Global Policy Forum

By Seth Mydans

Dili, East Timor - Defying a campaign of terror, the people of East Timor emerged early Sunday from their locked homes, from refugee centers and from the forests where they had fled to vote on whether to end 24 years of occupation by Indonesia. The outcome of the vote, which will not be known for about a week, will determine whether this ragged and remote territory of 800,000 people will enter a new autonomous relationship within Indonesia or will become the newest sovereign nation. "This is a very important day because now our time has come to make our own choice about our lives," said Sebastian da Costa, 58, as he stood outside a polling station, holding his voter registration card. Despite the fears and violence of recent days, this tiny seaside capital was silent and virtually deserted this morning, except for large crowds gathered outside the polling places.

The campaign leading to the referendum has been as ugly as the long and violent occupation, during which at least 200,000 people died as the Indonesian military struggled to suppress a separatist insurgency in this former Portuguese colony. In an effort to derail the vote and maintain Indonesian sovereignty here, irregular militias recruited and armed by the military have killed residents of pro-independence areas, burned homes and driven tens of thousands of people into hiding. They have threatened and occasionally attacked officials of the United Nations, which is conducting the referendum with the participation of officials from some 70 nations.

Through the very last day, Sunday, Indonesian military and police leaders repeatedly promised -- and broke their promises -- to curb the violence and provide a safe environment for a free vote. After months of demands and pleading, Kofi Annan, the United Nations Secretary General, demanded once again on Sunday: "We expect the Indonesian Government to honor its undertakings to insure an environment free of violence or other intimidation in which the population can decide its destiny without fear and in hope for a peaceful future." Under an agreement reached among Indonesia, Portugal and the United Nations, Annan will be the final arbiter of the election outcome, factoring into his assessment any intimidation that may have affected the turnout and the vote.

In his statement on Sunday, Annan pledged that the United Nations would aid in any transition period toward any new East Timorese administration, whether in an independent state or an autonomous Indonesian region. Under pressure from the United Nations, leaders of groups fighting both for and against independence pledged at a public meeting on Sunday to lay down their arms. The Indonesian police, charged under the electoral plan with maintaining order, pledged to provide security and to seize all weapons. It was the fourth such set of promises that have been made during the last four months, and like the previous ones, it was broken before the day was out by all parties involved. Though Sunday was far from the worst day the territory has seen, there were reports of more threats and violence here in the tiny capital and in remote and terrorized towns.

In heavily pro-independence eastern neighborhoods of Dili, where the pro-integration militias have carried out repeated raids, scores of young thugs guarded the streets with an extraordinary jumble of homemade weapons and badly beat at least one man. Barefoot or wearing rubber sandals, they carried butcher knives, dirks, sharpened chisels, crude axes, slingshots, bows and arrows, spears, nail-studded clubs, scythes pipes, sticks, stones and iron bars as well as an array of homemade pistols. Across town, anti-independence militia members in black T-shirts carrying knives, pistols and a few automatic weapons menaced passers-by and threatened journalists. In both areas, groups of police watched passively, seeming to shrink from confrontation. On Thursday, David Wimhurst, the chief United Nations spokesman here, described police explanations for their passivity as "inadequate."

Though the anti-independence militias have clearly had the upper hand in terror, the pro-independence forces, with 24 years of experience in both war and propaganda, have seized the role of well-intentioned victims. They have much support outside the country, as well as the support of East Timor's two Nobel Peace Prize winners, the Roman Catholic Bishop Carlos Belo and the exiled politician José Ramos-Horta. At Sunday's public meeting, a militia leader named Eurico Guterres, who has become a vivid personality here with his long, tangled hair, menacing displays of arms and bellicose statements, asserted that some mysterious third party must be carrying out the violence. In a much smoother presentation, Falur Rate Laek, the third-ranking leader of the separatist insurgency known as Falintil, called for peace, brotherhood and a bright future for East Timor. Echoing the policy put forward by José Alexandre Gusmí£o, an imprisoned separatist leader who could become the leader of a free East Timor, Commander Falur pledged to embrace his battlefield enemies in a general amnesty. Then Commander Falur, in his Che Guevara-style beret and dark glasses, offered a demonstration: he turned to Guterres and embraced him.