The suffering of the people of Timor-Leste under Indonesian occupation has long been understood as a Western-made tragedy (Aarons and Domm 1992).[1] The key architects according to Joseph Nevins were the “big five”: The United States, Australia, Britain, Japan, and New Zealand (Nevins 2005: 62). Some might argue for a longer list which would include Canada, despite its temporary cut-off of arms sales and aid in the early 1990s. These nations provided the military, economic and diplomatic assistance without which the 1975 invasion could not have taken place, nor could the occupation have persisted. New Zealand was no minnow. It failed to reveal what it knew about Indonesia’s invasion preparations, helped to propagate the fiction that the East Timorese had accepted Indonesian rule and provided military training to Indonesian officers.

In 2002 New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs, Phil Goff, conceded that “Australia, the United States and New Zealand to varying degrees explicitly indicated to Indonesia acceptance of its intention to invade.”

In mid-1975 some far-sighted activists in the student and anti-racism movements sowed the seeds of solidarity work for Timor-Leste. They hosted José Ramos-Horta on a speaking tour and began a lobbying government to pay attention to the gathering storm clouds and send a fact-finding delegation. After the UDT coup of August 1975 and the short civil war that followed media interest was higher, but despite this government made minimal public comment. Foreign Affairs officials advised the Prime Minister that there was a low level of public concern about the issue. Even when a New Zealander, Gary Cunningham, was among the journalists killed at Balibo on 16 October 1975, government justified its lack of action by stressing the fact that Gary had been employed by an Australian television news team.

Paradoxically, the 7 December invasion was played down in press stories, a contrast to the coverage of the August coup. Public reaction was sadly low-key, but letters and petitions began to flow to the government. Unlike Australia, New Zealand did not host Timorese refugees. Nor did we have a cohort of World War II veterans who had served in Timor-Leste and held a deep debt of gratitude to the Timorese had who had protected them. Tens of thousands paid with their lives when the Australians pulled out and the Japanese remained.

The activist challenge right from the start was that so many New Zealanders did not know that East Timor existed let alone understand that it had been invaded by Indonesia. Peter Hopkins, an energetic early leader in the campaign refused to let obstacles stand in his way. He had the knack of getting media attention as he travelled the country in 1977 setting up branches of the New Zealand Campaign for an Independent East Timor. He succeeded in getting cross-party respect and support from a small number of M.Ps.

The momentum of the movement increased in 1978 as news leaked out about the famine conditions resulting from the Indonesian military’s encirclement operations. The 1977 to 1979 famine was the result of a deliberate campaign to defeat the resistance to Indonesian rule and it took more lives than any other military campaign during the occupation.

There was a systematic campaign to force people to surrender and bring them down from the interior into Vietnam war style “strategic hamlets”, where the conditions were scarcely less dire, and no provision was made for people to provide for their own food needs.

New Zealand’s Ambassador in Jakarta was Roger Peren. He visited East Timor in early 1978. Officials considered this to be a “major concession” on the part of Indonesia – as far as I have ascertained the first time that Indonesia had agreed to a visit at ambassador level since it seized the territory. In September Indonesia arranged a visit for ten ambassadors, again including New Zealand, but both trips were carefully managed, with evidence of starvation explained away as evidence of Portuguese colonial neglect.

Roger Peren dismissed the evidence of starving and suffering Timorese thus:

Tragically, Peren’s reports were instrumental in the Government’s decision to regard the occupation as “irreversible” and in the 1979 the decision to vote against the annual UN resolution on East Timor. From the time of the first 1975 UN resolution deploring Indonesia’s armed intervention New Zealand had followed an abstention policy.

