IT’S DEJA VU ALL OVER AGAIN, only this time the tiny proto-nation we little understand is in East Asia, not Eastern Europe. As was true in the Balkans, the crisis in East Timor would benefit from American leadership, if only Washington could see its way through the present post-Cold War confusion. Meanwhile, Australia is leading a 7,500-man peacekeeping force into East Timor, as the United States shrugs its shoulders, laments the humanitarian catastrophe, and willfully ignores larger, strategic concerns.
Explaining to reporters why East Timor did not warrant U.S. involvement, national security adviser Sandy Berger quipped, “You know, my daughter has a very messy apartment up in college. Maybe I shouldn’t intervene to have that cleaned up. I don’t think anybody ever calculated a doctrine which said we ought to intervene wherever there’s a humanitarian problem.” It seemed as though Berger and President Clinton had said something that approximated just such a doctrine in the wake of their victory in Kosovo, but nevermind.
More important, the crisis in East Timor is not simply a humanitarian crisis, but one aspect of a political crisis present throughout Indonesia. The process of democratization in Indonesia is only in its infancy, but already it suffers from the debilitating effects of the Asian economic disaster, a government in turmoil, and several violent separatist movements. Hence, the deployment of peacekeepers in East Timor should not be seen as a simple humanitarian mission. It would be wiser to think of the peacekeepers as a down payment on a long-term investment in creating a stable, democratic Indonesia. How could East Timor, such an insignificant, poor province, the detritus of the Portuguese Pacific empire, undermine the democratization of Indonesia? It is a convoluted story, but the light of recent history helps to clarify the matter.
The 1965 coup which eventually drove out Sukarno and brought Suharto to power also led to a consistent, if sometimes muted, pro-Western stance in Indonesian policy. And although our relationship with Indonesia has been troubled for decades, throughout the Cold War Jakarta generally acted as a reliable ally. At the very least, Indonesia cannot be ignored. It has 200 million people, 13,000 islands — stretching from Southeast Asia to Australia and commanding the region’s most vital waterways — as well as energy resources and with all this, political influence. All of which make Indonesia a pivotal regional power.
Yet since the end of the Cold War, the issues of East Timor and human rights have come to dominate Indonesia’s relations with the United States, Australia, and the West. Despite the almost impenetrable politics of East Timor, human rights activists, journalists, and congressmen have managed to focus the spotlight of Western public opinion on its struggle for independence. Indonesia, for its part, has never been particularly friendly to Western sensibilities on East Timor: Its invasion in December 1975, and its subsequent “pacification” campaign were uncompromisingly brutal.
Complicating matters further, the Indonesian army, which plays a large role in its country’s politics, considers the campaign in East Timor to have special significance. This has become only more true as the years have passed and the savagery of the fighting has increased. Meanwhile, the United States has, in this decade, shown less and less interest in Indonesia: In 1992, the U.S. Congress terminated funds for Indonesia’s participation in the International Military Education and Training program. This move was read by the Indonesian military and government as a gratuitous insult.
Yet, the problem of East Timor could have remained a minor irritant in an otherwise stable, if not warm, U.S.-Indonesia relationship. But, with the 1997 Asian economic crisis and the fall of Suharto the following year, Indonesia’s prospects sharply declined. The World Bank concluded that “no country in recent history, let alone one the size of Indonesia, has ever suffered such a dramatic reversal of fortune.” By any measure — unemployment, inflation, overall poverty — Indonesia entered a depression and still faces a decade or more of economic reconstruction.
The collapse of the Indonesian economy and the devaluation of the rupiah precipitated an equally profound political crisis. Large-scale riots accompanied by a loss of confidence among Indonesia’s new middle class paved the way to the end of the long-tottering Suharto regime and to Suharto’s replacement by his vice president, B. J. Habibie. To eliminate the costs of military occupation, restore Indonesia’s international standing, and perhaps for a variety of other, internal reasons, Habibie moved to allow for East Timor’s independence. The idea of a referendum on independence was first floated in the Indonesian legislature in January, 1999. A month later, in a symbolic gesture, imprisoned East Timorese leader Xanana Gusmao was released from jail, though kept under house arrest. On April 21, East Timor’s own warring factions signed a “peace pact,” and the following month Indonesia and Portugal agreed on the principles for an independence vote, which the United Nations quickly approved and set for August.
