Mixed insights into East Timor
East Timor: too little too late
By Lansell Taudevin
Duffy and Snellgrove, 1999
$24.95, 319 pp.
Ballot and bullets: Seven days in East Timor
By Tim Fischer
Allen and Unwin, 2000
$19.95, 149 pp.
Review by Jon Land
A swathe of books and publications on East Timor have been printed in the wake of the tumultuous events which occurred there last year. Many more are on the horizon. Two recently released by Australian authors look at the events which led up to the United Nations-administered ballot on self-determination and the intervention of the Australian-led Interfet.
Lansell Taudevin's East Timor: Too Little Too Late was one of the first books to be released after the arrival of Interfet. Taudevin was responsible for AUSaid projects in East Timor from 1996 until his departure, under pressure from Indonesian authorities, in early 1999.
During his tenure in East Timor, he was requested by officials at the Australian embassy in Jakarta to provide "information" — in effect, spy — for the Australian government on the situation unfolding on the ground.
Taudevin admits, in the preface and throughout the book, that he had once been an apologist for the Suharto dictatorship and supported the stance taken by the Australian government on East Timor. But his perceptions gradually changed when he began to work alongside East Timorese.
Taudevin explains how embassy officials became increasingly disconcerted about the frank reports he sent them, detailing the violence instigated by the Indonesian military and their role in the creation of the anti-independence militias during 1998.
His warnings fell upon deaf ears. He was considered "unbalanced" and too close to those campaigning for independence. The Indonesian and Australian authorities acted to silence Taudevin and removed him from East Timor.
In early April 1999, pro-integration militias and Indonesian troops massacred more than 50 East Timorese people (possibly more than 200 according to recent UN estimates), including young children, who had been sheltering in the church in the town of Liquica. Angered and sickened by the mild response of the Australian government, Taudevin went to the media (despite being warned not to) and blew the lid on the lies and deceit that the Australian government was engaging in.
Taudevin's claims, and other reports by solidarity activists, human rights groups and journalists, proved that the Howard government knew exactly what the Indonesian military was really doing all across East Timor.
The equipping of murderous militia groups was not just the work of "rogue elements" inside the Indonesian military, as repeatedly claimed by foreign minister Alexander Downer. This was a systematic and deliberate policy, directed by the military chiefs, with the tacit support of government ministers.
But while Taudevin's work offers an interesting insight and an eyewitness account, unfortunately his analysis is at times incomplete and inaccurate.
Without prior knowledge of events and dates, it would be easy to get confused by this book. For example, some dates in the book are just totally wrong — Suharto's resignation, for example, is cited by Taudevin as happening in March 1998, rather than May.
This and other factual errors give the impression that the book was hastily edited and published to meet the pre-Christmas rush.
Taudevin is also off the mark on the role played by the solidarity movement in Australia. He claims that "what many activists failed to realise was that by and large they themselves were on the outer edge of the key central forces working for a free East Timor" and that a "solid core of East Timorese amongst the diaspora in Australia were quietly planning for the future, independent of those who preferred to stand on street corners in poorly attended demonstrations and yell at the crowd scurrying by".
Taudevin states that this unnamed "solid core" of East Timorese had little or nothing to do with their "extremist supporters".
The protest actions since 1975 and especially since the Dili massacre in 1991 — yes, of varying size — kept the issue on the public agenda.
These protests also provided the basis and the framework for the huge demonstrations which took place last year, which forced the Howard government to act according to the wishes of the Australian public rather than in accordance with the "special relationship" with the Indonesian government.
Now the solidarity movement with East Timor is faced with new challenges. Some groups have opted to disband or focus primarily on providing material aid.
But political pressure still needs to be placed on the Howard government, which is attempting to bathe in Interfet's glory, so as to hold the government to account for its support for the military occupation and to demand greater material and financial assistance to the new East Timor.
The solidarity movement must also raise its voice on other issues: the need to bring to trial those military officers responsible for war crimes in East Timor; the need for a solution to the refugee crisis in West Timor; and the need for the UN transitional authority to proceed more quickly with reconstruction, and with far greater consultation with the East Timorese.
Taudevin is wrong to think that the solidarity movement was on the outer in the fight for East Timor's liberation. He could be proved right, however, if solidarity groups and activists think that the time to protest is over.
Despite the shortcomings of East Timor: Too Little Too Late, it stands head-and-shoulders above Tim Fischer's Ballot and bullets: Seven days in East Timor.
When I heard Fischer on radio plugging the upcoming release of his book, I was curious as to what he had to say, given he was an avid leader of the Suharto cheer squad. It was Fischer who, as deputy prime minister, once stated that "when magazines look for the man of the world of the second half of this century, they perhaps should not look much farther than Jakarta".
Fischer was head of the official Australian observer mission in East Timor for the August ballot. To be expected, this book reads like one of his dreary parliamentary speeches on the export of wheat. It is also a whitewash of the role played by the Howard government.
The only interesting part of the book was his description of the events surrounding journalist Richard Carleton's stupid behaviour during the ballot.
Proceeds from the book go to Caritas, the Catholic aid organisation which has operated in East Timor for some time.
My advice is this: forget Fischer's book, donate straight to Caritas (or to one of the other grassroots aid funds, like ASIET's East Timor Solidarity Aid Fund) and get involved in one of the East Timor solidarity groups still campaigning for justice.