| Subject: IHT: Timorese
Factions Are Key to Nationhood
International Herald Tribune Thursday,
December 16, 1999
Timorese Factions Are Key to Nationhood
By Michael Richardson International
Herald Tribune
DILI, East Timor - Now that the East
Timorese independence coalition no longer has a common enemy to hold it
together, there are signs that it is starting to fracture. Its political
leaders meanwhile acknowledge that they must either stay united in trying
to rebuild the shattered territory or start campaigning for political
power in the independent democratic state they hope to achieve after 24
years of repression by Indonesia. ''The real enemy now is within,'' said
Vicente Soares Paria, a lecturer in social and political science at the
University of East Timor. ''We have many competing factions and interests,
and we must reconcile them. That is the political challenge we face.''
The coalition, known as the National
Council of Timorese Resistance, was formed by 18 political, student, and
civic groups to present common front to the outside world.
The issue of political cohesion is of
concern to the United Nations, which is in charge of East Timor's
transition to independence and wants to create the foundation for a
self-sustaining economy and stable government in one of the poorest places
in Asia before the handover takes place.
The issue of when and how party politics
resume in East Timor is also of concern to the foreign governments,
international financial institutions and nongovernment aid organizations
that are involved in the effort to help the territory recover from the
violence and destruction by militias and their Indonesian military backers
that followed the overwhelming vote Aug. 30 to separate from Indonesia.
Governments and agencies involved in the
rebuilding of East Timor will meet Friday in Tokyo to discuss an ambitious
reconstruction program that would start in the next six to nine months.
The meeting is to be overseen by the United Nations and the World Bank.
Given the shortage of skills and
resources in East Timor, many UN and foreign aid officials say they
believe that the coalition leaders should put nation-building ahead of
politics until the territory can run its own affairs in a competent and
peaceful manner.
''We need to persuade them to stay united
to avoid premature political competition,'' Sergio Vieira de Mello, who
heads the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor, said in a recent
interview.
The United Nations is widely expected to
prepare the territory for independence within three years. But Mr. de
Mello said he had deliberately not started talking about a timetable since
his administration started work last month, partly because ''I do not want
to trigger early jockeying for political power.''
Mr. de Mello has formed a special
consultative panel to give advice on all major policy decisions the UN
makes in East Timor. The panel, which held its first meeting last weekend,
has a majority of East Timorese members, including seven representatives
of the independence movement, three from groups that wanted autonomy
within Indonesia, and a priest from the Roman Catholic Church, the main
denomination in East Timor.
A recent survey coordinated by the World
Bank concluded that $260 million to $300 million was needed over the next
three years for longer-term development and reconstruction in East Timor,
primarily in infrastructure, health and education.
Xanana Gusmao, who heads the council and
whom many East Timorese want to be their first president, said he hoped
that the territory could become independent in no more than two years. But
Mr. Gusmao conceded that lack of money, skills and equipment was a major
problem for the East Timorese in preparing for independence.
''The main problem is our own capacity to
respond to the challenge and the demands of our people,'' he said in an
interview. ''But I believe that after we reorganize ourselves, we can be a
real partner in all these international projects.''
Mr. Gusmao and other council leaders are
also preoccupied with trying to improve relations with Indonesia so that
trade, banking, and air and sea transport links can be resumed as soon as
possible, that East Timor is not destabilized by continuing hostile
militia activity from West Timor and that more than 100,000 East Timorese
can return home from camps in West Timor.
It is not clear how much longer the
ideological, class and economic interests represented in the
pro-independence council and the United Nations' new consultative panel
can continue working together for the common good.
''The council is a very loose coalition
of 18 organizations with people from all sorts of viewpoints,'' said Jose
Ramos-Horta, one of its senior officials. ''The council is a transitional
body, and that's healthy. If it stays too long, we risk becoming a
one-party state.''
Mr. Ramos-Horta said that if
reconciliation and reconstruction in East Timor went well, the territory
could become independent in less than two years. But he said independence
would have to be preceded by the first democratic village council
elections, perhaps in six months, and by voting a year later for a
national legislature and a constitutional-drafting convention.
''What is important,'' he said, ''is that
political differences are settled peacefully.''
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