Freedom in the World 1999 - East Timor

1999 Scores

Status: Partly Free
Freedom Rating: 5.0
Civil Liberties: 4
Political Rights: 6

Ratings Change

East Timor's political rights rating changed from 7 to 6, its civil liberties rating changed from 6 to 4, and it status changed from Not Free to Partly Free, after the United Nations began administering East Timor during its transition to full sovereignty, and as the UN administration and a multinational force generally respected personal freedoms.

Overview

In late 1999, East Timor began a fragile transition toward sovereignty following a tumultuous year that included the Indonesian army and state-backed militia's use of atrocities to deter and punish supporters of independence, a popular vote for independence, and the establishment of a United Nations interim administration.

The Portuguese arrived on Timor around 1520, and in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries took formal control of the island's eastern half. In 1974, Lisbon agreed to hold a referendum on self-determination in East Timor. In November 1975 the leftist Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor (Fretilin) declared an independent republic. Indonesia invaded in December and in 1976 formally annexed East Timor as its 27th province. By 1979 civil conflict and famine had killed up to 200,000 Timorese. For the next two decades, the poorly equipped armed resistance waged a low-grade insurgency from the rugged interior.

In November 1991, Indonesian soldiers killed dozens of civilians holding a peaceful pro-independence march in the territorial capital of Dili. In 1992, Indonesian soldiers captured the resistance leader Jose "Xanana" Gusmao. In 1993, a court sentenced Gusmao to life imprisonment, subsequently reduced to 20 years, in a sham trial.

The 1996 award of the Nobel Peace Prize to East Timor Roman Catholic Bishop Carlos Felipe Ximenes Belo and Jose Ramos Jorta, the leading East Timorese exile activist, brought renewed international attention to Indonesian abuses in the territory. During and after the May 1997 Indonesian parliamentary election period, East Timorese National Liberation Army (Falintil) guerrillas killed at least nine suspected civilian collaborators and 33 soldiers and police. The army responded by arbitrarily detaining and often torturing hundreds of civilians and committing some killings and "disappearances."

In January 1999, Indonesian President B. J. Habibie unexpectedly announced that he favored granting East Timorese their independence if they rejected autonomy in a referendum. Armed by the Indonesian military, pro-integration militia began systematically attacking pro-independence activists and suspected supporters. On May 5, Indonesia and Portugal, which the UN still recognized as the administering power in East Timor, agreed to a UN-run referendum on self-determination in the territory.

Soldiers and militia forced some 40,000 to 60,000 people outside Dili to flee their homes and continued to commit rights violations with impunity in the weeks leading up to the August 30 referendum, which nonetheless took place under a 98.5 percent turnout. On September 4, the UN announced that 78.5 percent of participating voters had chosen independence over autonomy. That day, militia and soldiers began systematically driving several hundred thousand people into the mountainous interior and more than 200,000 people into West Timor and other parts of Indonesia, killing hundreds of civilians and looting and destroying property. On September 20, a 16-nation, Australian-led force entered East Timor under UN auspices and began restoring order. On October 20, the Indonesian parliament formally relinquished Jakarta's claim to East Timor after 24 years of rule. On October 22, resistance leader Gusmao, whom Indonesian authorities had moved from jail to house arrest in February, returned to the territory. Six days later, the UN Security Council approved a 9,150-strong peacekeeping operation and a 1,640-strong international police force to relieve the interim multilateral force in early 2000.

Militia took control of most refugee camps in West Timor, pressured refugees to remain in Indonesia, and largely prevented humanitarian workers from delivering food, medical assistance, and other supplies. In early December, the UN estimated that 113,000 refugees had returned to East Timor, but said pro-Jakarta militias continued to deny aid groups full access to the camps.

Political Rights and Civil Liberties

East Timor began 1999 under Indonesian control and ended the year as a non-self-governing territory under a UN Transitional Administration in East Timor, headed by a senior UN official, Sergio Vierra de Mello. Formal independence is unlikely before 2001 at the earliest. The UN had never recognized Indonesia's 1976 annexation of East Timor, after which a Jakarta-appointed governor ran the territory. The country-in-waiting faces the challenge of holding free elections, drafting a constitution, building virtually all institutions from scratch, and bringing to justice soldiers and militia accused of crimes against humanity and war crimes. The World Bank estimated that militia and soldiers destroyed or rendered inoperable almost 70 percent of East Timor's physical infrastructure during their September rampage.

