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paperback HK$144
Equinox Publishing
Paddyfield.com
More reviews by Benedict Rogers
Readers may purchase reviewed books from Paddyfield.com, Asia's online bookseller.North American readers may prefer to buy US editions from Powells.com.
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Timor: A Nation Reborn by Bill Nicol
Just over two months ago, the world's newest nation -- East Timor -- was born. After a David and Goliath struggle against 24 years of brutal Indonesian military occupation, which followed over 400 years of Portuguese colonial rule, the East Timorese have finally achieved their goal: independence.
The birth of the new nation has inevitably generated renewed activity in the book market. For much of the 24 years of Indonesian rule, East Timor lay forgotten. That changed in 1991 when Indonesian soldiers opened fire on peaceful demonstrators at the Santa Cruz cemetery, and from then on journalists, human rights activists and even governments could not ignore the little half-island. The referendum in 1999, in which almost 80% of the population chose independence, intensified the world's interest in East Timor, and drew journalists there like flies to a carcass. The orgy of destruction and violence that was unleashed by Indonesian military and their militia groups gave reporters much to write about.
Irena Cristalis has brought out Bitter Dawn, John Martinkus wrote the epic A Dirty Little War and former Australian politician Tim Fischer has produced Seven Days in East Timor. All of these are very personal reflections on the events in East Timor in 1999, and their own eye-witness accounts. Now BILL NICOL has published TIMOR: A NATION REBORN.
Nicol's book is very different from all the others. For a start, it is not really a new book. It is essentially a second edition of his earlier work, Timor: The Stillborn Nation, published in 1978. Its age is evident by the fact that there is no mention of resistance leader Xanana Gusmao until page 318. Even more peculiar, Joao Carrascalao -- who was a key player in the events that led to the 1975 invasion -- does not get a mention until near the end either. The focus seems to be disproportionately on Jose Ramos Horta, the resistance's roving diplomat and now East Timor's Foreign Minister. Nicol stayed with Horta and was, he writes, somewhat taken under his wing. As a result, he devotes a whole chapter to Horta.
To Nicol's credit, however, he does not flatter Horta. He paints the diplomat as someone with flexible principles who is able to negotiate and do deals. He describes him as "a moderator and manipulator", who was "nifty in the back rooms as a political broker". Similarly, while Nicol describes the atrocities carried out by the Indonesian military during the invasion and first few years of occupation, he does not claim that the resistance was perfect either. Of the entire situation, he writes: "Here was a classic case study in politics. An incestuous snake-pit of intrigue and dirty dealings wrapped in hope, aspiration and ideology with a romantic dash of colonial decay and a smelly dose of international power politics". Of Fretilin, the main pro-independence party, he says: "What a pity its words were at odds with its deeds. What a pity it did such damage in pursuit of its own interests." His is not the approach of a journalist-turned-activist, it is that of a pure reporter seeking absolute balance. "It is in the interests of all to expose the follies of those who seek political power, the vices of those who achieve it, and the weaknesses of the governance systems that support it," he writes.
I have visited East Timor five times in the last two and a half years, and lived there for three months earlier this year in the final transition to independence. Nicol's observation that "Dili was the place for me to be. Politics were to be found in the capital, not the countryside," is one which I can relate to, but not entirely agree with. As a journalist interested in the political developments leading up to the handover of power from the United Nations to an East Timorese administration, I too wanted to be in Dili. It was in Dili that I was able to interview Xanana Gusmao the day before the presidential elections, attend a press conference by Bishop Carlos Belo the week before independence day, and witness the signing of the new nation's Constitution. Had I not been in Dili, I would not have had those opportunities.
And yet I was fiercely aware of the many foreigners, whether UN personnel, aid workers or journalists, who did little else but move in their four-wheel drives from their air-conditioned offices to Dili's bars, and knew nothing of the rest of the country. "East Timor is more than Dili," one friend reminded me. I therefore took a more balanced approach and moved up and down the breadth of the country, taking in Los Palos and Com in the far eastern end, Baucau in the middle, Suai in the south-west, Viqueque and Uatu-lare in the south-east, Aileu and Hatu-builico in the mountains, and Atauro Island off the north coast. It gave me a much better understanding of how ordinary Timorese live, and how diverse the landscape is. Nicol is wrong to say that politics is not in the countryside, for that in many respects is where its heart is. Perhaps `politicking' is in the city, but the issues are alive in the farms and mountains and coffee plantations.
