East Timor celebrates 20 years since historic independence vote

DILI, East Timor – East Timor on Friday, August 30, celebrated 20 years since a UN-backed vote ended a bloody, decades-long occupation by Indonesian forces and paved the way for it to become an independent nation.

Banners and flags dotted the capital Dili as residents geared up for festivities, two decades after the tiny nation saw a rocky transition to stable democracy.

“We’re proud of how this country has developed,” said 40-year-old Carlos Barreto. “It’s been slow but change is happening.”

But there has been little justice for the families of those who died in a wave of bloodshed unleashed by the Indonesian army following the 1999 independence vote, which was eventually quelled by Australian-led United Nations peacekeepers.

“The Indonesian military and militias murdered people who chose to make this an independent nation,” said Vital Bere Saldanha, 48, who saw 4 of his brothers die in the chaos.

“The fight for freedom wasn’t easy.”

On August 30, 1999, nearly 80% of East Timorese voted to split from Indonesia, which invaded the former Portuguese colony in 1975 – starting a brutal 24-year military occupation estimated to have claimed as many as 250,000 lives through fighting, disease and starvation.

Joy quickly turned to terror as Indonesian security forces and proxy militias went on a scorched-earth rampage. They destroyed infrastructure and forced hundreds of thousands to flee to other parts of Indonesia. Around 1,400 people were killed.

East Timor – a mainly Catholic country of 1.3 million people – was recognized as an independent state in 2002.

‘Live free’

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, among the foreign dignitaries in Dili Friday, was to sign off on a maritime border treaty that could unlock billions in offshore oil and gas revenue seen as key to the impoverished, half-island nation’s future.

Canberra would also pay for a revamped military base and an underwater internet cable connecting the two neighbors, he said.

East Timor’s once-chaotic political scene – former leader and Nobel Peace laureate Jose Ramos-Horta survived an assassination attempt in 2008 – has calmed down.

But it is facing a serious cash crunch with oil revenues in steep decline and few other productive economic sectors to boost growth. Some 40% of its people live in poverty, according to the World Bank.

Analysts say it is unlikely that the country could develop massive offshore oil and gas fields on its own, and may look for help from China amid concerns in some quarters about Beijing’s growing economic and military influence in the region.

“If the government goes it alone, it is likely to be a major white elephant and quickly run down the country’s limited financial reserves,” said Damien Kingsbury, a professor of international politics at Australia’s Deakin University.

“It may also require a loan, probably from China, which will make the country beholden to a regional superpower whose intentions are not always benign.”

Meanwhile, East Timor and its former ruler Indonesia have largely brushed the past aside.

In 2008, a joint Indonesia-East Timor truth and reconciliation commission found gross rights violations during the occupation and 1999 referendum. But the leaders of both nations ruled out prosecuting military and militia leaders responsible for the bloodshed.

Little came of a UN effort to prosecute army commanders – including Indonesia’s current chief security minister Wiranto – for crimes against humanity.

Declassified documents made public this week revealed the US government had known for months that the Indonesian military was arming and supporting paramilitaries in East Timor before the 1999 vote.

Friday’s celebrations will be bittersweet for Cancio Dos Santos, whose brother was killed 20 years ago. His body has never been found.

“I was beaten and my brother was murdered,” the 52-year-old told Agence France-Presse.

“But today we’re an independent nation and I’m happy because I can live free.” – Rappler.com