New Zealand was eager to contribute food and other aid, but Indonesia was wary and restricting access even to the Red Cross and the UN. In September 1978 Auckland activists staged a lively airport “welcome” to Indonesian Foreign Minister, Dr. Mochtar Kusumaatmadja with banners calling for Indonesia to admit the UN and the Red Cross. One demonstrator was arrested after climbing on to a roof in the hopes the Foreign Minister could see his banners, but “all attempts to get the message to Dr Mochtar were thwarted by the grim efficiency of the Traffic Security.”[3]

In October 1978, a month after the signing of a trade agreement with Indonesia, New Zealand was granted the “privilege” of sending aid. A consignment of milk powder and milk biscuits was delivered in an RNZAAF plane which according to Peren “spent only a few moments on the ground caused the Indonesian authorities no problems and won us golden opinions.”[4]

It was not until later in 1979 that photographs of famine victims and news stories exposed the full horror of the famine. Aid agencies and concerned individuals expressed their outrage and their representations were taken seriously by the Minister of Foreign Affairs. A telegram suggesting that New Zealand was “giving its blessing to genocide” received a lengthy reply from Minister Brian Talboys. Talboys suggested that the priority should be on the “living” and their humanitarian needs rather than “the origins of the problem” and detailed the contributions New Zealand had made in conjunction with the Red Cross. He emphasised:

On the December anniversary of the invasion activists laid a wreath at the Wellington Cenotaph war memorial for the famine victims. By this time even the Indonesian Foreign Minister was conceding the high death toll and observers were saying that famine was possibly worse than the situation in Biafra and Kampuchea.

Let Horta Speak

In 1978 the Campaign for an Independent East Timor (CIET) planned to host José Ramos-Horta on speaking tour. Even though he had already visited before the 1975 invasion, the conservative government of Prime Minister Rob Muldoon decided to try to block the visit. Horta could only visit on visa conditions that stipulated that the visit was private and that he was not to propagandise. Moreover, the visit could only take place in a specified time frame, a time chosen to avoid his being there at the same time as the Indonesian Foreign Minister (Mochtar Kusumaatmadja).

Colin Iles, spokesperson for NZCIET:

The gagging order did not go down well with mainstream media or with opposition political parties. The Let Horta Speak campaign coincided with a time when issues of civil liberties and free speech were high on the public agenda, thanks to recent repressive legislation mandating new powers to New Zealand’s Security Intelligence Service.

José Ramos-Horta did not visit that year – even though the campaign to allow him to visit without restrictions was ultimately successful. Other international priorities had taken the attention of East Timor’s de facto minister of foreign affairs. However, in a way he was present. A public meeting on freedom of speech organised by the Auckland Council for Civil Liberties listened to a recorded interview. Newspapers sought out José Ramos-Horta for interviews and then ran front page stories about him and about the cause. That almost certainly would not have happened had there simply been a normal speaking tour.

New Zealand’s Labour Party came to power in mid-1984 in a snap election. Unusually, foreign policy had featured in the campaign and the new Government had a made a firm election commitment to legislate for a nuclear-weapon-free New Zealand.

Labour Party activists were buoyed with hope that the new Labour government would chart a more independent and progressive direction in East Timor policy now that it had faced down the wrath of its allies over its nuclear-free stand. But it was not to be. Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Frank O’Flynn, said the situation in East Timor was such that “this nine-year-old corpse” could not be revived. “The Indonesians would be absolutely furious if we suddenly began to say, nine years after the event, what we could and should have said in 1975.”[7]

Nine years after the invasion, José Ramos-Horta knew better than to expect miracles from any government. Rather than call for Indonesia to withdraw from East Timor, he suggested that New Zealand could support a negotiation initiative in the United Nations. New Zealand could work within the boundaries of the 1982 United Nations Resolution on East Timor which mandated the UN Secretary General to negotiate between “all the parties directly concerned”.[8]

The United Nations Secretary General, Javier Pérez de Cuellar, had thus far interpreted his role as working only with Portugal, as the colonial power, and Indonesia, and there was little to show for that effort. Horta believed New Zealand could act as an honest broker – calling for the inclusion of Fretilin in the talks. It did not happen and what was worse, Prime Minister Lange, wittingly or unwittingly, went public with his view that human rights were on the mend, a statement with little foundation which was used by Indonesian officials. Lange refused to meet with José Ramos-Horta when he visited in 1985 and barred other Cabinet ministers from meeting him. Horta was distressed that the New Zealand PM seemed to be acting as mouthpiece for the Indonesian Government, especially considering his reputation as someone prepared to stand up to the United States. In the Third World this had earned him celebrity status so “what he says counts” and this case it counted against the East Timorese.

