Asia Times: Small New York office is a magnet for Timorese hopes



	August 06, 1999	atimes.com

Southeast Asia

Small New York office is a magnet for Timorese hopes
By Farhan Haq

NEW YORK - Without any fanfare but with high hopes, East Timorese from across North America and even further afield are trickling into a small office in New York City to fulfill a long-held dream: to vote on East Timor's status.

On Wednesday morning, less than a dozen people entered the offices of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Manhattan to prove their credentials as East Timorese and register to vote on August 30 for autonomy under Indonesian rule or independence.

Once registered, they face another trip to New York to cast their ballot. The IOM office is the only site for the Timor ballot in all the Americas.

Because of the time and expense involved in traveling from Canada and even Latin America, few voters are expected to register in New York, but what those arriving at the IOM office Wednesday lacked in numbers they made up for with enthusiasm.

''As a Timorese, I've been waiting for this moment all these years,'' said Isabel Galhos, who sought asylum in Canada in 1994 while representing Indonesia in a youth program. ''I hope this is the first sign of me going home within the year.''

''This is the first time I am able to exercise the right to vote in my life,'' said Constancio Pinto, currently UN representative of the pro-independence National Council of Timorese Resistance, as he registered. Pinto fled his homeland after the 1991 massacre of more than 270 people at a cemetery in Dili, the capital of East Timor. ''I have been struggling for this right to self-determination for more than 24 years - since I was 10 years old.''

The United Nations has faced an uphill battle in organizing the August 30 ballot, particularly because pro-Indonesia militias have waged a campaign of violence and intimidation in the run-up to the vote. Nevertheless, hundreds of thousands of people in East Timor have showed up at registration sites since voter registration began on July 16.

''People walked for hours . . . from the mountains, from the jungles, into registration centers,'' said Jose Ramos Horta, co-winner of the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize and a leader of the pro-independence movement. The United Nations estimates that more than 410,000 East Timorese have registered, 400,000 in East Timor itself and the rest in centers in Indonesia, Macau, Mozambique, Australia and Portugal, as well as New York.

With registration extended until August 6 in East Timor and August 8 in outside centers, Timorese leaders are confident that all those who want to vote will be able to do so. Ramos Horta said he was ''optimistic'' about the vote, but cautioned: ''I am still worried about the potential for fake registrations for Indonesians from West Timor.'' West Timor has been part of Indonesia for centuries, unlike East Timor, which was a colony of Portugal until it was invaded by Indonesia in 1975.

Ian Martin, head of the UN Assistance Mission in East Timor (Unamet), said on Wednesday that ''the indications are that very good proportions of the internally displaced have presented themselves, either by going back to their home areas'' or registering in Dili or other locations. Martin said the UN mission had installed several safeguards to prevent voting by non-Timorese or double registrations. ''So far, we are pretty confident of the integrity of the register that is being produced,'' he said.

The East Timorese who registered in New York all had to submit detailed information on their bona fides. They had to be born in East Timor or have Timorese-born parents, or be a spouse of someone who fitted into one of those two categories.

One of the New York registrants, Eduardo de Assis, a Californian resident who left East Timor in 1946, registered along with his daughter Carol, a computer software teacher. He described his trip to New York as ''just a little struggle'' for East Timor.

Despite the costs and logistics of travel, the Timorese registering in New York had an advantage over other would-be voters in their homeland - they did not have to face the threats and violence that have racked the island state in recent weeks. Amnesty International recorded more than 30 killings in the immediate aftermath of the May 5 agreement signed by Indonesia and Portugal that paved the way for the August ballot.

''The conditions are not yet ripe for the vote itself,'' Ramos Horta said. But he remained confident that Indonesia would ensure security for the vote to proceed peacefully, or else it would suffer the consequences internationally for failing to do so.

(Inter Press Service)

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