Subject: Rough Passage to Independence (review)
East Timor: A Rough Passage to Independence
BOOK REVIEW Friday, August 22, 2003 Book Review
East Timor: A Rough Passage to Independence, James Dunn (NSW:
Longueville Books, 3rd edition, 2003, 399 pp.).
By Anthony L. Smith Senior Research Fellow, Asia-Pacific Center for
Security Studies, Hawai’i
“When the second edition of Timor: A People Betrayed was prepared in
1996 it was beyond my wildest dreams that in five years an independent
Democratic Republic of East Timor would be in existence.” (p. 1.) These
are the opening words of James Dunn’s latest volume on East Timor, which
is in fact far more than a mere update. East Timor: A Rough Passage to
Independence is substantially different from the earlier editions, not
least of all because it is a far weightier book in terms of scope and
depth (and therefore length). The historical sections of the book are
bolstered by fresh material, while East Timor’s transition through a
historic ballot, through UN control, and now independence, necessitate a
new title. Nonetheless, the theme of western betrayal largely
Australian betrayal runs consistently throughout this book as it did in
the earlier incarnations.
James Dunn is uniquely placed to write a modern history of East Timor.
He has a long career within the Australian public service, including a
stint as Australian Consul to Portuguese Timor from 1962-4. He has been
involved in East Timor in many ways since being posted there. He brings to
the table a deep knowledge of East Timor, but equally valuable is his
insider’s view of the machinations within the Australian government.
This book is also written from the vantage point of Australia, which looms
large in the narrative. In fact, Dunn’s history is far from being a
dispassionate view. He cares deeply about his subject. He is not afraid to
allow his political affiliations to show either. He characterizes the
emergence of Gough Whitlam’s Labor Government as being like a “breath
of fresh air in a stagnant room” (p. iii). He then tempers this with his
obvious disappointment that this more (supposedly) independent-minded
government undertook a policy that encouraged Indonesia’s invasion of
East Timor.
Much like the earlier editions of this book, Dunn’s work is an
essential companion to the issues surrounding East Timor. It is a sensible
characterization of the problem, and, at its core, lays its groundwork
well. A Rough Passage to Independence contains a number of interesting
sub-themes. One is struck, for example, by the number of East Timor’s
current prominent political leaders who, with few exceptions, were equally
prominent as leaders of parties and movements during the mid-1970s. Dunn
provides an excellent typology of East Timor’s political landscape from
1974, and gives a very useful account of the important actors. Dunn shows
how wrong headed the assessments of Indonesia, and of other governments,
were about East Timor. He gives examples of how Indonesian officials in
Dili did not serve their political masters well, for example, playing up
the communist threat while playing down the widespread support for
independence (pp. 90-1). Why did Indonesia invade? Despite elements of the
Jakarta elite eventually seeing through some of these fictitious reports,
Dunn judges that fear of communism and fear of East Timor’s possible
impact on Indonesia’s eastern island Christian communities were the
leading reasons (pp. 92-3). Dunn makes the compelling argument that
Australia’s “green light” to the invasion allowed the Soeharto
government to not only acquire East Timor, but to do so without upsetting
valued relations with the west.
Dunn is right to draw attention to the deficient policies of successive
Australian governments policies that draw special vitriol. Dunn judges
that Australia is far more culpable than Portugal for the mess of East
Timor (perhaps ignoring that Portugal, more generally, had failed to
prepare East Timor for independence after WWII), and even blames Australia
for unnecessarily drawing Portuguese Timor into the Pacific War (although
the Axis powers had a mixed record in respecting neutrality). However one
could question Dunn’s leading assessment that Australia’s policy on
East Timor was determined by its lack of independence and reliance on
great powers. The sequence of events would seem to indicate that Australia
might have been less a follower than one might infer from the opening
passages of the book. Australia, after all, went further than the United
States with its decision to afford de facto recognition of the “annexation”,
signed a deal to gain Timor Gap oil, and, according to Dunn, held back
from the United States the extent of Indonesia’s destabilizing
operations in East Timor prior to their invasion (p. 192).
A few other minor pointers are worth a mention. There are some
grammatical and stylistic problems that have crept into this edition,
while there is also a degree of overlap. It is also more accurate to speak
of “East Timor/East Timorese” than just “Timor/Timorese”, as the
latter fails to differentiate from Timorese on the Indonesian side of the
border. One must seriously question that western governments “applauded”
the outcomes of the 1991 Dili massacre, in which the Indonesian government
failed to do justice after nearly 200 East Timorese were killed (p. 334).
It is also not the case that the East Timor issue gave Habibie “wide
support”, when in fact East Timor’s looming independence was a leading
issue in his demise (p. 340). There is no evidence that East Timor’s
independence had any support within Indonesian society whatsoever outside
a minute number of the pro-reformasi activists. While a detailed analysis
of Australia’s policy up until the late 1990s is to be found in this
volume, there is a lot more that could be said about the dramatic policy
shifts before and after the 1999 ballot.
One particular point of interpretation cannot go unnoticed. When
Indonesia’s troops invaded East Timor in 1975 they killed
indiscriminately, even, at times, their own supporters. Why did they
engage in so much unnecessary violence? Dunn asserts that a leading reason
for this may have been that the predominately Muslim troops were convinced
this was a holy war against Christians (p. 254). Not only is there no
supporting evidence for this line of thought, it does not ring true. The
mastermind of the East Timor invasion, General Benny Moerdani, was himself
a Christian by background and clearly this violence was tolerated up to
the highest level. Furthermore, the Indonesian military was soon to embark
on a similar trial of wanton destruction, killing of civilians, and
organized rape, in the “purist” Muslim province of Aceh cruelties
employed from the East Timor campaign. Rather than some kind of religious
crusade, the mindless violence is probably best explained by a concept
articulated by Soeharto himself in which “shock therapy” would be used
to terrorize populations into backing away from “separatist”
positions. This is both an idiotic and self-defeating policy, but it seems
to be favoured within sections of the Indonesian military and civilian
elite (even in more democratic times).
Still, in the larger scheme of things, Dunn’s book is a brilliant
study and a fascinating read. He is able to piece together East Timor’s
story from an array of primary and secondary sources; much of which he is
uniquely qualified to access. The debate on the finer points of East Timor’s
past will go on being contentious, but Dunn’s account sets the
yardstick. Dunn can claim some prescience in foreseeing the futility in
allowing Indonesia to absorb East Timor in the first place. The passage of
time has not been kind to those Australian politicians and bureaucrats who
saw East Timor simply in a cold war/geopolitical context. Dunn’s
history, beyond being a superb account of East Timor, is also a salutary
lesson about the failure to understand local conditions a lesson that
was as important during the cold war as it is during the current war on
terrorism.
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