DATE=7/29/1999
TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT
TITLE=EAST TIMOR-PLEBISCITE PREPARATIONS
NUMBER=5-43975
BYLINE=STEPHANIE MANN
DATELINE=WASHINGTON
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: The date for East Timor's referendum on
independence has been postponed again and is now set
for August 30th. International observers are
concerned about a high level of voter intimidation --
some of which they say seems to be officially
sanctioned. V-O-A's Stephanie Mann reports.
TEXT: For more than two decades, East Timor, which
Indonesia annexed in 1975, has been the scene of
clashes between pro-independence East Timorese rebels
and the Indonesian army. And the government in
Jakarta has suppressed activities by Timorese
advocating independence.
Given this background, many people were surprised
early this year, when President B-J Habibie announced
he would let the people of East Timor choose between a
greater degree of autonomy under Indonesian
sovereignty or independence. Indonesia and Portugal,
East Timor's former colonial ruler, negotiated an
agreement for holding a plebiscite under United
Nations auspices.
Former U-S President Jimmy Carter talked with
President Habibie and U-N Secretary General Kofi Annan
about the possibility of his Atlanta-based
organization, the Carter Center, sending a team to
observe the referendum. They agreed, and eight Carter
Center members are now travelling around East Timor
monitoring the situation.
Gordon Streeb is associate executive director of the
Carter Center program that watches elections in the
United States and around the world. Mr. Streeb says
East Timorese are turning out in sizable numbers to
register to vote, and the number of violent incidents
has declined. However, he says intimidation is
widespread.
// STREEB ACT ONE //
Registration is going forward. That's very
positive. What we're hearing are a lot of first
hand reports about intimidation, that if you
vote against autonomy, you will pay the price
after the vote. Our criterion is: is there
action being taken to halt this sort of threat
and intimidation? And is that threat
diminishing as the vote approaches? And I think
both we and the U-N at the moment are still not
satisfied.
// END ACT //
Mr. Streeb says Carter Center people have talked to
Indonesian military officials in East Timor as well as
pro-autonomy militia groups and ordinary villagers.
//STREEB ACT TWO //
If you put together what the military leaders,
the militia leaders and the villagers are
telling us, it's quite clear that there's open
collaboration - use of weapons, access to
weapons, wearing of uniforms, escorting of
people, not intervening when there are very
visible signs of intimidation, oversight of
registration places both by militia and by
military. And so, there's just no question in
our mind that the military is still in some
districts, at least those we've visited so far,
actively engaged with the militia.
//END ACT //
According to Mr. Streeb,the Carter Center staff is
finding not only intimidation of voters by militia
groups, but the observers also say Indonesian army
officers are trying to influence the vote. Mr. Streeb
says that violates the agreement signed by Jakarta.
// STREEB ACT THREE //
The agreement itself calls for them not (to)
participate in any campaign in support of either
of the options. And what we clearly have
evidence of is officials on the ground,
particularly the military, actively working
either on their own or with the militias to
promote the pro-autonomy agenda - explaining why
it's to their advantage, and so forth. What you
end up with is a combination of militias going
around during the night threatening people if
they vote against autonomy, combined with
official behavior by some of the military
promoting autonomy.
// END ACT //
A specialist on Indonesia at Georgetown University,
James Clad, says East Timor is a complex place and the
divisions started a long time.
// CLAD ACT ONE //
The bitterness and the violence reflect a lot of
dissatisfaction inside the island that goes back
to Portuguese times in 1974-(19)75 when there
was bitter divisiveness. So, this is a family-
based, clan-based, ethnic group-based antagonism
that's very complicated. And to cast it as the
bad guys - the Indonesian military and their
friends - and the noble East Timorese people who
all want to be independent is very simplistic.
// END ACT //
In addition, Professor Clad points out there are also
disagreements between the Indonesian military and the
police over how to handle the situation.
Mr. Clad says more is at stake in the referendum than
just autonomy or independence for East Timor.
// CLAD ACT TWO //
To vote for independence is not to achieve it.
Would Indonesia accept the result? And even if
it did, and there was an independent East Timor,
how is this state going to be viable? And will
it not experience another civil war by people
who are disaffected with the results?
// END ACT//
James Clad says Indonesia has an additional concern if
it grants independence to East Timor: the signal that
might send to other parts of the country where local
insurgencies are active.
Professor Clad and Gordon Streeb of the Carter Center
agree that, if the vote goes in favor of independence,
the international community may need to become more
involved in East Timor -- and perhaps elsewhere in
Indonesia -- to implement the results of the
referendum and to prevent an escalation of violence.
(signed)
NEB/smn/kl
29-Jul-1999 13:28 PM LOC (29-Jul-1999 1728 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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