Asia Times: The cost of rebuilding East Timor



	September 30, 1999	atimes.com

Southeast Asia

The cost of rebuilding East Timor
By Farhan Haq

UNITED NATIONS - Timorese resistance leader Xanana Gusmao has pleaded for the reconstruction of East Timor and the quick deployment of international troops there to restore order after weeks of violence by pro-Indonesia forces.

Gusmao, freed three weeks ago from house arrest in Indonesia, made his appeal for international assistance as the United Nations announced that East Timor would need $135.5 million in immediate emergency aid.

The Timorese leader met separately with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas on Tuesday and declared that the situation of some 200,000 East Timorese, forcibly deported to West Timor, was especially dire.

''We need the multinational force to move fast into East Timor, to increase the number of troops there,'' said Gusmao, leader of the pro-independence National Council for Timorese Resistance (CNRT). Currently, only about half of the more than 7,000 Australian-led troops of the International Force, or Interfet, are deployed in East Timor.

Gusmao said hundreds of thousands of East Timorese who had been moved to the Indonesian province of West Timor and to several Indonesian islands were facing ''very poor conditions of food and security. They live in fear.''

UN spokesman Fred Eckhard said that UN and Indonesian officials were discussing the repatriation of the East Timorese refugees, approximately 230,000 of whom are in West Timor. But Indonesian officials said it was ''too early to discuss their return'', according to Eckhard.

Jose Ramos Horta, Gusmao's deputy and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, added that the CNRT had urged all governments to exert diplomatic pressure for the return of the Timorese refugees and called for a ''mini-Marshall Plan'' of assistance to the island state.

According to UN officials and reports from the territory, East Timor has been largely destroyed in the violence by the militias - reportedly aided by some Indonesian troops - since the August 30 ballot in which nearly 80 percent of East Timorese voters opted for independence from Indonesia.

The UN report issued Tuesday said that at least $135.5 million would be needed to handle the basic requirements for the next six months of the roughly 500,000 East Timorese who were driven from their homes because of the violence. Of that amount, more than $40 million is needed for food aid, $22.4 million for shelter and other support to refugees, $24 million for medicine and $21.7 million for clean water and sanitation.

Ramos Horta added that the World Bank and more than 30 countries have confirmed their intention to assess East Timor's rebuilding needs jointly and to estimate the territory's long-term requirements.

After several weeks during which thousands of East Timorese are believed to have been killed and hundreds of thousands lived with little food in makeshift camps, Gusmao's arrival at the United Nations struck a somber note. ''You have been through a lot, and we've been through a lot together,'' Annan said at the beginning of his meeting with Gusmao.

Although the United Nations succeeded in carrying out the August 30 ballot, which has started East Timor's process toward independence, it has come under fire for ignoring reports that pro-Indonesia forces were planning massacres if the results went against them.

''It's no secret that threats were widely made,'' conceded Ian Martin, head of the UN Assistance Mission in East Timor (Unamet), which pulled most of its personnel from East Timor earlier this month. However, he argued, there had been no indication of the scale and degree of organization of the violence.

Alatas told Gusmao that Jakarta also had been ''shocked'' by the violence. Gusmao replied that ''we had fought for 23 years for this opportunity'' to choose whether or not to accept Indonesia's occupation, and the Timorese remained grateful to the United Nations for the vote, despite the brutal aftermath.

The task of rebuilding East Timor, however, appears complex. Indonesian entities - including some controlled by the military and by the family of the former Indonesian dictator, Suharto - own many of East Timor's coffee plantations and timber resources. Despite the violence, Gusmao made clear that the CNRT did not intend to alienate Indonesian or other businesses.

''We will of course respect the right of people that legitimately had acquired economic interests in East Timor,'' Gusmao said, adding that East Timor remains open for Indonesian investment.

Many issues remained to be resolved once the United Nations sets up a transitional authority, which is expected to last for several years before East Timor finally declares its independence. Gusmao hopes the UN transitional authority can be established quickly. But Martin says the United Nations will not exercise transitional authority until after Indonesia ratifies the results of the independence ballot, which is expected by late October or early November.

(Inter Press Service)

back to the top

©1999 Asia Times Online Co., Ltd.