Personally East Timor

HONG KONG – I never thought I would encounter East Timor while on a visit to Hong Kong. The first time I heard of East Timor was in the early 70s while on exile in London. We often found ourselves in solidarity meetings with East Timorese exiles but I only paid scant attention to their cause. At the time I could not understand or symphatize with the Timorese struggle for independence. Indonesians were themselves colonized. I thought then there may have been another reason for the Timorese not wanting to be part of the Indonesian political archipelago.

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For another view of East Timor let us turn to the pages of the journalist John Pilger’s ‘Distant Voices’. A chapter entitled "Born in Tears" tells us why. If I had not been disposed to knowing more about East Timor, Pilger says, this is because it was meant to be that way. "Such is the depth of silence that has enveloped Timor, or specifically East Timor, the part of the island under an illegal Indonesian occupation since 1975."

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Pilger interviewed James Dunn, the former Australian consul in East Timor and adviser to the Australian Parliament, who made a study of census statistics since the Indonesians invaded. "Before the invasion East Timor had a population of 688,000 which was growing at just 2 per cent per annum. Assuming it didn’t grow any faster, the population today (1992 was the date of publication of this book) ought to be 980,000 or almost a million people. If you look at the recent Indonesian census, the Timorese population is probably 650,000. That means it is actually less than it was eighteen years ago…Where are all the missing Timorese? Pilger asks.

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The facts ought to be well known but these are not. As a direct result of the Indonesian invasion and occupation, some 200,000 or a third of the population have died. This estimate was first made in 1983 by the head of the Roman Catholic Church in East Timor following an admission by the Indonesian Department of Defense and Security that the civilian population of East Timor had halved since the invasion.

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This is the historical background of the festivities in Dili which formally declared East Timor’s independence from Indonesia and incidentally brought me to Hong Kong to babysit for CNN’s Veronica Pedrosa’s son, Gabriel. While she and husband Mark Phillips join a CNN crew to cover East Timor, Birth of a Nation, I am watching her on television as she interviews Xanana Gusmao. I had wished for a more fiery Xanana Gusmao as he talks on the eve of the celebration of independence but after reading Pilger’s account of its long struggle for independence, I can understand Gusmao’s diffidence. He seems all too weary. It could also be because he is a poet and wants to be careful with words. "Right from the beginning, we have many problems. We are the poorest country in Asia," the leader of the newly independent East Timor who would rather grow pumpkins told journalists.

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Filipina on the spot. Friends of Maria Ronson may be happy to know that she has moved up in the journalistic world. Over drinks at the Grand Hyatt’s JJ, a disco-bar and now the place to be in Hong Kong, she outlined for me the format of what would be the next Newsworld conference in Singapore come end of July. She has asked me to moderate or be part of a panel that would discuss a wide range of issues on the role of media especially after September 11. Although she is on top of what has now become the most important media conference worldwide, she still finds time to help colleagues gain access to news sources. I hear she has especially good connections in both India and Pakistan. She will be asking President Musharraf to grace the July conference.

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Here are some of the questions that were discussed and debated on in a recent conference held in Kazakhstan by the same media group. Under the heading "New Challenges Facing the Media", the discussion revolved around the question on changes, if there are any for media, since September 11. Among the concerns were how to report a new global war in new terms especially on the terrorism dimension; media ethics and standards under new pressures from vested interests, governments and groups described by some governments as terrorists.

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The Kazakhstan conference also touched on impartial observers or the journalism of attachment which includes propaganda, stereotypes and manipulation. Journalists like John Pilger and others would have found favor with the discussion on the role of mass media in investigating the roots of extremism and the causes of despair. Yugoslavia, Chechnya, Afghanistan: consistency or coincidence? Among the leading journalistic lights in the conference were Lyce Doucet of BBC, General Qureshi from Pakistan, S.Y. Qurashi Doordashan Director General, John Fiegener, co founder of Vox Box TV Al Jazeera, Nigel Parsons, APTN director, Jim Laurie, vice-president of Network News & Current Affairs STAR TV and Imran Aslan senior editor of the News Jang Group Pakistan.

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My e-mail address: [email protected] or [email protected].