TEN YEARS ago tomorrow, the people of Timor-Leste voted overwhelmingly for independence from Indonesia after 24 years of troubled and sometimes brutal occupation. What should have been a euphoric occasion descended into horror when Indonesian-backed militia went on a killing spree, forcing a handful of United Nations observers out of the territory in an episode with shameful parallels with Srebrenica.
By the time an international peacekeeping force had been scrambled together three weeks later, between 1,000 and 1,400 people had been killed and most of the country’s infrastructure had been destroyed or sabotaged.
Throughout its decade of existence Timor-Leste has barely been stable. In 2006, there was widespread rioting following a mutiny by some government soldiers. Last year, president José Ramos-Horta survived an assassination attempt. There has been a troubling rise in violence associated with street gangs, fuelled partly by stubbornly high levels of unemployment and poverty.
How many of these problems have their roots in a failure to deal with the past? This question is increasingly exercising those with a concern for the country (which officially goes by the Portuguese translation of East Timor). A growing number of Timorese human rights groups and political activists believe the government’s inability or unwillingness to prosecute those responsible for past crimes is creating a new cycle of abuses. Amnesty International this week joined them in calling for prosecutions of those responsible for the 1999 violence.
Mr Ramos-Horta and other ruling politicians fear that reopening past wounds will only serve to further destabilise Timor-Leste, and damage relations with Indonesia – now its main trading partner. He argues that Indonesia will block any attempt to make its former army generals stand trial and he believes reparations could lead to bitter divisions over who exactly should benefit from a victims’ fund and who should pay. Paying compensation to victims of political violence would be controversial. However, it would provide some acknowledgment that atrocities have been committed and that some sort of justice should be applied.
Whatever Timor-Leste’s future, the country needs all the diplomatic and financial support it can get. Ireland can be proud of the role it has played in helping Timor-Leste to date and it would be regrettable if that legacy was damaged by expedient cuts in the aid budget or a downturn in national generosity.