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"Turmoil in East Timor"
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"Freedom for East Timor"
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Conflict is nothing new to the tiny territory of East Timor. Since the Indonesian military forcibly took control of the former Portuguese colony in 1975, more than 200,000 people have lost their lives in the battle for independence. The violence reached an all-time high after an overwhelming majority of East Timor's registered voters cast ballots in favor of independence in a UN-sponsored referendum last August 30.

Common Ground Producer Kristin McHugh discussed the conflict with 1996 Nobel Peace Laureate José Ramos-Horta and Kristin Sundell of the East Timor Action Network. Ramos-Horta outlined the history of the conflict leading up to the vote, and Sundell provided a firsthand account of the referendum process and its aftermath.

RAMOS-HORTA
East Timor was a Portuguese colony, predominantly Catholic, of a population of 800,000, colonized by Portugal for almost five hundred years. Then in 1974 the Portuguese Empire simply collapsed. It was then that Indonesia came in.

There was a brief civil war in East Timor, but [was] provoked, instigated by the Indonesian side. That civil war paved the ground for the invasion on December 7, 1975. That was more than twenty-three years ago. Two hundred thousand people died within the first two to three years of the invasion.... [E]ntire communities—even ethnic Chinese who had been living peacefully in East Timor for at least two hundred years, generations of traders who lived peacefully, harmoniously with the East Timorese—were slaughtered.

But this is not a religious struggle?

RAMOS-HORTA
No, it is not a religious struggle because fortunately we, the East Timorese, though predominantly Catholic—devout Catholics—we are also extremely tolerant. We had a Chinese community that lived there for generations. Never once was there an ethnic dispute, ethnic conflict. There was never once one single Chinese living in Timor murdered by the East Timorese.

The conflict is essentially a political one between the people of East Timor and a brutal, thuggish army—the Indonesia Army—that is a law unto itself for the past thirty-two years in Indonesia under the Suharto dictatorship and is a law unto themselves in East Timor in the last twenty-three years.

Kristin Sundell spent 2½ weeks in East Timor as part of the International Federation for East Timor's observer project. She was one of hundreds of UN-accredited officials who observed the voter registration process, the campaign period, and the day of the vote itself. Her assignment was scheduled to last until September 30, 1999. But she was forced to evacuate the country just days after the referendum. McHugh talked with Sundell in Chicago just days after returning from the chaos.

SUNDELL
When I arrived in East Timor I was sent within forty-eight hours to the village of Same [pronounced Sah-may], which is about a six-hour drive over the mountains, near the southern coast, directly south from Dili. I arrived there just under a week before voting day, August 30. And people were very, very afraid. Militias in that area were very active.

People were receiving threats that if they voted, if they went to the polls, that on their way home or once they had arrived back at their homes that they would be killed, their families would be killed. People were facing a lot of intimidation, a lot of threats.

Did the intimidation get worse as the election drew nearer?

SUNDELL
Yes. It certainly did. And people...were very afraid. At the same time people were very determined to go to the polls and vote. We heard over and over again "Even if they kill us, even if it means we have to die, we at least want to live until voting day. We want to be able to finally have a voice in the future of East Timor."

The people that we spoke with saw this not even just as their voice but also the voices of their ancestors, the voices of their families, people who had been killed, who had not been able to live to see this day. This was a very profound experience for people, to actually be able to go and to cast their vote.

What was the actual day of the vote like?

SUNDELL
It was really an incredible thing to see. People were at the polls two hours before they opened, standing in line. When we arrived at five in the morning there were already six hundred people outside and the polls didn't open until 6:30. And then once 6:30 came around, there were at least two thousand people outside the polling center that we were observing. So, just remarkable. And part of that was also due to fear.

People desperately wanted to be able to cast their vote in the morning so that they could get away from the polling center before it got dark because there were many threats that militias were going to launch an attack on the polling centers as soon as dusk fell. And there was a lot of concern that the process wouldn't move fast enough and there would be long lines still at sundown. So people wanted to avoid that. But, as you probably know, the turnout was...99 percent of the registered voters.

We observed one polling station where—each polling station had 600 registered voters—and 599 people came out to vote. The one woman who wasn't there was having a baby that day in Dili. So this is the type of turnout, and this is the type of determination that people showed.

From the standpoint of the vote, was it a fair and independent process?

SUNDELL
No, I wouldn't say it was a fair vote. We recorded numerous violations of the process, mainly by the pro-integration side. The day before the vote occurred, I photographed militias distributing rice to people in Same—the condition being that if you accept this rice, then you must vote for autonomy tomorrow. Bribery is against the rules anyway—but this is also during the supposed cooling-off period in which there was no campaigning allowed. We also saw people distributing pro-autonomy T-shirts on that day.

People were threatened. People were told that if they went to vote, they would be killed when they returned home. So...it [is] just incredibly amazing that despite this, people turned out in such great numbers. We fully expected a much lower turnout. It's very clear, it's not in question at all what the people in East Timor want. They've spoken with a very clear voice.

Did you witness any violence personally after the vote?

SUNDELL
I was not an eyewitness to violence other than seeing large numbers of militias driving in convoys with M-16 rifles and with homemade guns and machetes and very threatening acts. But no direct violence. We obviously heard the gunfire. We had a watch on our front gate, and I remember sitting up at two in the morning just listening to the gunfire all around where we were, coming from all directions. So, you definitely felt the city being under...this siege of militia attack and Indonesian military attack.

It [was] very clearly a coordinated military campaign. It wasn't random violence. It was very systematic.

Do you think independence will ever be a reality?

SUNDELL
I think that it's inevitable. I really do think so. I think that the people are determined. I think that—I mean people who I've spoken with when I've been there are just so committed to, even if it means their own deaths, just continuing to struggle for independence.

The Timorese have overcome incredible odds over the last twenty-four years in resisting the illegal Indonesian military occupation of their country. And I don't see that momentum stopping now, despite the horrors.

Although Common Ground spoke with Nobel Peace Laureate José Ramos-Horta more than four months before the referendum, he too remained optimistic about East Timor's future as an independent nation.

Is a peaceful solution possible?

RAMOS-HORTA
Yes, it is possible. The case of East Timor does not have the complexity of Kosovo. It does not have the complexity of the Middle East conflict. We do not have an overlapping territorial, historical, religious, ethnic dispute. In East Timor it is...[us] the East Timorese, 95 percent Catholics, and Indonesia, our neighbor, the largest power in the region and the largest Islamic country in the world. The issue could be resolved very easily if the Indonesian side, particularly the military, can be persuaded that they don't have to lose face by conceding that East Timor should be independent.

So someone has to tell the Indonesian side that whoever in Indonesia [has] the courage to say "Let's break with the past, let's acknowledge the East Timorese people's right to independence," that they must be commended, even proposed for a Nobel Peace Prize. Then yes, maybe if someone can tell them—talk face-to-face with them—to see the advantages for Indonesia, for themselves, then yes, we could resolve the problem. And it is as simple as that.