---------------------------------------------------------- Visit Indonesia Daily News Online HomePage: http://www.indo-news.com/ Please Visit Our Sponsor http://www.indo-news.com/cgi-bin/ads1 ---------------------------------------------------------- Precedence: bulk TRANSCRIPT National Public Radio [USA] broadcast nationally Talk of the Nation August 31, 1999 RAY SUAREZ, host: Guests: Adam Schwartz, [note: name misspelled in text, correct spelling is Schwarz] adjunct professor of Southeast Asian studies at the School for Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins, and author of "A Nation In Waiting: Indonesia's Search for Stability." Sydney Jones, Asia director of Human Rights Watch. Jeffrey Winters, professor of political economy, specializing in Southeast Asia at Northwestern University, and author of "Power In Motion: Capital Mobility and the Indonesian State Lisa Rose Weaver, a freelance reporter who's been reporting from Dili This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Ray Suarez. Undoing the legacy of colonialism isn't as simple, it turns out, as just rewriting borders and pulling down flags. Amidst political chaos at home, Portugal quickly pulled out of its colonies in the mid-'70s, some of the oldest European outposts on Earth. There was no polite transition to democracy. Portugal hadn't been much of one itself. There was no gradual transfer of power, no cultivation of young elites to take over the civil service and government. Portugal's sudden departure from enormous Angola and Mozambique and tiny East Timor left vacuums and civil wars behind. The African colonies became Cold War battle grounds. East Timor ended up in a different kind of struggle for empire. Part of Indonesia's national myth is that it is the rightful national umbrella for the wide array of peoples strung out along South Asia's vast underbelly. The story goes, `We kicked out the Dutch colonialists. We helped eject the Japanese and united people into a new nation.' Indonesia had regional ambitions of its own fueled by the rhetoric of the non-aligned movement and vast deposits of natural wealth. When Irian Jaya left its Dutch colonial administration for United Nations oversight, it did not unite with the other half of its own island, the new nation of Papua New Guinea. The Indonesians muscled the Dutch, then the UN, then the people of the former Netherlands-New Guinea to become part of Indonesia instead. And in a similar spirit, when the Portuguese left East Timor, another half-island colony, after 365 years, Indonesia rushed in and took control, annexing the territory in a move not recognized by the United Nations. Despite rhetoric about reuniting the island of Timor's Indonesian and Portuguese halves, two separate people now lived on the island after nearly four centuries of Portuguese rule. The East Timorese were Roman Catholics in a vast sea of Muslims. They were Portuguese speakers in a sea of Vahassa Indonesia speakers. The Timorese resisted and were brutally repressed. A whole generation of Indonesian army officers cut their command teeth and sent their men to their deaths fighting the East Timorese resistance. Now the half-island has voted to either become an autonomous province of Indonesia or a free-standing republic. The post-Suharto regime wants to put an end to the long-standing headache of East Timor. Earlier today I spoke with Lisa Rose Weaver, a freelance reporter who's been reporting from Dili. She said that since the vote yesterday, militias have been preventing East Timorese from leaving the island. Ms. LISA ROSE WEAVER (Freelance Reporter): One of the top militia leaders this morning announced at the airport in Dili that he would not let East Timorese, including political leaders from both halves, both the pro-independece and the anti-independence camp, leave the country. Then a few hours later, in fact, apparently militia members did not allow an East Timorese family to leave. It's not clear exactly why they're saying this. If it's a move toward intimidation, or if they think that if the political leaders and figures leave the country, they'll be in less of a position to negotiate their anti-independence position in the days ahead, keeping in mind that the anti-independence camp is very much on the defensive because basically they probably fear that they've lost. They see the United Nations as a foreign imposition, biased toward the pro-independence camp. They've said this many times. They haven't quite outright threatened to not recognize the result of the ballot, which is expected in about a week from now. But they're not happy with the process. This entire process for them came too fast. It's pushed them into the corner. They didn't want it. So the militia leaders preventing people from leaving the country probably is sort of an end tail to that larger picture. SUAREZ: Are the ballots themselves in reasonably good hands? They're talking about a week till a final count is ready. Have they been gathered from all the various parts of the island and are they in one central location now? Ms. WEAVER: They are going to be in the next couple of days. The