However, at the same time David Lange’s arrogance fired Labour Party activists to work even harder, and it helped the campaign to stretch further into peace, anti-nuclear and church circles.

Kamal Bamadhaj victim to a massacre

Kamal, a New Zealander at the time living and studying in Australia, died from loss of blood in the Dili military hospital at 9 am on 12 November. The story of his last hours emerged gradually. It was always clear that he was shot in cold blood and that bystanders feared giving assistance. The Red Cross representative who transported him to hospital was held up for vital minutes at security roadblocks so that his death from loss of blood became inevitable.

Kamal, 21, was deeply involved with Southeast Asian pro-democracy groups and had opted to go to Dili with a small contingent of international activists. They went to witness the arrival of a long-planned for parliamentary delegation from Portugal, knowing that Timorese student activists had placed their hopes on the success of the visit. When the visit was cancelled, the students who had openly been preparing for the visit were at risk. On 28 October Sebastião Gomes was killed by militia as he sheltered in the Motael church. Sebastião’s early morning funeral procession to the Santa Cruz cemetery began as a peaceful outpouring of grief and protest and ended in shocking massacre. Soldiers simply fired at will on the young people trapped in the confines of the cemetery or the street leading to it. Some 271 people were killed. While US journalist Allan Nairn was badly beaten and suffered a broken skull at the hands of the military, Kamal was the only foreigner killed.

The horrific Santa Cruz massacre in 1991 changed the dynamic in Aotearoa as it did around the world. José Ramos-Horta described the time as one of the “few key points in the history of Timor-Leste where the course of our nation turned toward freedom”. This had a lot to do with the brave and quick-thinking actions of journalist Max Stahl who filmed the tragedy and with the help of fellow journalist Saskia Kouwenberg succeeded in smuggling out the video footage. Both are honoured in Timor-Leste as heroes of the struggle.

This was far from the first mass killing in Timor-Leste, but this was the first time the events were shown in live colour on TV screens around the world.

The Indonesian military and Foreign Affairs officials in Jakarta never provided any meaningful explanation for Kamal’s death and no person has ever been held accountable for it. Indonesian officialdom treated Kamal’s death with callous indifference. It took two days before the death was confirmed, and while at the New Zealand Embassy’s request a nurse was dispatched from the Dili Red Cross, she was denied access to the hospital. Kamal’s body was immediately buried. Then his mother, Helen Todd, and her husband, who had travelled from London, were forcibly prevented from boarding a flight from Bali to Dili to recover his body. Kamal’s body was returned to his parents a few days later. They arranged a funeral service and burial for him in Kuala Lumpur, his father’s homeland. But even this small comfort was denied to the Timorese parents.

New Zealand officials delivered a protest note to the Indonesian Department of Foreign Affairs registering “strong disappointment” at the way in which a “difficult and sensitive situation” had been mishandled.[9] But at the same time, they worked to maintain a “measured and constrained” approach. Publicly, New Zealand diplomats stressed that they were pressing for a full explanation of Kamal’s death, but the cabled reports suggest the diplomats were expecting some kind of cover-up.

Rightly or wrongly, when a New Zealander dies in a crisis or conflict overseas the media leap at a chance to focus their stories on that individual. Activists must be sensitive to the deep personal grief and suffering of the family who frequently do not wish to take a political role. However, Kamal’s family were very conscious that Kamal had died working for Timorese freedom and they did not hesitate to support the campaign while they grieved and sought justice for Kamal’s death. Auckland-based family members supported memorial services and protests and spoke to the media. Kamal’s journalist mother Helen Todd took up Kamal’s cause and that of the Timorese and proceeded to dog the steps of New Zealand politicians with tenacity and determination.

