by Kofi Annan
A former Portuguese colony, East Timor had been annexed by Indonesia in 1976 in a bloody and vicious campaign. The United Nations never recognized Indonesian sovereignty over East Timor, and through the years of repression and exploitation, which are estimated to have cost between 100,000 and 250,000 East Timorese lives, Portugal was among the few nations that sought to keep the world’s attention on East Timor’s right to self-determination.
Talks between Indonesia and Portugal were initiated by my predecessor, Secretary-General Perez de Cuellar, in 1983, but these had made little if any headway. When I took office in 1997, I identified East Timor as one of the long-running diplomatic negotiations to which I wanted to give new impetus. I appointed Jamsheed Marker of Pakistan as my personal representative and we accelerated the pace of talks and pushed for some bold moves with greater involvement of the East Timorese themselves. After the end of the Cold War, the 1991 Santa Cruz massacre, and the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1996 to Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo and Jose Ramos-Horta, the warning signs for Indonesia were all there that the world would not simply accept the legitimacy of its rule in East Timor without some form of consent by the population.
With the end of the Suharto regime in Indonesia, and the coming to power of President B. J. Habibie in 1998, a new possibility arose. Habibie made clear that he was willing to allow some kind of vote or referendum on the future status of the territory—whether it would become an autonomous entity within Indonesia or become wholly independent. For the UN, there was an opportunity to play a valuable role, as no major power had a strategic interest in the dispute—unlike, say, in the case of the Middle East peace process where our influence was always limited by the U.S. dominance of the issue. In response, we at the UN structured a negotiating process that included the Portuguese and the Indonesians to pave the way for what we termed a “popular consultation” on the future of East Timor, to be held at some point in 1999.
In their foreign minister Ali Alatas, the Indonesians had a tough and able negotiator. Jaime Gama represented Portugal’s historic interest with equal skill. I appointed Jamsheed Marker to lead our side of the diplomacy. From time to time, I intervened personally in the negotiations in the slow lead-up to the referendum and brought Alatas into my private office to urge him to stay on the path of compromise and not be distracted from the ultimate goal of a secure and peaceful outcome that would serve to improve Indonesia’s international standing. I told him repeatedly that we were there as honest brokers, had no vested interests, and that we would put the referendum question fairly. We were able to reach the point where there was sufficient trust in the process for both sides to believe they might be able to win the referendum.
While Jamsheed Marker led the talks with superb skill and patience, I formed an unusual bond with President Habibie. Over time, he came to trust me and understood that I was not looking to weaken Indonesia. He realized that I wanted a peaceful outcome reflecting the wishes of the people of East Timor but that I was also looking for a way for Indonesia to come out of this in a stronger position with the international community. Day by day—and often hour by hour—I managed to hold his commitment, despite immense pressures from within his own military and security apparatus to take a much harder line. By the end of August 1999, I was speaking daily with Habibie. On more than one occasion I was able to tell him—later with increasing resonance—that what he was hearing from his own aides and advisors simply did not reflect the reality on the ground in East Timor.
Once the go-ahead for the referendum was finally agreed, we were given only a few short months to organize it. On the critical question of security, the Indonesians were adamant: they would maintain responsibility for security on an exclusive basis, with no other troops of any kind allowed on Indonesian soil. I pressed Habibie to accept an armed force to protect civilians and UN activities during the process, but this was vetoed by the Indonesian military, which insisted on its own prerogatives—a fateful decision with severe consequences for them and for the people of East Timor.
The reason we were so concerned was that Timorese militias backed by the Indonesian military had now made clear that they would intimidate and threaten the local population. Throughout this process, and as I reminded my own staff and others, there was a basic reality shaping the context of the diplomacy: the Indonesian military could do what it wanted in the region as no foreign power would contemplate militarily challenging Indonesia’s right to maintain control in whatever way it wished within what it considered to be its borders. That it was also the largest Muslim-populated country in the world and a close ally of the United States, with ever-closer relations with China, did not make the diplomacy any easier. We were given no choice by the Indonesian government but to accept their pledge to maintain security.
However, the agreements of May 5 gave me the authority not to proceed with the ballot if the necessary security conditions for a peaceful vote were not present. I wrote a letter to Habibie outlining the elements of what would constitute such a peaceful environment, including bringing the militia under strict control as an urgent first step and confining Indonesian troops to designated areas ahead of the vote. The Indonesians would not accept the letter. I therefore decided to put the same elements in a memorandum to both sides as a way of putting everyone on notice as to what my expectations on security conditions were. In the end, these conditions were not met. But given the historic opportunity represented by Habibie’s agreement to grant the people of East Timor the chance to determine their future status, and in light of the Tiomorese leaders’ appeals not to delay the vote, we decided to proceed with the referendum.
