UN abandoned new nation too soon
Jun. 2, 2006. 01:00 AM
ROSIE DIMANNO
"It is inconceivable that more blood will be shed in tiny East Timor, not freedom fighter against freedom fighter."
Me, in an April 2002 column.
It's bad form to quote oneself. Usually, commentators do it to wag an I-told-you-so finger, perversely pleased over worst predictions realized.
Put it down to optimism and affection for what was, at that time, the newest sovereign nation of the 21st century.
Now, given combustible events over the past month, East Timor is in danger of becoming the planet's latest failed state.
Fortunately, the country still has a beloved leader — their hero of independence, President Xanana Gusmao — to rally around. He has the stones, and moral authority, to bring East Timor back from the brink of ruin.
Yesterday, tears streaming down his face, Gusmao spoke with poignant urgency to displaced citizens who have taken refuge in a United Nations compound: "I know there are young people who roam the city night and day, burning homes and killing people. I will work with international soldiers to arrest them and seize their weapons.''
A poet turned guerrilla turned reluctant statesman, Gusmao pleaded for national reconciliation, even as a man was hacked to death by machete nearby. "It is our duty to forgive each other and rebuild this nation that we all love, from the ashes. These moments are the most critical ones for all of us.''
There are 600 mutinying soldiers holed up in the hills that surround the capital, Dili. But their charismatic commander, Maj. Alfredo Reinado, has declared that he remains loyal to Gusmao, who spent most of his life fighting the occupying Indonesian military from jungle hideouts, and would lay down his arms if given written instructions to do so from the president.
Reinado also has demanded the resignation of reviled Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri. It was Alkatiri who provoked the current crisis by sacking one-third of the army in March, after they'd gone on strike over pay disputes, nepotism and accusations of ethic discrimination within the military. Then he gave the order for troops to fire upon former soldiers and their supporters during a demonstration April 28. Five people were killed.
It's been chaos ever since, with gangs of marauding youth from both sides of the social divide terrorizing the capital by night. Bitterness from long-standing ethnic rivalries between the eastern and western parts of the country, Loromonu and Lorosae, has erupted catastrophically on the streets, the army and police force disintegrating, deserters and those still in uniform too busy fighting each other to quell the looting and hooliganism.
Earlier this week, Gusmao took over "sole'' responsibility for defence and security from the government, forcing the resignation of the interior and defence ministers. But Alkatiri, leader of the ruling Fretilin party, refuses to step down, insisting he's still in charge because the presidency is largely a ceremonial office, and Gusmao doesn't have the constitutional authority to intervene.
Only the arrival of an Australia-led multinational force — it has the blessing of the UN but no formal mandate — has managed to restore some semblance of calm.
How did it come to this?
I was in East Timor in 1999, saw for myself how eager the people were to re-invent themselves as a society, cleaning up the horrific mess that had been left behind by the scorched-earth withdrawal of paramilitary forces scuttling back over the border after laying waste to 90 per cent of the buildings in the capital, burning fields, slaughtering more than a thousand unarmed civilians, raping countless women and girls.
All of that brutality had been inflicted in just one week of unbridled madness, militias loyal to Jakarta unleashing one final wave of punishment on East Timorese who'd had the temerity to vote, in a UN-monitored referendum, for sovereignty rather than autonomy as a chafing 27th province within Indonesia.
Yet East Timor survived, protected, however belatedly, by a UN peacekeeping force that stuck around long enough for the UN Transitional Administration to hand off to a democratically elected national government.
"A date with democracy,'' the UN Secretary-General had said.
Impossible to imagine then, despite formidable difficulties facing the tiny country, that, only four years later, East Timorese would be killing East Timorese, allies and compatriots doing unto themselves what cruel colonialism, violent oppression, invasion, occupation and annexation had not been able to accomplish: Loss of faith.
Some latitude must be granted to the Timorese, so deeply scarred and traumatized by 24 years under the thumb of Indonesia — almost a third of the population, upwards of 200,000 people, killed by violence and disease and famine. Four centuries before that under harsh Portuguese rule, among the worst of European colonizing powers.
It was collective resistance to Indonesia that had held feuding rebel factions together.
Sovereignty was a fragile status in 2002, democratic institutions non-existent when, with the UN acting as midwife, East Timor emerged from the birth canal of independence. After winning the country's first parliamentary elections, Alkatiri, a Portuguese-speaking sophisticate who sat out the terror years as an exile in Mozambique, failed to promote any spirit of oneness, rejecting a government of national unity, denying ministries and senior army positions to anyone outside his political base, unwisely making Portuguese the official language. On Alkatiri's watch, East Timor became even poorer than it was under Indonesia, despite the potential of vast offshore oil resources. It now survives only on donor-state handouts.
In recent weeks, the country exploded back into the international headlines, seized anew by duelling militias, rampaging gangs, at least 100,000 citizens driven again from their homes, seeking shelter from the storm in UN refugee camps.
This time, the enemy is within and not paramilitaries inflicting havoc from without.
Alkatiri is a bully and incompetent to boot. Yet still the fault lies primarily with the UN, the same organization that ill-served East Timor in 1999, when last blood ran in the streets of Dili, even nuns and priests butchered by marauding forces.
Though well aware that all hell would likely break loose over the predictable referendum result — lessons from the disaster of Rwanda ignored — the UN provided no security for East Timorese against avenging paramilitaries loyal to Jakarta. They were left to cope with the savage violence on their own.
It was the Australians in the main, as a regional power, who restored order. They were at the forefront of a UN deployment, including 550 Canadian troops that arrived disastrously late, chasing away the paramilitaries.
But the UN pulled up stakes lickety-split after the 2002 elections, ignoring the vulnerable reality of a country that had precious little experience with democracy.
So it's down to Australia again now. In recent days, they've sent 1,300 troops back into East Timor, at the government's request, with smaller deployments contributed by New Zealand, Malaysia and Portugal.
The other day, acknowledging that UN forces had too hastily abandoned East Timor, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan mused aloud: "When we get into these situations, we should be in for the medium to the longer term and take a longer-term view, rather than a short-term view, believing that we can leave after elections.''
He added: "It's really sad and tragic that we have to relive this situation again in East Timor.''
Yes, isn't it?
What a luxury the UN affords itself: Dilatory regrets and the right to be wrong.
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