East Timor-A Preventable Catastrophe

Mark Salzer is a Boston middle school science teacher. He coordinates the East Timor Action Network/greater Boston

I often wonder where Pedro and Gabriella Jacinto [not their real names] are now. I fear they and their children have been killed in an avoidable genocide in East Timor. During the month of August, I, along with four other international observers, stayed with the Jacintos while we were observing and reporting on the conditions surrounding the popular consultation, as the election process was called.

Aileu district, where the Jacinto family lived, has thirty-one villages, including Sukolai, where Pedro was Kepala Desa or village head. Gabriella worked in the health clinic with the Maryknoll sisters. August was a busy month for the family. Two of the children were getting ready to return to school. The coffee crop was being neglected because of rumors that mass killings would take place, beginning with people whose names were on the "lists." On three separate occasions, the militia post 50 yards from the house had sent two carloads of men looking for Pedro. The Indonesian Bupati or mayor of the district was angry that some of the East Timorese he had appointed village heads supported independence. He suspected Pedro and had him watched.

Gunfire could be heard in the evenings in the weeks before the August 30 vote. There was news of people who had been disappeared. Homes were burned and men in military uniforms told people they would be killed if they voted for independence. The soldiers and militia went door-to-door spreading their threats. The day after I left, three days before the vote, my team of observers was stopped by a militia roadblock on their way to investigate an arson. The Kepala Desa of the village pointed a gun and said that he wanted to kill them all. Other armed men threatened our driver and his family. The Indonesian police who soon appeared didn't intervene. Fortunately, a UN civilian policeman arrived and helped negotiate safe passage. The vote itself took place amid mostly calm conditions. However, the very next day, August 31, credible threats to my team's safety prompted their evacuation. A colleague emailed me: " An hour before we left, the family went to Dili, except for Pedro who took to the hills."

Many observers began having nightmares within a few days of arrival in East Timor-so many people with guns and the knowledge that so much violence has been done. While I did not have nightmares then, I do now, even in my waking moments. I imagine some of the anguish that Pedro, in the hills, must have endured when news reached him of mass forced evacuations of people in Dili to Indonesian West Timor. Was his family among those moved at gunpoint? Pedro must have heard also of many killings in Dili and along the trek to West Timor. And for Gabriella, how could she take the news that many people who had fled to the hills were being systematically hunted down and killed by the Indonesian military and the militias they sponsored? Pedro's name had been on several circulated lists of people marked for assassination. Should they go looking for each other and in so doing put themselves and their children at greater risk? So many families have been split up and so many personal tragedies exist.

For many people in the US, East Timor was a news item sandwiched between two distinct personalities, Diana and Floyd. The people, numbering in the thousands, killed on a far-away island just since the vote, and the 500,000 people who had to flee their homes, are likely a distant memory to them-pushed aside by the hurricanes. I am convinced that a strong and clear message from Indonesia's patron, the US, could have ended the violence, yet few grasp the reality that the United States played a significant role in constructing this catastrophe.

At the very least, people who know the truth should challenge lies when they are presented. When the mainstream media distort a story, our collective understanding is diminished. For example, both the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald often said that from 1975-1978 there was a civil war in East Timor that costs the lives of 200,000 people. There was no civil war in those years. Rather, a war of occupation was waged by the Indonesian military against the almost-exclusively civilian population of an independent state. Both papers also carried bylines: "Dili, Indonesia." Neither paper would have written "Kuwait City, Iraq," yet the analogy is exact. Naming is perhaps a small matter, but it influences perception.

Here in the US, we have the responsibility to see that actions our government takes do not diminish the chances for people in other places to secure basic standards of living and a robust democratic atmosphere. We should challenge our government officials when they say that East Timor is really not "our problem," or is "beyond our policing." The US must shoulder a great deal of blame for what has taken place there. The US assisted Indonesia from the very beginning of the occupation in 1975. Journalist Allan Nairn revealed in the September 20 issue of The Nation that beyond training and arming the Indonesians and their sponsored militias, the top US military officer in the Pacific, Admiral Blair, twice refused to relay a message to the top Indonesian military officer, General Wiranto, that the militias had to cease their activities. Did Blair really go against orders and set himself up for a court martial, or did he have another set of orders that superseded the ones that have been reported.

We should help dismantle the corporate and military structures that desire and encourage oppressive conditions. For example, shoe company giant Nike has Indonesian military troops in their Jakarta factory, at time when contract negotiations for their twenty-three thousand workers should take place. Niketown should hear from consumers that they won't buy shoes made by people forced to work under such conditions. Ironically, the day after I returned to Boston, I heard on the radio that Wall Street fund managers had had a banner year. Eleven point three billion dollars was paid out to this small group in bonuses alone.

Why did so few in the US take to the streets? Or come together in planning meetings? All of us need to work on community building and communication, so that when the next crises come-and they are here already: Colombia, education, Iraq, health care-we can reach one another and tackle them as a community.

The UN officials in on the Indonesia-Portugal agreement knew that security arrangements were flawed. The powerful countries setting the agenda for the UN didn't want a safer arrangement for the people of East Timor. The devastation in East Timor is profound. The exact extent is not known yet and it may not be known for a long time. Many formally-educated people-priests, nuns, village leaders, teachers, organizers-were targeted for murder; their loss is incalculable. And beyond the dead and wounded are the profound psychic wounds. Large numbers of mostly poor people have been moved to remote areas and lack resources to live much less to return to their former living areas. I write "living areas" not homes, because so many houses and buildings have been destroyed, along with infrastructure for water, sanitation, and electricity. In short, the East Timorese will be rebuilding for a very long time and it will be very costly. Both the Indonesians who directed the violence and the Western powers, such as the US, that maintained such strong ties to the Indonesian military and made the atrocities possible, should be made to pay. With the flow of money in to East Timor-once it finally comes-concerned people should try to see to it that those monies are not used as a "weapon" as well. We must dismiss outright any neo-liberal approach that would, for example, ask East Timor to cater to the tourist market. As for natural resources and their contribution to the economy, while coffee and some mineral extraction might be re-established fairly soon, most experts agree that the oil and natural gas reserves in the Timor Gap will not bring significant monies in to the economy for several years. Finally, the Indonesians-teachers and medical personnel and the like-who contributed to some positive aspects of East Timorese society will need to be replaced, unless they are both welcomed back and inclined to come back.

I left Dili on a flight with Father Michael Lapsley, a South African Anglican priest whose hands were blown off when he opened a letter bomb in the period after apartheid had been overturned. He had come to East Timor to explore ways to facilitate healing and to help set up a center for reconciliation, much as had been done in South Africa. Some East Timorese have been coerced and manipulated into fighting against other East Timorese, and structures to help bring healing to the social psyche are essential. But true reconciliation cannot come without both accountability and reparations. A war crimes tribunal that holds accountable the criminals, both Indonesians and powerful westerners, who masterminded and perpetrated crimes against humanity and an enforceable system for reparations must be in place.

Indonesia has considerable interest in maintaining its influence in East Timor. I could easily imagine Indonesian-supported militias based in West Timor mounting violent attacks against the East Timorese. I fear the refugees will be used as hostages. Indonesia will likely continue to foment violence unless world pressure is strong enough to hold their interest in doing so in check.