Last chance for East Timor

As the beleaguered territory goes to the polls tomorrow, will the referendum really deliver independence? Richard Lloyd Parry reports

ONE DAY in June, seven British police officers in Lancashire, Nottingham, Hertfordshire and Suffolk were telephoned by the Home Office with an urgent and unusual request. Nick Foster was in his station in east London when the call came. "They said, 'We need an answer to this by 9am tomorrow,' " he recalls. "Would I be prepared to go to East Timor? I have to admit I didn't really know where it was."

Two months later, Sergeant Foster has learned quickly: as one of the UN's civilian police in East Timor, he has been cheered by hungry refugees and menaced by armed militiamen, one of whom pointed a gun at his head. A thousand other UN staff from 67 countries have flown in for tomorrow's referendum on independence. They consist of police officers, soldiers and volunteer election officers, as well as diplomats and specialists. It is fair to guess that before their arrival plenty of them had only the haziest notion of where and what East Timor is.

East Timor is one of those places that everyone knows to be important, even if few could explain why. Most people know that it is a place of tragedy and oppression, but who exactly is oppressing whom, why and how much it all matters is much less clear. But 8am tomorrow, when the UN opens its polling stations, will be one of the most important moments in East Timor's sad history. The success or failure of the undertaking will have consequences not only for the people taking part, but also for Indonesia, South-east Asia, and for the UN's reputation as a peacemaker all over the world.

Physically, East Timor occupies one half of a medium-sized island north of Australia and west of the vast island of New Guinea. Its environment is harsh and unhealthy - dry and arid for half of the year; green, wet and malarial during the rainy season. A historical accident nearly five centuries ago set Timor apart from its neighbours and sealed its fate. In the early 16th century, as European powers were expanding throughout South-east Asia, it was Portuguese sailors and traders who established themselves here.

The country now known as Indonesia was formed after the Second World War out of the former Dutch East Indies, which included West Timor. But the East remained under the control of Lisbon, the forgotten outpost of an empire already in decline. Portuguese rule was languid to the point of inertia, although the colonists profited handsomely from the sandalwood trade and from East Timor's coffee, which American exporters have recently promoted in chains such as Starbucks.

By the 1970s, at the height of the Cold War, Timor had acquired importance for a different reason. Directly north of the island are the strategic Ombai-Wetar Straits, deep-water channels which provided crucial access for American nuclear submarines. In 1974, just before the US defeat in Vietnam, a new government, committed to decolonisation, mounted a successful coup in Portugal. The promise of independence sent a shiver of excitement through sleepy East Timor, and new political parties sprang up, including the left-leaning Fretilin, the most popular of all. The Americans began to worry about their submarines and about Timor's future as a potential Cuba in the middle of Asia. When the pro-Western Indonesian dictator President Suharto decided to annex the territory, the West, including America, Australia and Britain, gave their passive support.

The Indonesian invasion in December 1975 was only the beginning of the brutality. The Fretilin army resisted the Indonesians in guerrilla fighting, and continue to live in the mountains even today. Tens of thousands of East Timorese fled to the hills, to be bombarded by Indonesian fighters; many of those who remained were forced into hamlets, far from their fields, where starvation and disease flourished. About 200,000 people, almost a third of the pre-war population, are reckoned to have died as a consequence of the war.

The territory, incorporated as the "27th province" of Indonesia, was sealed off to all but a few foreign journalists and diplomats, although from time to time reports of massacres and oppression surfaced to embarrass Suharto's Western backers. The annexation was never recognised by the UN, but nor was it seriously challenged. Three years ago, two of East Timor's strongest advocates - its foreign minister in exile, Jose Ramos Horta, and its Roman Catholic bishop, Carlos Belo - won the Nobel Peace Prize. Then, in May last year, President Suharto suddenly resigned, after demonstrations and riots throughout the Indonesian heartland.