By the end of February 1992 Helen Todd had been working with the New Zealand Government for nearly four months trying to get an explanation of her son’s death out of the Indonesian authorities. None was forthcoming. So, she expressed her anger with Foreign Minister McKinnon’s “mealy mouthed” acceptance of the Indonesian Inquiry and its revised casualty figures. New Zealand and other western governments were overlooking that the report justified the military’s “overreaction” by suggesting that the students were provocative because they shouted slogans and carried flags. Helen Todd found nothing to be “reassured” about in the report’s talk of legal action. The only legal action on the horizon was action against the victims – the students in detention who were facing trial on subversion charges. She went on:

However, the death of Kamal and the Santa Cruz massacre did lead to a very cautious foreign policy evaluation and the New Zealand Ambassador in Jakarta, Neil Walter, floated the need for a policy change. At the end of November, he prepared a comprehensive and frank analysis of the massacre and its implications. This concluded with the startling comment that New Zealand might not be able to continue to support Indonesia’s approach to the integration of East Timor. But that report was confidential and remained so for the next twelve years.[11]

In retrospect it is tragic that the New Zealand Government chose not to use the opportunity for a new stock-taking. If this had happened there is little doubt it would have caused shock waves in Jakarta and in western capitals. Other governments would probably have been forced to engage with the debate with greater honesty. We would almost certainly have forced up the glacial pace of change at the United Nations. The exasperated officials and politicians with their pleadings “what difference could New Zealand make anyway”, would have been pushed to the sidelines.

A ground-breaking lawsuit was filed in 1992 in the United States against General Sintong Panjaitan, the regional commander at the time of the massacre. The action taken by Helen Todd was that of “a middle-aged woman born in Gisborne, an expatriate in Malaysia for thirty years, versus General Panjaitan, orchestrator of the mass killings”.[12] A summons was served on General Panjaitan at his Boston residence on 17 September 1992, whereupon the General promptly left the country. The case came to court in 1994.

The Centre for Constitutional Rights acted for Helen Todd under provisions in United States law that provide jurisdiction over acts of torture and summary execution regardless of where they are committed, provided that the accused is living in the country. Helen Todd was the only plaintiff in the case, although it was taken on behalf of all the victims, because any Timorese parent who joined the complaint would have put their family at risk.

The Federal judge, Patricia Saris, listened to the account of Kamal’s death – as meticulously detailed as Helen could provide it from the accounts of eyewitnesses. She heard testimony from massacre survivors, journalist Allan Nairn and exiled activist Constancio Pinto. The legal team summed up their arguments with Helen’s moving tribute to her son:

The judge supported the legal claim for substantial and compensatory punitive damages. That amounted to the $US 10 million the legal team had claimed plus an additional $2 million for Kamal’s estate and $2 million for Helen Todd for the loss of her son. In New Zealand dollars the total was $22 million. Helen said she would never stop demanding the damages that would be placed in trust for Timorese families who have lost loved ones to military violence. She also stressed that she expected the New Zealand government to pursue the damages.

Prime Minister Jim Bolger declined to take up the issue even though he was about to meet Indonesian leaders at the 1994 Asia-Pacific Economic Forum Conference (APEC) in 1994.When journalists pressed the point, Mr Bolger was blunt. He would not raise the issue at APEC: “Human rights are certainly not on the agenda.”[14] For his part General Panjaitan tossed off any responsibility for the deaths in Dili. “Just wait and see”, he said when he was told of the court damages.[15]

Helen Todd’s lawsuit has since been movingly documented by Annie Goldson in a documentary called Punitive Damage (Goldson 1999). The documentary interweaves Kamal’s personal story and that of his mother with the story of East Timor. It too was groundbreaking – the first time a New Zealand-made documentary had held our East Timor foreign policy up to the light. The documentary was first screened in New Zealand cinemas in May 1999, just after the announcement of East Timor’s referendum and against the background of an ominous increase in militia violence. Helen Todd came to New Zealand to attend the premiere.

General Panjaitan’s career did not seem to miss a beat. In 1994, Research and Technology Minister B.J. Habibie appointed him Deputy for Military Affairs at the Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT). He was later promoted to Lieutenant-General, and he served as a trusted military advisor on security matters to Habibie at the time of the 1999 ballot in East Timor. He is reported to have been involved in contingency plans to forcibly evacuate thousands of Timorese from the country.

