Please note this article has only been lightly edited.
The recent diplomatic row between Indonesia and Australia has once again opened the painful wounds Indonesia and East Timor had to deal with for many years.
Sutiyoso, the governor of Jakarta, was officially invited by Australia for a three-day visit (May 27-29) to renew the sister city cooperation between Jakarta and Sydney. The governor, however, decided to cut short his visit after two New South Wales' police officers bearing a subpoena tried to summon him to testify at the Deputy State Coroner Dorelle Pinch's inquest on Wednesday over the "Balibo Five" incident of Oct. 16, 1975.
Balibo Five" refers to the death of five Australian-based newsmen in Balibo, East Timor as Indonesian troops entered the area. The story's official version suggests that the British, Australian and New Zealand journalists were caught in the crossfire. But the victims' families and especially the coroner of the TV cameraman Brian Peters, however, claim a cover-up by Jakarta and Canberra.
They insisted the five were deliberately shot by the Indonesian troops entering East Timor when colonial Portugal left the area after nearly 400 years of rule. The then Captain Sutiyoso admitted to have led the troop into Balibo but denied any involvement in the incident.
It took days for Australia to apologize for the incident in Sydney. As I followed the turn of events, I could not help feeling offended as a fellow Indonesian. Indeed, there could have been a better way of handling the case within the principles of international relations. Yet as I tried to consider all aspects of what happened, I was reminded of the late humanitarian genius, Y.B. Mangunwijaya a Yogyakarta-based Diocesan Catholic priest, who in 1997 gladly accepted me as his assistant and researcher for 3 months.
Fr. Mangunwijaya, a multi-awarded architect, novelist and social worker, was a well-known freedom fighter whose deep involvement in the East Timor problems brought him into close contact with student activists, intellectuals and military officers who sought advice from him. For several decades until his death on February 10, 1999, he had been a trusted comrade-in-arms for everyone regardless of political and religious backgrounds.
Fr. Mangunwijaya's advice to all parties on East Timor was clear and unwavering: dialogue and justice building for all the people. In a letter to his friend B.J. Habibie, he reminded the then Vice President of Indonesia that if the majority through democratic means wanted independence, Indonesia had to learn to live side by side with East Timor for they share common cultural and economic ties.
The activist students who came to him belonged to two factions, those in favor of an independent East Timor and those who wanted it to remain an integral part of Indonesia. Fr. Mangunwijaya understood that East Timor's long history of suffering under Portugal’s colonial rule instilled in the pro-independence faction the belief that Indonesia was addressing the long neglected programs of poverty eradication and infrastructural development. He shared their fear of a backlash shall a disintegration from Indonesia occur.
Being Catholic, the Timorese found in Fr. Mangunwijaya the embodiment of the Christian notion of the "good shepherd." He repeatedly stressed the importance of people who often end up reduced into mere numbers of casualties. These people had faces, had names. Their well-being should be the priority of any political agenda, a conviction which times made him at odd with parties suspicious of his political leanings.
In another letter to B.J. Habibie, who was instrumental in paving the way for an independent East Timor, Fr. Mangunwijaya thanked him for his courage to cut off the "gordian knot" -- an initiative that would forever be remembered by Indonesia and East Timor. He warned Habibie of the increasing armed civilians whom he believed would plunge the people into a civil war and burdened the army with another conflict.
The priest referred to violence between militiamen, troops and civilians. Many Timorese fell victim in the riots following the 1999 UN-backed referendum. Many Indonesians were forced to leave East Timor as their properties were looted. These left them poor and jobless. The Timorese who decided to be Indonesians, on the one hand, had to leave behind their families in East Timor.
I am certain that Fr. Mangunwijaya, had he been still alive, would have given a more even perspective about the recent diplomatic row between Indonesia and Australia. As somebody who was fortunate to have spent time with him, I am sure that the so-called "hidden" hero of East Timor would have stood by the teachings he tried to convey during his lifetime: it is not politics per se that matters but politics that ensures the people's welfare. This made Bishop Carlos Belo invite him to Oslo in December 1996 when the Bishop and Jose Ramos Horta (now President of East Timor) shared the Nobel Peace Prize.
The rights of the five journalists and their families should be upheld by both Jakarta and Canberra. It should be carried out in "proper courtesy" between two equal sovereign countries, as Australian Prime Minister John Howard himself said. Similarly, Indonesia and East Timor should also find the best solution for the repatriation of the displaced Indonesians who, I believe, have the most to say about the matter.
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