| Subject: CSM: East
Timor's success depends on cohesion
The Christian Science Monitor [U.S.]
Tuesday, December 21, 1999
For E. Timor, half a billion to build a
nation
Donors pledge funds Friday to rebuild,
but success depends on cohesion in the half-island territory.
Cameron W. Barr Staff writer of The
Christian Science Monitor
TOKYO
For the people of East Timor, which is
set to become the first new nation of the next millennium, the check is in
the mail.
Last week here in Tokyo, some two dozen
nations pledged more than $522 million over the next three years to help
the East Timorese build an economy, set up a government, and get ready for
independence.
If the United Nations were to hand out
cash to the 850,000 East Timorese, the international community's largess
would work out to about $615 for every woman, man, and child.
But nation-building isn't like winning
the lottery with a group ticket. Instead the UN is administering the
territory, which lies on an island roughly midway along the vast
Indonesian archipelago, in the hope that East Timor will emerge in two or
three years' time with a viable economy and a democratic government.
"We have a rare opportunity to get it right from the outset,"
says Sergio Vieira de Mello, the head of the UN Transitional Authority in
East Timor (UNTAET).
"I must say that the amount gained
has gone beyond our expectations," says José Alexandre "Xanana"
Gusmão, the leader of East Timor's independence movement and in all
likelihood the man who will emerge as its first president.
At an elegant banquet room in one of
Tokyo's finest hotels, he thanked the countries and organizations that are
providing this support and promised that East Timor would not betray their
trust. "We will do our best to implement democracy and justice ...
because development without democracy will not serve East Timor."
The success of this effort depends in
part on whether the East Timorese can get themselves together and then
maintain cohesion.
"If we are talking politics,"
says Kjell-Ake Nordquist, a professor from the Uppsala University in
Sweden who is trying to help East Timorese resolve their conflicts, then
East Timor's most pressing need is "a political basis as broad as
possible" for dealing with the rich countries that are trying to help
them. "The international community," he adds, "is
continually asking what the East Timorese want and need and there has to
be a competent answer."
One division is physical. Roughly 100,000
East Timorese are in neighboring West Timor, which remains a part of
Indonesia. Getting them back into East Timor is a top priority - but many
of them are not free to return.
On Aug. 30, the UN organized a referendum
in what was then the Indonesian province of East Timor to see if voters
wanted to remain a part of Southeast Asia's largest country. They didn't -
by a margin of 4 to 1. This outcome set off reprisals by East Timorese
militias and their backers in the Indonesian military who favored keeping
the territory a part of Indonesia. They began a campaign of murder, arson,
looting, and eviction, forcing a quarter of the population to flee into
West Timor. Yesterday, peacekeepers in East Timor found more than two
dozen bodies in mass graves, where the body counts are expected to rise.
Today some of these militias are
effectively holding hostage tens of thousands of East Timorese in West
Timor, UN officials say. The groups may see the refugees as leverage to
use in negotiating their own role in the territory.
The key players involved - Indonesia's
government, its military high command, and the countries who can influence
those two parties - have all said they favor the return of the East
Timorese refugees. At the moment, says Mr. Gusmao, "the problem has
more to do with reconciliation" than pressure politics.
That is why Professor Nordquist and a
colleague from Australia spent part of last week bringing pro- and
anti-independence East Timorese together. Militia leaders weren't present,
but prominent East Timorese who favored integration with Indonesia sat
down with those who are gratified that independence is soon to be theirs.
At least in some participants' eyes,
there was a sense of common purpose. "Everyone knows that they are
Timorese, that they are willing to contribute to the development of the
country and they all agree that for the development of the country we need
political stability," says Jose Guterres, an official of the National
Council for Timorese Resistance, a pro-independence umbrella group headed
by Gusmao.
But Florentino Sarmiento, an East
Timorese who favored remaining within Indonesia, wasn't beaming after the
meetings. "This has been a deep-rooted conflict for more than two
decades," he said, adding that divisive issues can't be dissolved at
once.
And the CNRT, added one official who
spoke on condition of anonymity, was primarily taking part in the meetings
to see if the talks would lead to the return of the refugees. The official
concedes that with nearly 80 percent of voters favoring independence, the
CNRT sees few other pressing reasons to reconcile with anti-independence
leaders.
Back
to December Menu
World Leaders Contact List
Human Rights Violations in East Timor
Main Postings Menu
Note: For those who would like to fax "the
powers that be" - CallCenter V3.5.8, is a Native 32-bit Voice Telephony software
application integrated with fax and data communications... and it's free of charge!
Download from http://www.v3inc.com/ |