Why, it might be asked, is all this of any significance? A tiny half-island with a population of less than 800,000, speaking languages -- Tetun, Portuguese and Bahasa Indonesia -- that have little use in the global stage, is hardly relevant to global business or power politics. And yet it is very significant.
Firstly, as Nicol paints in his book, East Timor is a prime example of the accidents that arise in colonisation. In 1859 the island of Timor was divided by Portugal and the Netherlands. That is probably the only reason East Timor avoided being automatically swept into the Indonesian archipelago -- it was a former Portuguese colony, not a Dutch one.
Secondly, it is an example of how shabby colonial masters treat their subjects. "The Portuguese were disastrously poor economic managers," writes Nicol. If they had provided the territory with the necessary technical and financial help, in time East Timor could have "proved self-sufficient" earlier. When the Portuguese withdrew, instead of assisting a proper process of decolonisation, they scurried away quickly, leaving the Timorese at the mercy of Indonesia.
Thirdly, it is extraordinary how much interest huge nations -- the United States, Australia and Indonesia in particular -- showed in this little land when Portugal withdrew, and how excitable they got about the perceived threat of communism. While Fretilin contained Marxist elements, and was largely modelled on Mozambique's Frelimo, there was no solid evidence to show that East Timor would go communist. Horta tried to give Indonesia that assurance, saying "we're not communist". Nicol notes that there were no more than seven communists in the whole party, compared with 50 or 60 Catholics in the leadership. "No communists held executive positions in Fretilin. The party's large moderate Catholic majority saw to that. Nevertheless, the communists did play an important part." However, even if there was a risk of Timor going red, that could never justify the slaughter of one-third of the population which followed.
Yet Suharto could not countenance the possibility of communist elements operating near Indonesia, and the United States desperately wanted to protect the sea channel around East Timor to enable its nuclear submarines to pass through. The thought of East Timor falling into the hands of Che Guevara look-alikes horrified Henry Kissinger, and so he gave Suharto the nod to invade. Australia, too, wanted to get its hands on the oil and thought its best chance was a deal with Indonesia.
And lastly, East Timor shows the omnipresent influence of the Chinese around Asia. In 1974, according to Nicol, the 12,000 ethnic Chinese in East Timor controlled 95% of all businesses in the territory, and the "lion's share" of the US$70 million GDP. Of East Timor's 25 import-export firms, 23 were Chinese-owned, as were 300 shops and most of the coffee plantations. The revolutionary noises made by Fretilin scared many of the Chinese, of whom 600 had fled by April 1975. Nicol claims Fretilin fed anti-Chinese sentiments. "It is no understatement to say the Chinese were terrified by the new politics," he writes. Yet the Chinese were no less fearful of an Indonesian invasion, remembering the 1965 massacre. And Chinese were particular targets of Indonesian soldiers when they slaughtered people in Dili harbour.
The new East Timor is free and independent, but many of these same themes are recurring. Australia has struck a new deal, weighted largely in its favour, to split the oil revenues with East Timor. China has edged in, gaining influence with new government through generous provisions of agricultural and fisheries aid and funding the construction of East Timor's Foreign Ministry building. As a result, East Timor has enthusiastically declared a "one China policy" and has no ties with Taiwan. Burma leant on East Timor by vetoing its application for observer status at ASEAN. Horta's response was to abandon his previous overt support for Burmese democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and promise Burma his country won't make trouble. And now US President George W Bush wants to resume all military ties with Indonesia, despite the failure to bring top generals and militia commanders to justice for crimes against humanity.
Domestically the situation looks rather better. Although Fretilin is in government with a healthy majority, it did not secure the absolute majority it needed to write the constitution itself. Although Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri has shown signs of an intolerance for opposition and a desire to handle international negotiations on his own, he will be kept in check by the other parties and by President Gusmao, whose Mandela-like ability to reconcile and unify is one of East Timor's greatest sources of hope. The same "smelly dose of international power politics" exists today, and doubtless the various political parties operate in "an incestuous snake-pit of intrigue and dirty dealings" that Nicol observed in 1975, but they are now in power and know they cannot afford to mess around. Nicol's book is a valuable guide to East Timorese themselves, and to the world, for how to avoid repeating the mistakes that led to the tragic death of the East Timorese nation -- even though that nation has experienced a resurrection.
Benedict Rogers
05/08/2002
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Benedict Rogers is a free-lance journalist currently based in London. He was previously the editorial writer on the Hong Kong iMail, and founder of the human rights group Christian Solidarity Worldwide in Hong Kong. He has visited East Timor five times. |
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