plan was For the ballots to be helicoptered in from remote areas or driven in from less remote areas, brought to Dili, then matched against the original registration form, a couple of other verification processes, and then mixed, interestingly, so that no one ballot or group of ballots can be traced to the town that they came from. This is interesting because although the election process itself, being run by the United Nations, is quite transparent and by most accounts, with the exception of the anti-independence camp, most people seem to have confidence in the process. Still, this is a situation where people are vulnerable, particularly people who want independence for East Timor. So by mixing the ballots, in other words, no one community can be identified as having voted one way or the other. SUAREZ: Let's talk a little bit about the atmosphere in a place like Dili, the largest city. You keep reading about armed gangs, reading about very rough militias. When you walk just from one place to another, or take a car for a drive through the city, is this much in evidence? Ms. WEAVER: Yes, it is. It's less tense now than it was late last week when militias were heavily armed. At one point swarming into the compound of the hotel where I'm staying, and many other journalists are staying, waving guns and knives, being very threatening, beating up some journalists in the course of reporting. They are--because an arms truce was signed a few days ago, the weapons are not externally apparent. They may be keeping them under their clothes, but they're keeping a lower profile and yet they do ride around Dili in trucks. They do have blockades. You do have to ask their permission to go certain places. And they are definitely patrolling along with the Indonesian police. It is a strange atmosphere today. There's a sense of waiting for the second shoe to drop. Outside of the capital, it's even more intimidating, I think particularly for pro-independence people, from what we hear, from outlying areas. There have been incidents in one place in particular, a place called Ermera, where some UN workers, in fact, were barricaded and trapped by the militia for a few hours today. They were able to negotiate their way out of that situation, and nobody was injured or killed. But the intimidation continues. Houses are burned. People have disappeared. It's certainly not a pretty situation for a lot of East Timorese here. SUAREZ: Reporter Lisa Rose Weaver joining us from Dili in East Timor. Thanks for talking to us. Ms. WEAVER: Thank you. Bye-bye. SUAREZ: Joining me for the rest of the hour are Adam Schwartz, adjunct professor of Southeast Asian studies at the School for Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins, and author of "A Nation In Waiting: Indonesia's Search for Stability." Welcome to TALK OF THE NATION. Professor ADAM SCHWARTZ (Adjunct Professor, Johns Hopkins; Author, "A Nation In Waiting"): Thank you. SUAREZ: Sydney Jones is with us, Asia director of Human Rights Watch. Welcome to the program. Ms. SYDNEY JONES (Asia Director, Human Rights Watch): Happy to be here. SUAREZ: And Jeffrey Winters, professor of political economy, specializing in Southeast Asia at Northwestern University, and author of "Power In Motion: Capital Mobility and the Indonesian State." Welcome back to the program. Professor JEFFREY WINTERS (Northwestern University; Author, "Power In Motion): It's a pleasure, Ray. SUAREZ: Our number in Washington, (800) 989-8255. That's (800) 989-TALK. Sydney Jones, do you have monitors on the ground in East Timor? Ms. JONES: I was just there in late July and I've been on the phone daily, sometimes twice daily to human rights colleagues in Dili, but these are East Timorese colleagues. We don't have people on the ground there now. SUAREZ: And what have you been hearing in the last week or so? Ms. JONES: Very much what your reporter was talking about in terms of--in some ways exultation that so many people turned out for the vote, but at the same time, a sense that this is far from over yet. And the fact that the militias remain with arms and with the backing of the Indonesian army means that we've got a long way to go before we can actually guarantee that there's any peaceful resolution to this. The fact that 98.2 percent of East Timorese turned out to vote, though, despite the intimidation, is absolutely remarkable. SUAREZ: Adam Schwartz, after the last 24 years, it's kind of hard to believe that if there is a lopsided margin in favor of becoming an independent state that the Indonesians will just pack their bags, wave goodbye and pull down the flag. Prof. SCHWARTZ: Well, I think we need to be clear about which are the Indonesians we're talking about here. We're--so there's really two groups that I think a lot of people will be watching in the next couple of days and weeks, and that is the anti-independence or pro-integration militias in East Timor and then on the other hand there's the Indonesian military. There is going to be protests and attempts at violence and unwinding a pro-independence vote by these anti-independence militias. The big question is: Is what will the