I spoke with Habibie on the morning of August 24, six days before the vote, to thank him for his efforts, especially, I stressed, for ensuring “a peaceful environment” for the vote. This was, for me, the best way of alerting him to my concern about the increasing violence. On August 26, I issued a public statement condemning the incidents of violence that had been reported, and on the eve of the vote I issued another statement encouraging a free vote and warning the government about any threat of intimidation or violence against the East Timorese people.
Amid an atmosphere of distrust, menace, violence, and intimidation, on August 30, 1999, the people of East Timor voted overwhelmingly in favor of independence, with nearly 80 percent seeking separation from Indonesia. The actual day of the referendum passed in a largely peaceful and orderly fashion. Shocked and infuriated by the outcome, however, the Indonesian-backed militias went on a rampage of killing and burning after the announcement of the result on September 4, laying waste to vast areas of the already impoverished territory. At UN headquarters and among UN staff in East Timor, we felt a terrible burden of responsibility. We had managed to secure for the people of East Timor a referendum on their future; the voting itself had taken place in peaceful circumstances, and no one could claim that we had an alternative to Indonesia’s insistence on maintaining security on its own. We had given the people of East Timor every reason to believe that we had organized this referendum so that they could choose their own future in peace and safety—but now it had become a pretext for a campaign of slaughter by Indonesian forces. To me, personally, the moment evoked the darkest days from our peacekeeping years when restrictive mandates and incomplete resources had put our troops in conflict zones unable to help civilians who had every reason to believe that we were there to protect them, and not just ourselves.
This time, unlike in the case of Kosovo, it was not a matter of just using the bully pulpit of the United Nations to change the understanding of sovereignty and intervention. Given our own central role in negotiating and organizing the referendum, and our presence on the ground, I knew my own intervention could alter the trajectory of the tragedy now under way. I began an around-the-clock schedule of meetings and phone calls on the crisis, which included daily conversations with the leaders of Indonesia, Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom,
Portugal, Malaysia, and Thailand, among many others.
When the violence started, we had no troops or police on the ground except for the military liaison officers and UN police advisors. We needed to get help in quickly, and for over two weeks I worked the phones nonstop on two tracks. From New York, I dedicated the nighttime hours to working on Habibie, who was on Indonesian time, to make him understand the critical importance of restoring security in East Timor. Each night I pressed him on the need to enable an end to the violence—by Indonesian troops if possible, or by others if they were to fail. During the daytime hours, I lobbied the Security Council and potential troop-contributing countries to assemble what had to be a credible intervention force. It would have to have sufficient capabilities for the intervention and have a significant Asian component if it were not to be seen as a Western invasion of Indonesia.
As in other crises, from Kosovo to the Middle East, I soon became a central node of diplomatic communication between the various parties to the conflict, and, it seemed, the only one they all felt comfortable speaking with in trust and confidence. What this meant in many instances was that I often ended up with a better—and a more up-to-date—understanding of the state of play and the positions of all parties to the crisis. Each party shared its interests, knowledge, and even some of its intelligence with me. While this would often represent biased or slanted information, designed to persuade me of the merits of each case, this was still helpful because it enabled me to broker agreements with more insight and impact than otherwise. East Timor was no exception to this practice.
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The possibility of Australia’s leading any potential intervention was fraught with tensions given its own status within Asia. Australia had a robust, competent military with an ability to lead the operation effectively and convincingly. But they were not considered truly Asian by their neighbors, and I needed other regional powers to commit, such as Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore. They, in turn, would not even consider being involved—or want it to be known publicly that they were even speaking to me about it—without an explicit invitation from the government of Indonesia. All roads now led back to Habibie, a decent, responsible, but utterly besieged leader. If I could convince him, I knew I could assemble the other pieces of the puzzle.
In Dili, every day was bringing new reports of massacres, assassinations, and arson attacks by Timorese thugs and militias clearly enjoying some level of backing by the Indonesian military contingents posted in the territory. Even as I received increasingly alarming reports from our own people and other foreign representatives, Habibie was being told an entirely different story by his military and security forces. During one call, he insisted that no hostile operations had been directed at the Timorese. What looting was taking place, he said, was simply the actions of Indonesians torching their own homes in anger over the outcome of the referendum. My reports, he insisted, were false.
I had to break this counterproductive cycle of dialogue, and began to warn Habibie that he would be held personally responsible if the killings continued and he was unable to protect the people. I emphasized in hour-long calls that an intervention force would not be an imposition, or an invasion; instead, he should accept the outside help because his troops clearly were unable to restore order on their own, even if they wanted to.
On a personal level, I sympathized with Habibie. I sensed he wanted to do the right thing, but he was under tremendous pressure from powerful hard-liners within the military. Even though I suspected he was never alone when on the phone with me, I had to inform him that his soldiers were not telling him the truth. But I also knew I had to be careful not to push him too hard. There was always a risk of the dialogue breaking down and with it the chance of a breakthrough. When this possibility loomed, I knew it was better to resume the next day, however agonizing the lack of progress. A temptation in such circumstances, when atrocities are being committed on the ground, is to express one’s moral outrage during dialogue with those responsible. But this delivers only an immediate personal satisfaction, one that must be resisted when one’s goals lie in the outcome for victims on the ground.
