Nonviolent Dissent Faces Down Brutal Repression

After 32 years of iron-fisted rule, the Indonesian dictator Suharto was forced from office in late May. He was driven into retirement by thousands of student demonstrators protesting on the heels of IMF structural adjustment requirements that removed essential food subsidies and laid off millions.

Decades of rampant speculation and exploitation by international bankers and corporations aided Suharto and his cronies in their corruption and did nothing to create or sustain a humane or viable economy for the world’s fourth most populous nation. On the contrary, the U.S. government and the world’s financial institutions propped up and supported severe repression throughout the vast expanse of islands that comprises Indonesia, especially in Aceh and West Papua, and bolstered the 22-year brutal occupation of East Timor, where 200,000 lives have been lost, and arbitrary arrests, killings, beatings, torture, and disappearances have become a routine part of everyday existence.

At the other end of the spectrum, the power of the Indonesian and East Timorese peoples’ nonviolent actions have forced a dictator from power, and now threaten to displace his protege successor and the very foundations of military control in Jakarta.

Two months ago, after the economy crashed for the third time in six months, unemployed workers and ordinary Indonesians struggling to survive began rioting in the streets of Jakarta and in cities across the western end of the archipelago. What we didn’t hear from mainstream news sources is that, simultaneously and continuously, peaceful student protests were breaking out throughout that same region.

Tens of thousands of students in a score of universities held massive demonstrations calling for Suharto’s ouster, political reforms and an end to corruption. The price they paid was high. Over 1000 died during the weeks preceeding and immediately following Suharto’s fall. Over a thousand more were arbitrarily arrested. Dozens of leading activists were disappeared and tortured in the months leading up to this period. Some are still missing.

Over 40,000 troops, including the notorious KOPASSUS elite forces, amassed throughout Jakarta. Student protests were alternately limited to university campuses and banned altogether. But the protesters were unrelenting.

After 32 years with little opportunity to organize nationally, these Indonesian students accomplished two amazing things: they joined with thousands of Timorese students calling for human rights and self-determination in East Timor; and over 10,000 of them came together to nonviolently occupy the Indonesian parliament building in Jakarta. They held the parliament for five days with no violence. Suharto fell during this protest, but the students didn’t leave. They reshaped their demands to call for genuine elections and B.J. Habibie’s resignation.

The protests have continued. The beginning of June has seen many still calling for Habibie’s resignation in a much less secure environment, on the streets in smaller numbers, taking ever-greater risks. On June 9, 4000 demonstrators returned to the parliament demanding a convening of the People’s Consultative Assembly. They want to put Suharto on trial.

The new military regime (Habibie’s power rests in Wiranto and other generals), in its efforts to appease the IMF, world censure and its own people, is trying a new tack—putting on a reformist face. Promising a general release of political prisoners and national elections, Habibie and company have freed only a token number, including the high-profile labor leader Mukhtar Pakpahan. The promised elections are now said to be at least a year away. Empty promises will ultimately prove insufficient to dam the flood of protests and opposition organizing, but after Suharto’s departure things calmed. The international press, aware that the story in Indonesia hadn’t ended, was ready for the next chapter.

Xanana Gusmao is the jailed Timorese leader of the CNRT (National Council of Timorese Resistance), of which Constancio Pinto, who recently spoke in Washington at the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker, is the U.S. and UN Representative. Xanana had instructed his people, long used to struggling under a level of repression rarely felt in Jakarta since the violence of 1965-67, to remain calm during the May upheavals. But, the moment arrived to push East Timor to the forefront of this story and the next chapter began...

The moment came for action. An historic free speech forum, attended by thousands, was held at the governor’s palace in Dili, East Timor’s capital. Several thousand East Timorese “of all perspectives,” gathered to openly discuss this long-occupied country’s future. I can’t overstate the significance of this event. Even two months ago a meeting like this could never have happened without violent military reprisals.

When I was in East Timor on the anniversary of the Santa Cruz massacre this past November 12, I witnessed scores of Indonesian riot police aiming rifles at over 1000 peaceful demonstrators. I was the only foreign observer present and was arrested for “journalistic activities.” Two days later, with no one there to observe, the military returned to the university and targeted the organizers, arresting twelve and beating and shooting many more. Three of those arrested were disappeared.

Yet, when Governor Soares suggested that East Timor should opt for integration into Indonesia, he was literally laughed to his seat. (He has subsequently called for a referendum.) The overwhelming majority of people at that meeting, and in all of East Timor, now openly state that they will accept no political alternative but a referendum on self-determination, the right to choose their own government. Co-Nobel Peace Laureates Bishop Carlos Belo and Jose Ramos-Horta, along with many other organizations and individuals in East Timor, Indonesia, and the rest of the world, are calling for a withdrawal of Indonesian troops, a release of all political prisoners, including Xanana Gusmao, and direct Timorese participation in a UN-sponsored dialogue leading to a referendum.

To ensure that this happens, students and other nonviolent demonstrators have taken to the streets and protested in the thousands at the University of East Timor. In Jakarta on June 10, 1500 Timorese gathered at the Foreign Ministry, demanding to petition Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas for self-determination and the release of political prisoners.

While it may seem that the only options for beleaguered East Timor are continued brutal occupation or self-determination, behind the scenes Machiavellian minds are hatching plans for empty offers of “special status” and “limited autonomy.” After stating in early June that no Indonesian government would consider changing its position on the “integration” of East Timor, Habibie announced this week that he would consider some type of “special status” for East Timor. It was in response to this announcement that the student protests in Dili and Jakarta heated up. Their message: This is unacceptable. After 32 years of continuous (and mostly nonviolent) struggle for freedom, only self-determination will do.

A dozen East Timorese youths have also been released from prison. Again, this token concession is not enough. There are hundreds of Timorese still in prisons or otherwise missing because of their political beliefs.

Two months ago in Lisbon, East Timorese from around the world met together to form a shadow government and drafted their Magna Carta. The youth, the leaders inside East Timor and those in exile, all agree on the fundamental importance of self-determination. And while the students maintain pressure in Dili and Jakarta, 250 prisoners in Becora, East Timor are protesting inside the main institution in the occupied territory—the jails.

I can’t think of a more stunning example of nonviolent resistance in action, of a people united, or, in this case, two peoples.

So what does that mean for activists in the U.S.? For six years the East Timor Action Network (ETAN) and others, including many devoted Catholic Workers, have been protesting the U.S. role in Indonesia’s occupation of (overwhelmingly Catholic) East Timor. Together we’ve managed to cut off weapons transfers and military training, and we’ve brought this small nation’s struggle to the attention of the American people, the press and the U.S. Government. Currently ETAN is working on congressional bills to ban all remaining weapons transfers, military training and IMF money to Indonesia, as well as resolutions and other efforts to fundamentally shift U.S. policy to support East Timorese self-determination.

Our goal is in sight. Last week State Department official Aurealia Brazeal testified that “the resolution of the East Timor issue is a priority for the administration.” That’s a first. It’s our responsibility to hold the Clinton administration to that statement. We must do this through nonviolent demonstrations, persistent lobbying of government officials, and education of the press and the public. The nonviolent actions of fledgling movements in Indonesia and the courageous struggle of the people of East Timor are no doubt inspiring and full of great hope for us here in U.S. peace and justice movements. Let them also be a source of great challenge. We can’t let up our activism until theirs reaches fruition. A luta continua! Free East Timor!

Lynn Fredriksson is with the East Timor Action Network, 110 Maryland Ave. NE, Box 30, Washington, D.C. 20002; ph (202)544-6911; fax (202)546-5103;email etandc@igc.apc.org; or go to www.etan.org .