Indonesian military do? There's fairly clear evidence over the last couple of months that they have directly or indirectly supported a number of these militias. Now will that continue after we find out the results of this vote next week and if those results show there has been a resounding victory for independence? That's sort of one aspect of the--as the reporter earlier said, the second shoe to drop. SUAREZ: Does B.J. Habibie control the military or is it an independent center in Indonesia? Prof. SCHWARTZ: It's probably closer to the latter than the former. The military was under tighter control of the president under Suharto. President Habibie came to power 15 months ago with a fairly explicit agreement with the military that he'd largely leave the military affairs to the military, and he has been loathe to tread on their territory on this and a number of other issues. Now having said that it's clear that the international pressure in the last couple of weeks has really mounted and it does seem to be having some impact, and some of the military figures who had been more overtly supporting these militias have been recalled. Whether that pressure will continue, whether it will continue to be effective, of course--hard to say at this point. SUAREZ: Jeffrey Winters, why do you think the Habibie government came forward with this offer earlier this year? Prof. WINTERS: Well, I think one reason is that Habibie himself is an unpredictable character. And I think he's been trying to do a number of things to gain legitimacy, both domestically and abroad. I think this move, in particular, was intended for an international audience, in part because it's certainly not an initiative to allow this referendum that has gone over at all well with most of Indonesia's military. So I think he did it to try to gain points. And I think he deserves credit for moving forward, although probably the time table for doing so has been a bit too fast to be stable, but once the process got set in motion, there was really no stopping it. SUAREZ: And do you think that the government--that Mr. Habibie himself will back his own assurances if there is a successful vote for independence? Prof. WINTERS: Well, I--actually, I don't think that Mr. Habibie's Government is really going to be the one in charge of this. The next step, of course, is for Indonesia's Consultative Assembly, which is their sort of grand parliament which is going to meet in November, to decide what's going to happen after the vote. If the vote is for independence, that assembly is going to have to then make a decision whether they are going to hold on to Timor, which would be an extremely difficult thing to do, or whether they're going to let it go and basically nullify their decision in 1976 to incorporate the area as their 27th province. I don't think, actually, that process is going to be under B.J. Habibie's control. What Habibie is going to have some control over is the process between now and November. And that is a really crucial period because the question is: Is there going to be more violence or is Timor going to be stable? SUAREZ: You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Ray Suarez. We're going to take a short break right now. When we return, we'll continue talking about the elections in East Timor and its significance for the small island and for the nation of Indonesia. At 21 minutes past the hour, it's TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. (Soundbite of music) SUAREZ: Welcome back to TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Ray Suarez. Today we're talking about the future of East Timor after an overwhelming majority of East Timorese turned out to vote, despite fears of intimidation and violence. My guests are Adam Schwartz, adjunct professor of Southeast Asian studies at the School for Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University and author of "A Nation in Waiting: Indonesia's Search for Stability;" Sidney Jones, Asia director of Human Rights Watch; and Jeffrey Winters, professor of political economy specializing in Southeast Asia at Northwestern University and author of "Power in Motion: Capital Mobility and the Indonesian State." Our number here in Washington is (800) 989-8255. And people who've been sort of vaguely following all this, Adam Schwartz, may remember that earlier this year, Indonesia had an election. It took a long time to count the ballots, but they finally did, and now the results have to be ratified by that same national assembly that's going to be making a decision about Timor. Prof. SCHWARTZ: That's right. And probably another way to look at it, or another similarity, is that as the parliamentary elections back in early June in Indonesia were really more of the first step of a process rather than the end of it, I think the referendum yesterday in East Timor probably should be looked at the same way. There's a long way to go, still, to get us to mid-November, where this People's Consultative Assembly session is meant to conclude. Following up on sort of our conversation a bit earlier, the issue of how effective international pressure is going to be