By Indira A.R. Lakshmanan
The renewal of armed struggle threatens to undermine both UN-brokered peace talks, scheduled next week in New York, and a vote in early July to choose either autonomy or independence for East Timor. A renewed guerrilla struggle in the troubled territory is the latest of several signs that Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous nation, faces the threat of splintering.
For 32 years, the authoritarian leader, General Suharto, kept a tight lid on separatist movements in this vast and diverse archipelago nation of 17,500 islands. But an economic crisis sparked popular uprisings that forced Suharto from power last May and that fueled secessionist sentiments in the provinces of East Timor, Aceh, and Irian Jaya. Ethnic and religious rivalries have flared on several other islands, causing hundreds of deaths and creating thousands of refugees.
Clashes yesterday between Christians and Muslims on the eastern Moluccas Islands brought the week's death toll there to 66, Reuters reported. Thousands of women and children are reported to have fled their villages since January, while men roam streets with machetes, spears, and axes. More than 250 have been slain there this year in religious violence. On the northern island of Borneo, nearly 200 people have been killed since February in gruesome clashes between ethnic Malay, Dayak, and Chinese allied against settlers from Madura island.
The latest flashpoint is East Timor, a former Portuguese colony invaded by Indonesia in 1975 and annexed the next year. Indonesia's rule in East Timor was never recognized by the United Nations or most countries, and Jakarta is linked to the deaths of an estimated 200,000 people during a military crackdown and famine that followed, and for human rights abuses ever since. Since the fall of Suharto, Indonesia's new president, B. J. Habibie, has said he would consider independence for East Timor.
In February, Habibie moved Gusmao to house arrest from prison, where he was serving a 20-year sentence for leading the armed revolt, and said he wanted the East Timor issue resolved by the end of the year. Last month, Indonesia and Portugal agreed to a UN-supervised vote that would allow residents to choose autonomy or full independence.
So why the escalation of conflict now?
There are those who believe pro-Indonesia forces in East Timor have sparked violent incidents to provoke guerrillas into renewing the civil war, thereby squelching chances of a peaceful vote that might bring about independence. ''These incidents are done deliberately by people to get this kind of a reaction from Xanana,'' said Mario Carrascalao, former governor of East Timor. ''The Army is strong enough to prevent these kinds of conflicts, but they are choosing not to act. There are vested interests in East Timor who do not want the situation to be solved.''
Last night, pro-independence groups reported clashes, arrests, deaths, and civilians fleeing violence in six cities, including Liquisa, 1,250 miles east of Jakarta. Indonesian officials strove yesterday to calm the renewed tensions. Dewi Fortuna Anwar, assistant minister and state secretary for foreign affairs, called for ''calm and peace, so ... there will be a conducive climate for East Timor people to discuss and vote with an open mind.''
''The people of East Timor have sacrificed for 23 years. They should wait for at least three more months to see what happens,'' Carrascalao said. But Gusmao's lawyer, Johnson Panjaitan, said the rebel leader would back off only if the UN agrees to send peacekeeping forces - an unlikely scenario - and if the military stops supporting militias. Witnesses in Dili, East Timor's capital, reported seeing new troops arriving yesterday.