Under Suharto, the former Indonesian president, the army, police, and militia groups committed arbitrary arrests, detention, torture, "disappearances," extrajudicial killings, rape, and other abuses against pro-independence activists and alleged supporters with near impunity. The militias included military-trained civil defense groups; military-armed groups that conducted operations with regular armed forces against Falintil; and several nominally independent groups armed by the military.

In December 1998, numerous new, nominally independent, military-armed militia began emerging. Following Indonesia's January decision to hold a referendum on self-determination in East Timor, militia began a systematic campaign of extrajudicial killings, disappearances, rape, arbitrary detention, torture, destruction of homes, and other abuses against members of the National Council for Timorese Resistance – the political wing of the East Timorese resistance – and other pro-independence activists and alleged supporters, as well as human rights monitors, journalists, humanitarian workers, and later, UN staff. Amnesty International (AI) noted in a series of reports that the Indonesian armed forces, and to a lesser extent the police, in some cases either actively participated in killings and other attacks or refrained from intervening. After the attacks intensified in April and May, the Australian government accused the Indonesian military of being "actively involved in encouraging and supporting pro-integrationist militia in East Timor, including through the supply of arms." Prior to the August referendum, militia, the army, and local officials systematically harassed, intimidated, and at times attacked registered voters and UN staff. The violence and intimidation left thousands of internally displaced persons unable to participate in the referendum.

Beginning on September 4, when the UN announced the referendum results, militia and soldiers began targeting independence activists and effectively forced journalists, human rights workers, and UN workers to leave East Timor. The militia and soldiers soon began a systematic campaign of extrajudicial executions, rape, disappearances, and other attacks against civilians that forced hundreds of thousands of people into the mountains or into West Timor and other parts of Indonesia. Militia subsequently seized control of most camps in West Timor and effectively denied many refugees the right to choose freely whether or not to return to East Timor by subjecting them to intimidation, harassment, and in some cases extrajudicial killings, abductions, rape, and forcible recruitment. The militia also frequently harassed and attacked international human rights workers attempting to visit displaced persons. Pro-independence groups charged that Jakarta-backed militias also murdered and raped numerous civilians in the East Timor enclave of Oecussi on the western half of the island.

AI also noted several times during the year that it had received some reports of intimidation by pro-independence groups and allegations of abuses by Falintil, but stressed that pro-integration militia carried out the majority of rights violations. In previous years, Falintil had reportedly carried out some extrajudicial executions and other abuses against suspected civilian collaborators and informants.

The UN is restructuring a judiciary that served as a tool of the state during the Suharto years, when courts regularly jailed dissidents for peaceful pro-independence activities. Following some liberalization in 1998, the militia and the army effectively curtailed many basic freedoms for much of 1999. The multinational force restored basic rights and liberties.

Prior to the May agreement to hold a referendum, the only media in East Timor were the private Voice of East Timor newspaper (STT), Indonesian media, and Radio Timor Kmanek (RTK), which the Roman Catholic church established in 1998. Beginning in January 1999, militia threatened, intimidated, and physically attacked hundreds of domestic and foreign journalists, including many working for alternative print and broadcasting outlets that began operating after the May agreement. In April, a pro-integration militia ransacked the STT's office, two weeks after it reported on a massacre on the grounds of a church in the town of Liquica in which militia killed at least 25 people. In September, observers implicated soldiers in the murder of a Dutch journalist for the London-based Financial Times, and militia or soldiers killed a journalist and eight other people traveling in a van in the town of Com. Militia also burned down a student-run radio station and the STT's offices. According to the Paris-based Reporters sans Frontieres, as of November 1999, East Timor had no functioning newspapers and only three stations had resumed broadcasting – RTK and stations run by Fretilin and the UN.

During the Suharto era, authorities tolerated few elements of civil society. In 1999, the army and militia intimidated and at times attacked nongovernmental organization activists and offices, as well as church workers and property in this predominantly Roman Catholic society. The Indonesian government's controversial transmigration program brought thousands of Indonesians to the territory in recent years despite charges that this reduced economic activity for East Timorese. The new authorities face the challenge of ensuring the safety of these migrants, as well as of East Timorese who favored autonomy. In March, the Associated Press reported that pro-independence groups and student activists had harassed and in some cases attacked many of the roughly 3,000 Indonesian teachers working in East Timor.