Global Policy Forum

By Kanis Dursin

East Timor is facing a rough road ahead as it struggles to bring about peace in the territory and reconciliation between warring groups ahead of planned elections and subsequent independence by end-2001, analysts here say. "There should be peace in East Timor and reconciliation between the pro-Indonesian groups and pro-independence groups should be achieved," said Dewi Fortuna Anwar, of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI). "Without peace in East Timor, it would be very, very difficult for the country to really develop because the East Timorese will continue to be trampled by a lot of security issues," she said. East Timor, which has been under United Nations administration since November last year, is set to achieve full-fledged independence by end- 2001, after a crucial election earlier in the year of a constituent assembly that will draft and adopt a constitution for the former Portuguese colony.

East Timor was invaded by Indonesia in 1975 and annexed it for almost a quarter century. It voted overwhelmingly for independence in a United-Nations sponsored referendum in 1999, but pro-independence forces embarked on a deadly campaign of violence that necessitated the intervention of the international peacekeepers. The post-ballot unrest prompted some 250,000 people to flee into West Timor and more than 100,000 others to seek refuge in the forests of East Timor. The East Timorese have already established around 12 political parties, which have expressed their readiness to compete in the election scheduled in the middle of next year.

Anwar, who worked as a presidential advisor during the leadership of B.J. Habibie, said it would be very important that all various political forces in East Timor are represented in the elections. "If they are really committed to developing a pluralistic democracy in East Timor, then they have to be sure the various political forces are represented," she said. "That's why before they can have the elections, it is very important that they finish reconciliation otherwise the elections will simply be a mock elections. Then they will have a one-party system, that only Xanana Gusmao, Jose Ramos-Horta will be in power while the other groups will not be represented," Anwar added.

Almost all agree that many challenges will still lie ahead. "The East Timorese are not prepared to compete in a peaceful way because they are still very, very angry at each other," said Salvador Ximenes Soares, former Indonesian parliamentary member who is now a member of a committee preparing for the independence of East Timor. "I don t think the next general elections can guarantee a new era for East Timor because the legacy of the East Timor is very bad politically and socially," said J.B. Kristiadi, deputy executive director at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.

Kristiadi says that the important thing is to educate the East Timorese first to open their political horizons and teach them to accept the results of the upcoming elections. "The level of political awareness of East Timorese is very low," he said, adding that the political culture in East Timor is influenced by traditional tribes. The future of East Timor, according to Kristiadi, depends very much on the outcome of the general elections.

"If two or more political parties can join forces to establish a stable government and provide very reasonable programs, domestically and internationally, East Timor can survive. So, the milestone is the next general elections,'' he said. He added: ''The election is very crucial because it is not very easy for the East Timorese to be good winners and good losers because the war already disturbed the social order."

In a bid to diffuse tensions among East Timorese, a meeting was organized in Denpasar, Bali on Dec 18-19 to discuss the reconciliation process. At the meeting were Indonesian foreign affairs minister Alwi Shihab and Jose Alexandre Xanana Gusmao, the head of East Timor's political umbrella group, the Council for Timorese National Resistance (CNRT). "This meeting heralds the beginning of the reconciliation process among the East Timorese," Shihab said, as he urged its leaders to use the opportunity to boost the process to promote peace, stability and democracy in East Timor.

President Abdurrahman Wahid has often said that one of the major problems of East Timor is how to deal with the bitterness between the two groups of East Timorese. "We know that reconciliation may take a long time, but we believe that we will be able to overcome the obstacles and differences," Gusmao said. "Each side has to have a commitment that they will not want to continue to live in conflict. If each side believes that they want peace and then they have to work on it," Anwar said.

The security of returning refugees remains a major concern among East Timorese in exile. The refugees in West Timor, some of whom are believed to be militia members, are hesitant to return to East Timor for safety reasons. "Unless East Timorese resolve the security issue, they cannot really develop politically or economically because the basic of everything is political and security stability," Anwar said. A fully independent East Timor, according to analyst Arbi Sanit, would rely heavily on international assistance to finance its government activities and to rebuild the territory's basic infrastructures that were destroyed in the run-up to and after the referendum in 1999.

"East Timor will be very dependent on international support for a long time," Sanit said, warning the international community against making East Timor totally dependent on the international community. "It doesn't make sense for East Timor to be free of Indonesia, but neither to be simply the supplicant and not a total foster child of the international community," Anwar argued. According to Anwar, it should be made clear from the very beginning that any assistance provided by the international community would be to help East Timor in becoming fully independent. "The international community cannot build East Timor for East Timorese. The East Timorese have to do it themselves," she said.

According to Sanit who is a lecturer at the state-run University of Indonesia, East Timor cannot be really independent of Indonesia because geographically it is attached to West Timor, and "it only makes economic sense for East Timor to have close economic relations with Indonesia". Referring to human rights violations by pro-Indonesia militias, Sanit said the abusers should be brought to trial. "Political solutions won't give justice to the victims in East Timor," Sanit said.