to see that Indonesia does, in fact, live up to its commitments to ensure security in East Timor really, I think, has to be looked at in the context of Indonesian politics rather than just what's going on the ground in East Timor. And the question for President Habibie, as it is for the armed forces commander, General Wiranto, is: What's worse for them, international criticism or attempts to blacken Indonesia's image internationally, or their own domestic political prerogatives? Now, for example, for President Habibie to put the military under greater control or attempt to do so could, in fact, cost him the military support for his own political attempt to remain as president. By the same token, General Wiranto's attempt to instill more discipline in the military, to meet the demands of this international pressure, could very well cost him support within the military. And he, of course, does not want to see a divided military. So these two processes are working at times in parallel but at times against each other. SUAREZ: Jeffrey Winters, has Megawati Sukarnoputri signaled any opinion one way or the other on how to settle the Timorese question? Prof. WINTERS: Well, she has changed her policy quite a lot from only talking of t Timor as the 27th province and really sort of sounding hypernationalist to accepting that there would be a referendum and accepting the outcome, but all the time stressing that her preference would be for East Timor to remain part of Indonesia. I think Megawati is actually a key player at the moment, and one of the--I would add to what Adam just said a moment ago, that one of the difficulties from the domestic Indonesian political side is that what you have in place is really a lame-duck government that is illegitimate. You've had an election in June where the government in power got something of just slightly over 20 percent of the vote. And everybody's sort of trying to figure out what's going to happen in November. There's expectation--a strong expectation, I think, in the Indonesian population that Megawati is going to come to the presidency and yet she's not really playing a major role in determining what goes on in Timor. So you have all of this unfolding while Indonesia's own domestic politics are very, very uncertain. You have an illegitimate government in power and a discredited military. I would add one more thing about the military, which is that I think we really need to get beyond talking about the Indonesian armed forces as the force that's going to guarantee peace and security in the area. I don't think we need any more evidence that the Indonesian military has basically blown it when it comes to maintaining peace. And I think the discussion really needs to move on to what kind of international force--and I think a United Nations force really needs to take over responsibility of keeping peace in Timor now that the vote is over because there is no distinction really between the militia and the Indonesian armed forces. That militia could not... Ms. JONES: I think there's a... Prof. WINTERS: ...possibly be operating in the way they are without either the tacit support or the outright support of the Indonesian armed forces. SUAREZ: Sydney Jones. Ms. JONES: I think there are two other factors to keep in mind. One is that there are a number of other separatist issues around Indonesia. And one of the reasons that the army has been so active in backing the militias in part is that they worry that East Timor's independence will just give new life and spirit to the separatist movement's in Irian Jaya, which is the western half of the island of New Guinea, and Aceh, which is on the northern tip of the island of Sumatra, where there's a real guerrilla war under way now and the Indonesian military is behaving extremely badly as it has in the past in that particular area. But I think there are implications for these other movements if the results on September 7th announce an overwhelming majority for independence. The other issue is now that we have a vote and it looks as though East Timor will be independent, what cultural identity will East Timor have? What kind of administration will it have? Because right now the Indonesian--migrants to East Timor dominate the civil service. If all those people go home, what's left? And how do you rebuild an administrative structure? How do you get an economy going? And who's going to help in those first three or four years--provide the aid and assistance? It's not just a question of security. It's virtually the whole governmental structure is a big question mark at this stage. SUAREZ: (800) 989-8255 is the number. Allie's with us from Chicago. Hi, Allie. ALLIE (Caller): Hi. I just came back from East Timor about a week ago. I was working there as an international observer with an organization called the International Federation for East Timor. I was based in a town called Sommay(ph), which is straight south of Dili. What we saw there was an incredible militia presence, as well as support from the police and military, very obvious on the streets. What people expressed to us constantly were their security concerns