Habibie’s already shaky political standing, however, was further weakened in the general elections in June. The opposition party, led by Sukarno’s daughter Megawati Sukarnoputri, trounced Habibie’s Golkar party. Megawati, like the overwhelming majority of Indonesians, opposes independence for East Timor. Presidential elections are set for November, and whatever the result, prospects for stability in Indonesia are not good. Protracted negotiations will delay the formation of a coalition government, and observers of Indonesian politics suggest even that General Wiranto, the minister of defense who has played a controversial role in the East Timor crisis, may emerge as Indonesia’s next president. Such uncertainty suggests the results of the independence referendum in East Timor may not be ratified by Indonesia’s highest legislature.
But it was clear even before the referendum that the United States’ failure to help Indonesia solve its dilemma in East Timor was leading to disaster. Habibie’s reckless decision to schedule the referendum so abruptly brought forth numerous predictions of violence from informed parties. After Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa returned from a pre-referendum trip to East Timor, he reported that Indonesian police and security forces were associating with the local anti-independence militias. “My worst fears are coming true,” he said. In anticipation of violence, Australia put a substantial portion of its small army on a high state of alert in preparation for an intervention and asked the United States for political and military help to deploy a peacekeeping force. The U.S. position remained that U.N. civilian monitors and military observers would be sufficient. Thus did the last opportunity to avert disaster pass.
Now the problem of East Timor has become a regional crisis. Democratization in Indonesia stands at a dangerous crossroads. As the country takes its first halting steps toward political reform, violence in East Timor divides Indonesia internally and undermines the country’s ties to the West. Absent a resolution to the situation in East Timor, the chances for a stable Indonesia and the maintenance of constructive diplomacy are slim. Such a precarious moment is hardly the time for the United States to turn its back on Indonesia and East Timor, yet that appears to be what the Clinton administration, to the relief of isolationist Republicans in Congress, plans to do.
While the deployment of the U.N. peacekeeping force, led by Australia, is a necessary first step, resolving the situation in East Timor is certain to take several years at a minimum. Even East Timorese activists do not believe their nation-to-be is ready for independence without any transition period. But, ready or not, independence is now on the table unless the Indonesian army can remove it through violence. Since the Indonesians cannot safeguard East Timor’s transition to independence, the responsibility falls to outside parties.
The Australians will provide up to 4,500 of the planned 7,500-man peacekeeping force, with the United States offering only strategic lift, intelligence, communications, and logistics help. While the final size and composition of the force is still at issue, other contributing nations may include Canada, France, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Portugal, Singapore, Thailand, and Great Britain. This coalition will have authority from the United Nations to use sufficient military means to restore order in East Timor, but not every nation will send combat forces. Though the Australians have manfully assumed the lead role, their army consists of just three brigades, hardly enough to maintain a rotational presence in East Timor. The Australians are highly professional but do not, as President Clinton claimed, “have enormous military capacity.” As we are now discovering of our European allies in the Balkans, the ability of the Australians to maintain their commitment for long is questionable. Moreover, they have other regional responsibilities, notably in Papua New Guinea.
As was true in the Balkans, our ability and willingness to help resolve the crisis in East Timor and support Indonesia’s democratization will be read in the region as an indicator of our reliability and staying power. America’s closest regional allies already have doubts about our resolve with regard to China and North Korea, which we now compound by our reluctance to assume a natural leadership role in East Timor. Even Australian opinion is showing an anti-American strain. Columnist Geoffrey Barker captured regional opinion, writing in the Australian Financial Review that “Washington’s reluctance to make a commitment to an East Timor force raises doubts about what the [U.S.-Australian] alliance is worth and what its future might be in the post-Cold War world.”
Apparently, that’s just fine with Congress. Speaking about East Timor, majority leader Trent Lott says he is “shocked and appalled,” but the senator has endorsed the same limited U.S. role envisaged by the administration. And, he says, if the East Timor situation “involved [U.S.] troops on the ground,” then “a lot more questions are going to be asked.” Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison believes it is a matter of “strategic sense” for the United States to stay away from the crisis, even though she recognizes that “U.S. interests are potentially at stake in East Timor.” To uphold this contradiction, she further declared, in a Washington Post op-ed, “The truth is that a superpower is more credible and effective when it maintains a measured distance from all regional conflicts.”
One wonders whether Hutchison felt that way about the Persian Gulf War. Unfortunately, the realities of the current Pax Americana will not disappear through denial. Nor will responding to serious regional problems merely as humanitarian catastrophes prove to be good strategy. It is true that stationing a thousand or so American soldiers in East Timor for an extended period would place an additional burden on an already stretched U.S. military. So would reestablishing military ties with Indonesia. But these are reasons to have a larger military, not a smaller strategy. If the United States is to maintain its position as the guarantor of East Asian security, it must work to secure a stable, democratic Indonesia and solve the current crisis in East Timor.
Tom Donnelly is deputy executive director of the Project for the New American Century.
