After more than 450 years of oppressive foreign rule, East Timor is preparing a huge party to celebrate its accession to nationhood.
The tiny territory of 750 000 people will become the world’s 192nd independent nation at the stroke of midnight on Sunday (1500 GMT Sunday).
Between 100 000 and 200 000 people — the same rough estimate as the number who died during the Indonesian occupation — will pack a lakeside area for a gala seven-hour program of religious, cultural and symbolic ceremonies ending with the independence declaration.
”It’s very much a Timorese show,” said Australian artistic director Ignatius Jones. The same will go for the whole country, after the United Nations lowers its blue flag on Sunday night to end a unique 32-month exercise in nation-building.
Outgoing chief administrator Sergio Vieira de Mello promised on Friday that the UN would never abandon ”its child.” A smaller successor mission, comprising troops, police officers and about 100 civilians, will stay on for two years. International donors have promised $360-million in new aid over the next three years for what will be Asia’s poorest country until oil and gas revenues start flowing.
But East Timorese themselves will face the daunting task of lifting the nation out of poverty, developing a viable economy and healing the wounds left by the 24-year Indonesian occupation.
Indonesia invaded the former Portuguese colony in 1975, following a green light from the United States. An estimated 100 000-200 000 died in the early years of the occupation, many from starvation or disease, as a guerrilla war was waged against Jakarta.
After the fall of president Suharto, who had launched the original invasion, Jakarta consented to a UN-organised ballot on independence.
Despite a savage intimidation campaign by Indonesian army-backed militias, almost 80% of East Timorese voted in August 1999 for independence.
The vote sparked an orgy of violence and destruction by pro-Jakarta militias and some elements of the Indonesian army in which whole towns were destroyed. The UN took over government of the territory in October 1999. President Megawati Sukarnoputri is scheduled to attend Sunday’s celebrations in what Jakarta called a ”spirit of reconciliation” but her powerful military was leaving nothing to chance.
Two Indonesian jet fighters will escort her plane when she flies to Dili on Sunday and an Indonesian naval ship carrying vehicles for use during her four-hour stay berthed at Dili port on Friday.
A security force on standby in the region includes a total of 2 000 soldiers and six warships. The military denied it was staging a final show of strength and said it could not afford to take risks with security.
Former guerrilla leader and now president-elect Xanana Gusmao has said he wants to turn over a new leaf with Jakarta and to promote reconciliation between pro-Jakarta and pro-independence East Timorese.
He said on Friday he would seek pardons for those Timorese who took part in the 1999 violence — after they have been tried and convicted and have started serving jail sentences.
”We must do our best to eradicate old sentiments of hatred and revenge… otherwise we are living with the ghosts of the past,” Gusmao said.
”They go to the courts, they serve their jail sentences and then we give the hand (of friendship),” he said. ”By amnesty, I mean we could reduce the sentences depending on their behaviour and when they come back to the community their hearts will be clean.” – Sapa-AFP