais,
the National Awakening Party of popular Muslim leader Abdurrahman Wahid, and the former
ally of Golkar -- the United Development Party -- had supported the referendum.
He said ''there are still many speculations'' over the PDI-Perjuangan's position. But
in her statement made on Tuesday in the East Timorese capital of Dili, Megawati ''began to
go in the right direction'' -- meaning she seemed to have reversed her earlier stance that
East Timor is a part of Indonesia, said Gusmao.
''She already stated that they [Indonesia] have to face reality and that she agrees
that there is an agreement between Indonesia, Portugal and the United Nations. Although in
her view, it is better for East Timor to still be a part of Indonesia. We see in the
statement that she began to go in the right direction,'' he said.
The Timorese leader said the resistance did not expect any political parties to support
the enclave's independence. ''In principle, if they support the referendum, that is enough
because from the beginning of the war [in 1975] we have been asking for a eferendum,'' he
added.
The United Nations still recognises East Timor as a territory of Portugal, and has
condemned Indonesia for its invasion of the territory in 1975 and its annexation of it in
1978.
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