Following the chilling call from Xanana on September 5, warning of a genocide against his people, I called Habibie to tell him that the international community was increasingly alarmed by the deteriorating security situation. He again claimed that everything was under control and complained that it was all a matter of rumors, exaggerations, and emotions. I assured him it was not. Instead, I pushed explicitly for what I called a security component to be sent into East Timor. His counteroffer, no doubt suggested by those around him, was the imposition of martial law, something he proceeded to do two days later. As Xanana said to me in a call later that day, the last thing East Timor needed was more Indonesian troops with greater license to act at will.
I then received John Howard’s agreement that Australia would lead the force. When Howard asked me if its main purpose would be to protect the UN mission, I was unequivocal in my reply: it would have to go in with the overriding mission of protecting the East Timorese civilian population. Force protection alone, as we had learned from Bosnia, was not the answer.
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Rumors of a coup in Jakarta against Habibie then began circulating, and the campaign of violence turned directly, and terrifyingly, on the United Nations. Just after 3:00 a.m. in New York on September 8, I received an urgent call from my under-secretary-general for political affairs, Kieran Prendergast. He reported that our head of the UN mission in East Timor, Ian Martin, had called from Dili saying that militias were now besieging the UN compound. Martin wanted to evacuate the UN staff to ensure the safety of the hundreds of UN civilians in the compound.
For my chef de cabinet, Iqbal Riza, and me, there was no question of the seriousness of the challenge we now faced. Our concerns focused immediately on the fate of the fifteen hundred Timorese civilians who had sought shelter in our compound in Dili, as well as the hundreds of UN staff now threatened by the militias who were shooting at the compound and waving grenades at the front gate. Riza and I had gone through the experience of the Rwandan genocide together in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, and its lessons were never far from our minds. Over Rwanda, a key breakdown had taken place in the three-way relationship between the field, the office of the secretary-general, and DPKO. At a meeting later that morning following Martin’s call, we agreed that we simply could not depart the compound and leave the civilians behind—not this time.
After a tense twenty-four hours, we agreed to evacuate the bulk of the UN staff, but in a moment of great and lasting pride for us, more than eighty members of the UN staff volunteered to stay behind along with Martin and a skeleton team, to serve as a shield for the East Timorese sheltering within the compound. Our East Timorese national staff, who were a particular target of the militias and their military backers, had by then been evacuated to Darwin, Australia.
I called Habibie to make sure he was clear about the danger the UN staff were in. I told him that I was being forced to evacuate our personnel. Habibie sounded shocked—he even seemed disoriented. He then spoke for some thirty minutes, without stopping, often repeating himself, and made it impossible for me to interject. As he spoke, he still maintained that the Indonesian forces were the only answer and that the arrival of Australian soldiers to assist with the evacuation would be dangerous. Then he paused, and I spoke to him in as direct a manner as I had ever done before: his information was simply false. A rampage, aided and abetted by the Indonesian military, was ongoing. And now it was targeting the United Nations. I could no longer risk the lives of our personnel. He responded that the arrival of Australian troops could mean war. I ended the call by telling Habibie that he had forty-eight hours to improve the situation—otherwise the international community would have to be invited in to restore peace and security.
Later that morning, I called President Clinton to tell him that I had is
sued this deadline. Clinton then provided useful support, ordering that Indonesia be pressured by letting them know that future U.S. military cooperation and loans from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund would be put at risk if Jakarta allowed the violence to escalate. For my part, I also gave a public interview warning that military and civilian leaders could be held individually responsible for violations of human rights.
Over the next forty-eight hours, a delegation of Security Council envoys, led by Namibian ambassador Martin Andjaba and including UK ambassador to the United Nations Jeremy Greenstock, arrived in East Timor along with the top Indonesian military official, General Wiranto. It was clear that Wiranto was embarrassed by the lawlessness that was taking place under his officers’ command. From Jakarta, Greenstock called me: “This place is surreal,” he said. “The president is not in charge. The people who are in charge are telling a lot of lies. There is absolutely no doubt that the violence is orchestrated.” Greenstock’s analysis was further confirmed later that day by a single but symbolic killing: the murder of Xanana’s eighty-two-year-old father by pro-Jakarta militiamen.
In one of the most difficult telephone conversations I had to make as secretary-general, I immediately called Xanana to offer my condolences. His response to my words of sympathy was that his father was one of far too many civilians who had died in East Timor. He quickly returned to the wider cause and conflict: “I know you are doing everything for us, but I can’t help feeling that the situation is getting worse. I don’t know how many more days martial law will prevail. I want to ask you to define a time for martial law. It is very difficult to accept martial law in East Timor.” I replied that I had given Habibie forty-eight hours, after which he would have to accept an international force. As we ended the call, he spoke about his father: “He was a small part of East Timor’s people. Thank you so very much for your solidarity.”