As far as I know no “explanation” for the massacre has ever addressed the key accountabilities such as who started the shooting, who ordered military trucks to pick up bodies from the scene.

Internationalizing

The solidarity movement had long been in close contact with international colleagues, benefiting from British TAPOL’s impeccable research and from Australian activists’ close collaboration with Timorese exiles. However, international cooperation on global campaigns intensified in the 1990s. The campaign against military ties with Indonesia was a strong focus.

In 1995, at the time of the twentieth invasion anniversary José Ramos-Horta chose to come to New Zealand explaining that his decision was a sign of the importance that East Timorese placed on New Zealand. For the first time he was granted a meeting with a New Zealand Foreign Minister – Don McKinnon. In New Zealand as internationally, the campaign moved into higher gear in 1996. Timorese had begun a new strategy of seeking asylum in Jakarta-based foreign embassies and in January it was New Zealand’s turn for an embassy entry. Unfortunately, despite the pleas of the five young men and representations from solidarity activists, the New Zealand government refused to allow them to come to New Zealand and they were instead sent to Portugal.

In October the Asia-Pacific Conference for East Timor (APCET) was to have taken place in Kuala Lumpur. Malaysian hosts had made impeccable preparations, but it was the conference disruption that gained world-wide attention. I was present at the Conference attending to the opening multi-faith prayers when more than 100 goons of the Malaysian ruling party’s youth wing, calling themselves the Malaysian People’s Action Front, rampaged into the conference hall, shouting and throwing furniture and seizing conference equipment. Somehow our hosts managed to keep the situation under some sort of control until the police arrived. However, rather than the disruptors facing sanctions it was the conference attendees and the hosts. We foreigners were forced to leave the venue and our passports were confiscated. We were then held in police trucks before being delivered first to Immigration headquarters and then to a hotel where we remained under close guard until our entry status was revoked and we were forced to leave the country. We were however, treated gently in comparison with the local organisers who were arrested and detained in police cells under harsh conditions for several days. Human rights organisation Suaram took legal action for the wrongful arrest and detention of the organisers and journalists and finally in 2009 they were vindicated, and the Malaysian government was ordered to make a compensation payment.

The stand-out event of 1996 was the granting of the Nobel Peace Prize to José Ramos-Horta and Bishop Carlos Belo. The Nobel committee hoped the awards would be an aid to a diplomatic solution of the conflict and they gave a boost to activist confidence.

President Suharto’s dictatorial regime came to end in May 1998 and student activists in Timor-Leste were quick to seize a new opportunity to demand a referendum. In 1999 the Timorese people took their chance to vote for freedom, defying ongoing militia violence. The pogrom of violence and forced exile that followed the vote was predictable, but New Zealand like other western nations stood to the side apart from a modest contribution to the pre-referendum UN mission.

Finally in September 1999, United States President Bill Clinton acted – freezing military ties with Indonesia and threating economic repercussions. The New Zealand solidarity movement had a role to play as the Asia-Pacific Economic Conference (APEC) was taking place in Auckland. José Ramos-Horta and João Carrascalão arrived to meet the international delegates and to take part in the numerous marches, meetings and vigils held to ensure that Timor-Leste was a major item in APEC discussions. Of course, our actions were a tiny part of the mass actions taking place in New York, Lisbon, Melbourne and around the world.

New Zealand followed the United States and broke off military ties with Indonesia “with regret” on 10 September 1999, and New Zealand subsequently contributed to the international peace-keeping force INTERFET.

There is no doubt that Indonesia’s crimes in Timor-Leste could not have taken place without western complicity. The tragedy is that liberation came at such a terrible cost in Timorese lives. International solidarity played a role in the eventual outcome, but for me there is further tragedy in the fact that New Zealand has not learnt the obvious lesson.

New Zealand still pursues an “Indonesia first” policy and does not uphold the right of the people of West Papua to self-determination, despite the parallels in the two self-determination struggles.