leading up to the day of the vote and especially afterwards. My question, I guess, is just about what role you think the US will be able to play in these months following the vote, especially as talk of UN peacekeepers come in. Ms. JONES: I think it's important--this is Sydney--I think it's important to note that there are provisions for UN peacekeepers coming in when this Consultative Assembly ratifies the decision. The dangerous period is between September 7th, when the vote is announced, and this decision, which could be in November when the assembly convenes. It could be later on in the agenda of that session, meaning it could be December, it could be January. Once that decision is made, there will be about 7,000 or more peacekeepers put in. In the interim, it's a difficult question, because for peacekeepers to be sent in internationally before that MPR decision, before that assembly decision, the Indonesian government would have to agree, whereas, in fact, legally at any rate, the Indonesian police will remain in charge of security until that date. Now I don't subscribe to the notion that there isn't room for pressure, but it's going to be very difficult, both legally, politically, diplomatically and so on, to try and get an international force unless everything breaks apart, the Indonesian security forces depart in haste and there's a vacuum, in which case an international force could come in, or if full civil war erupts, which I fervently hope won't happen, in which case, international forces might be brought in to help evacuate personnel. But I think for the moment, there is probably no likelihood of UN peacekeepers until the Assembly's ratification of the vote. SUAREZ: Adam Schwartz? Prof. SCHWARTZ: Just a brief addition to what Sydney was saying. The Document that sort of is ruling the process here is a tripartite agreement signed on May 5th between Indonesia, Portugal and the United Nations. And in that document, the parties agree that Indonesia is responsible for security in East Timor in phase one, which is what we've had up to now, up to the vote, and phase two, which is between the vote and the People's Consultative Assembly scheduled for November. Now the international community via the UN has agreed to those terms, so this is the diplomatic dilemma. For international peacekeepers to go into East Timor in phase two, either they have to be invited by Djakarta or it's going to be deemed an act of war by Djakarta. The international community is loath to do that, and Australia has been in the forefront of articulating those concerns. Now it is also, of course, in the terms of that agreement that the Indonesian military is responsible for providing security and providing the circumstances for a free and fair vote, which they have not done. The question is: Is there enough will on the international community's point to argue on that basis, to argue that Indonesia has failed to fulfill its commitments and therefore it feels prepared to push ahead for international peacekeepers? SUAREZ: Jeffrey Winters, you wanted to say... Prof. WINTERS: Yes, I think that's precisely the point. I mean, they are doing the opposite of being peacekeepers there. They are fomenting violence; people are being killed daily; United Nations staff members are also being killed. And if the terms of the agreement are that you are to be a stabilizer and a peacekeeper, and you're doing absolutely the opposite, then I think the agreement itself is called into question. And I don't think that makes it an act of war. I think there's a tre--and getting to Allie's question, there's a tremendous amount of leverage, I think, that one can exert on the Indonesian armed forces. The Indonesian armed forces very much value their relationships with foreign militaries, especially the United States, and I think it can be made very clear that continuing to cause trouble in East Timor is going to have extremely serious consequences. It would be very nice to be able to stay on the current schedule and not have to insist on external forces going into East Timor. But I think being able to do that is contingent on applying much more pressure than it seems has been applied, to this date. Ms. JONES: I agree with that. Prof. WINTERS: And so I think we really need to have a very proactive policy coming out of Washington at this point putting, basically, the Indonesian armed forces on notice that continuing this kind of violence is just unacceptable and that it's only going to make the situation worse in the months ahead unless it's stopped. Prof. SCHWARTZ: There's certainly no arguing with that. Ms. JONES: No. Prof. SCHWARTZ: And I think all of us on this panel would agree that that pressure should and, in fact, I think probably will be forthcoming. Ms. JONES: No. -end of Part-1 - ---------- SiaR WEBSITE: http://apchr.murdoch.edu.au/minihub/siarlist/maillist.html ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Didistribusikan tgl. 2 Sep 1999 jam 07:38:31 GMT+1 oleh: Indonesia Daily News Online <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.Indo-News.com/ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