In January this year, his successor, B J Habibie, announced that, after 23 years without a glimmer of compromise, Indonesia would be prepared to give East Timor its independence if that was what its people chose. Negotiations in the UN between Portugal and Indonesia produced an agreement to hold a referendum under the auspices of Unamet - the UN Assistance Mission in East Timor. Simultaneously, the trouble began.

All along, Jakarta has insisted on the fiction that it ruled East Timor by popular consent; all along, compliant Timorese have acted as agents of Indonesian manipulation. Before the invasion, the Indonesian military stirred up trouble inside the territory, creating a pretext for intervention. As the country's Information Minister, Yunus Yosfiah, formerly a member of the invading force, said recently: "We went in for humanitarian reasons. Our presence is to prevent more killing in their civil war, not because we want more land." All year the same sinister strategy has been in operation.

Ever since Mr Suharto's fall, gaps have been visible between the pronouncements of President Habibie and the actions of the military, and in East Timor they have become yawning. Locally recruited militias, guided and apparently armed by the Indonesian army, have created terror and chaos, intimidating and murdering villagers in pro-independence areas.

Yesterday saw a third day of violence in the capital, Dili, with armed militias firing on independence supporters, killing one man, as Indonesian police and soldiers looked on impassively. Elsewhere, unarmed UN police and military officers came under fire, though no one was hurt. The UN has protested repeatedly but is bound by the terms of its mandate: all security matters are in the hands of the Indonesian authorities, in whose shadowy upper recesses the security problems themselves originate.

In a remarkably short time for a notoriously bureaucratic organisation, the UN has taken steps to counter the militias' threat. A territory-wide information campaign on TV, radio and in newspapers has emphasised three things: that the vote is secret; that there will be no regional breakdown of results (which would allow militia retribution against particular villages); and that the UN presence will continue after tomorrow. But the whole process is highly vulnerable. Many voters will have to make long journeys to polling stations scattered across inaccessible areas linked by poor roads. The concern is for security and the untrustworthiness of the security forces.

Some violence and several deaths seem almost inevitable: the question is whether it will be serious enough to jeopardise the whole undertaking. Independent observers are almost unanimous in their conclusion that an untainted ballot will produce a decisive vote for independence. But even if it does, the UN will face the task of effecting a transition to self- rule, negotiating between a weak Indonesian government, a recalcitrant military, fanatical militias and the victorious pro-independence organisations, who will then face the challenge of proving that East Timor can stand on its own.

Success would be a triumph for the UN, both bringing a tragic war to an end and putting to rights a shameful example of international collusion. But there is still a great deal that could go wrong, and there is not likely to be a second chance.

Tale of a troubled land

Population: 850,000, of whom 450,000 have registered to vote.

Religion: Roman Catholic, with a strong residue of animism.

Economy: Supported by subsidy from Jakarta. Coffee is virtually the only export crop.

Welfare: East Timor is the poorest province in Indonesia, with the highest levels of illiteracy and infant mortality.

History:

1512 Portuguese navigators land in Timor. Dili is established as the colonial capital.

1859 Island divided between the Dutch West and the Portuguese East.

1895 The biggest of several native uprisings against Portuguese rule.

1943 Australian commandos evacuate after a two-year guerrilla war against the occupying Japanese. Many Timorese die.

1974 A coup in Lisbon encourages an East Timorese independence movement. Indonesian soldiers infiltrate under the guise of pro-Jakarta Timorese. In December, Indonesia invades.

1991 Hundreds of demonstrators killed by the army in Dili, the most notorious of numerous massacres.

1996 East Timor's bishop, Carlos Belo, and its foreign minister in exile, Jose Ramos Horta, win Nobel Peace Prize.

1998 President Suharto is forced to step down.

1999 January. President B J Habibie announces that East Timor may be given its independence.

April. More than 25 people massacred in a church by pro-Indonesian militias, the worst of many incidents.

May. The UN arrives in East Timor.

July. UN Secretary-General twice announces the postponement of the referendum.

August 26 to yesterday.

Pro-Indonesia mob kills a dozen people in Dili.

Tomorrow. The day of the referendum.