East Timor beckons

A recent caller on the President and Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario who came during the celebration of the 27th anniversary of the EDSA Revolution was Jose Luis Guterres, senior minister and minister for foreign affairs and cooperation of East Timor. The anniversary gave him cause to celebrate and at the same time feel sentimental, as it reminded him of the long and painful struggle for independence of the Timorese people.

Minister Guterres was a “freedom fighter,” and one of the stalwarts of the East Timor resistance movement in the 1970s. It was a tough fight, he said in an interview after his meeting with President Noy and Secretary  Del Rosario, a meeting serving as a prelude to the visit of the current East Timor prime minister, Xanana Gusmao, possibly in May.

East Timor’s government leaders are made up mostly of resistance fighters. After hundreds of years under the control of foreign colonizers, and now running their own affairs as a free, democratic country, they face the gargantuan task of nation-building and improving the quality of life of 1,500,000 East Timorese. “We are not rich, but we are not poor,” the soft-spoken minister said. The Gross Domestic Product as of 2011 is $9.507 billion, and the per capita income is $3,949. The rich do not live profligately; they have only one car, a modest home, not mansions.

 The country was once known as a supplier of coffee and sandalwood. But now, it boasts of a huge revenue from its oil resources, of which $12 billion goes annually to its petroleum fund. According to the minister, a committee is tasked with overseeing this fund to prevent misuse and corruption.

Minister Guterres expressed interest in partnering with Philippine counterparts in establishing and operating economic-sized and diversified agro-industrial projects as suggested by Saeed A. Daof, chairman of the Southern Philippines Development Authority during their meeting. He further elucidated that instead of pouring the petroleum fund in government bonds and small projects, it would rather enter into trade and cooperation with foreign partners like the Filipinos for agricultural production and training of Timorese workers.

In addition to Minister Guterres, Chairman Daof was received by East Timor Ambassador to the Philippines Juvencio de Jesus, Director General Joad Freitas de Carara, Director for Cooperation Francisco Dionisio, and Education Attaché Mariano Carmo, and East Timor Consul General Lito Jimenez.

Minister Guterrres recounted the history of the Southeast Asian country, which is the eastern half of the island of Timor. Officially called Democratic Republic of Timor-leste, its size is about 15,410 square kilometers — bigger than Singapore and Brunei.

Timor was first colonized by the Portuguese in 1520. The Dutch, who claimed many of the surrounding islands, took control of the western portion of the island in 1613. Portugal and the Netherlands fought over the island until an 1860 treaty divided Timor, granting Portugal the eastern half of the island as well as the western enclave of Oecussi (the first Portuguese settlement on the island). Australia and Japan fought each other on the island during World War II; nearly 50,000 East Timorese died during the subsequent Japanese occupation.

In 1949, the Netherlands gave up its colonies in the Dutch East Indies, including West Timor, and the nation of Indonesia was born. East Timor remained under Portuguese control until 1975, when the Portuguese abruptly pulled out after 455 years of colonization. The sudden Portuguese withdrawal left the island vulnerable.

In late 1975, East Timor declared its independence, but later that year was invaded and occupied by Indonesia and was declared Indonesia’s 27th province the following year. In 1999, following the United Nations-sponsored act of self-determination, Indonesia relinquished control of the territory and East Timor became the first new sovereign state of the 21st century on May 20, 2002.          .

Research showed that Indonesia’s invasion and its brutal occupation of East Timor — small, remote, and desperately poor — largely escaped international attention. East Timor’s resistance movement was violently suppressed by Indonesian military forces, and more than 200,000 Timorese were reported to have died from famine, disease, and fighting since the annexation. Indonesia’s human rights abuses finally began receiving international notice in the 1990s, and in 1996 two East Timorese activists, Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo and José Ramos-Horta, received the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to gain freedom peacefully.

Research further showed that after Indonesia’s hard-line president Suharto left office in 1998, his successor, B. J. Habibie, unexpectedly announced his willingness to hold a referendum on East Timorese independence, reversing 25 years of Indonesian intransigence. As the referendum on self-rule drew closer, fighting between separatist guerrillas and pro-Indonesian paramilitary forces in East Timor intensified. The UN-sponsored referendum had to be rescheduled twice because of violence. On Aug. 30, 1999, 78.5% of the population voted to secede from Indonesia. But in the days following the referendum, pro-Indonesian militias and Indonesian soldiers retaliated by razing towns, slaughtering civilians, and forcing a third of the population out of the province. After enormous international pressure, Indonesia finally agreed to allow UN forces into East Timor on September 12. Led by Australia, an international peacekeeping force began restoring order to the ravaged region.

“East Timor’s capital, Dili, turned chaotic in April and May 2006, when the prime minister, Mari Alkatiri, fired almost half the country’s soldiers for striking. The fired soldiers, who had protested against low wages and alleged discrimination, then began rioting, and soldiers loyal to the prime minister started battling them. Soon the violence had spread to the police force and the civilian population, causing about 130,000 to flee their homes to avoid the bloodshed. Australian troops were called in to control the unrest. On June 26, Prime Minister Alkatiri resigned in an effort to stop the country’s disintegration. Alkatiri was replaced by José Ramos-Horta, winner of the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize.

East Timor today has for its prime minister Xanana Gusmao, and president, Taur Natan Ruak.

Looking back to his country’s tumultuous experience, Guterres said, “We can’t be imprisoned by the past. We must not forget the past, we must move on to the future. The most important reward for us Timorese people is that we have our own country — a free country.”

I asked him about the status of women in his country. He smiled. “Twenty percent of the 65 members of Parliament are women. We can’t have justice and equality if we do not have women involved in decision-making.”

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I leave it to the Supreme Court to decide on whether the Bacolod diocese should cut down to the required size its tarpaulin commanding its parishioners to vote against the senatorial candidates who voted yes to the Reproductive Health bill. Its insistence on its perceived constitutional right to freedom of speech is not the source of consternation for me. What is is its branding pro-RH legislators as members of Team Patay, and its elevation of those who voted against it as belonging to Team Buhay. This is a terrible play on words. This is clear and simple: the diocese believes that the pro-RH legislators are murderers, and those against it are lifegivers. To call pro-RH legislators killers is blatantly wrong. The law passed protects the lives of women, and gives them access to information and services that allow them to decide when and how many children they want to have — children they can afford to give quality life. Churchmen say the bill is for abortion. Wrong! I’m sure women — including some members of the Bacolod diocese — who know better than priests who do not give birth and do not die from childbirth (although some have children with their parishoners) will not heed the message of murderous tarpaulins.

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