By Terry Friel
June 23, 1999
Jakarta - In delaying East Timor's independence vote, the United Nations is sending a clear message to Jakarta that the military-backed reign of terror by pro-Indonesia thugs could sink the vote altogether.
Loyalist militias have killed dozens of East Timorese, forced thousands to flee their homes and driven pro-independence leaders into hiding or exile, making it impossible for a free and fair vote on August 8 as planned.
For months, the United Nations and the international community have unsuccessfully urged President B.J. Habibie to use the 15,000 soldiers and police stationed in the disputed territory to disarm the militias and restore law and order. Now, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan says the failure to do so threatens the ballot, which he on Tuesday pushed back to at least August 21 or 22.
"Militia activities continue to have a constricting effect on political freedom, silencing pro-independence activists and their supporters and forcing them into hiding, thus jeopardising the necessary openness of the consultation (voting) process," he said in New York.
Annan also delayed a decision whether the vote can go ahead at all. He will now decide in about three weeks, after a report from his special emissary, who is due in Dili on Thursday.
Diplomats and analysts believe there is a real chance the vote could be delayed further or even abandoned. "There's no guarantee here," said a Jakarta-based Western diplomat. "If people don't feel safe, if they (feel) threatened by the militias, any result would just be a sham, anyway."
Analysts say Annan and the United Nations are giving Jakarta a final chance to end the loyalists' bloody campaign. "The whole object of the exercise is to put sufficient pressure on the Indonesians to clean up their act in East Timor and to control the militias...," Alan Dupont, a strategic analyst at the Australian National University in Canberra told Reuters.
"It's also a signal to the Indonesians that they are responsible for security, so this delay gives them no excuses for not actually providing the necessary security for the ballot.
"This way, if the conditions are not met by the end of August, or even the following month, the U.N. can say 'We've given you every opportunity...and therefore there are going to be consequences'."
The Indonesian government denies the military or police are involved with the militias. Foreign Minister Ali Alatas says the territory is rapidly becoming safer. "We believe that the security situation is constantly improving and we are quite sure that by the time of August 8, or far before it, the security situation will be fully conducive (for a fair vote," he told reporters on Wednesday.
Despite Jakarta denials, witnesses say police and soldiers have trained militiamen and joined them in attacking civilians.
The United Nations Assistance Mission to East Timor (UNAMET) said last week its officers saw Indonesian soldiers directing loyalists burning houses and beating up an old man. And senior militia leader Eurico Guterres has been put in charge of civilian security in Dili.
Witnesses say Guterres led several bloody raids on unarmed civilians. Guterres has told Reuters he and his men only retaliate to violence by pro-independence groups. But whether Jakarta will, or even can, order its troops and police to rein in the militiamen remains in doubt.
The military, which has built up extensive business interests in East Timor since it invaded the former Portuguese colony in 1975, is divided over letting East Timor determine its own fate.
"Maybe they can't ever be neutral," University of Indonesia politics lecturer Arbi Sanit told Reuters. "They are very political."
Many senior officers believe letting East Timor go it alone would send the wrong message to separatists elsewhere in the vast archipelago.
