U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

★67–455 CC WASHINGTON : 2000

EAST TIMOR: A NEW BEGINNING?

JOINT HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ASIA AND THE PACIFIC

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL

RELATIONS

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

AND THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EAST ASIAN AND PACIFIC

AFFAIRS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

FEBRUARY 10, 2000

Committee on International Relations

Serial No. 106–98

Committee on Foreign Relations

Printed for the use of the Committee on International Relations and the

Committee on Foreign Relations

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.house.gov/international—relations

(II)

COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York, Chairman

WILLIAM F. GOODLING, Pennsylvania

JAMES A. LEACH, Iowa

HENRY J. HYDE, Illinois

DOUG BEREUTER, Nebraska

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey

DAN BURTON, Indiana

ELTON GALLEGLY, California

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

CASS BALLENGER, North Carolina

DANA ROHRABACHER, California

DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California

PETER T. KING, New York

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio

MARSHALL ‘‘MARK’’ SANFORD, South

Carolina

MATT SALMON, Arizona

AMO HOUGHTON, New York

TOM CAMPBELL, California

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

KEVIN BRADY, Texas

RICHARD BURR, North Carolina

PAUL E. GILLMOR, Ohio

GEORGE P. RADANOVICH, California

JOHN COOKSEY, Louisiana

THOMAS G. TANCREDO, Colorado

SAM GEJDENSON, Connecticut

TOM LANTOS, California

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California

GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American

Samoa

MATTHEW G. MARTINEZ, California

DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey

ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey

SHERROD BROWN, Ohio

CYNTHIA A. MCKINNEY, Georgia

ALCEE L. HASTINGS, Florida

PAT DANNER, Missouri

EARL F. HILLIARD, Alabama

BRAD SHERMAN, California

ROBERT WEXLER, Florida

STEVEN R. ROTHMAN, New Jersey

JIM DAVIS, Florida

EARL POMEROY, North Dakota

WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York

BARBARA LEE, California

JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York

JOSEPH M. HOEFFEL, Pennsylvania

RICHARD J. GARON, Chief of Staff

KATHLEEN BERTELSEN MOAZED, Democratic Chief of Staff

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ASIA AND THE PACIFIC

DOUG BEREUTER, Nebraska, Chairman

JAMES A. LEACH, Iowa

DANA ROHRABACHER, California

PETER T. KING, New York

MARSHALL ‘‘MARK’’ SANFORD, South

Carolina

MATT SALMON, Arizona

JOHN MCHUGH, New York

RICHARD BURR, North Carolina

PAUL GILLMOR, Ohio

DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California

JOHN COOKSEY, Louisiana

TOM LANTOS, California

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American

Samoa

MATTHEW G. MARTINEZ, California

SHERROD BROWN, Ohio

ROBERT WEXLER, Florida

JIM DAVIS, Florida

EARL POMEROY, North Dakota

GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York

ALCEE L. HASTINGS, Florida

MICHAEL P. ENNIS, Subcommittee Staff Director

DR. ROBERT KING, Democratic Professional Staff Member

MATT REYNOLDS, Counsel

ALICIA A. O’DONNELL, Staff Associate

(III)

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS

JESSE HELMS, North Carolina, Chairman

RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana

CHUCK HAGEL, Nebraska

GORDON H. SMITH, Oregon

ROD GRAMS, Minnesota

SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas

CRAIG THOMAS, Wyoming

JOHN ASHCROFT, Missouri

BILL FRIST, Tennessee

LINCOLN D. CHAFEE, Rhode Island

JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware

PAUL S. SARBANES, Maryland

CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut

JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts

RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin

PAUL D. WELLSTONE, Minnesota

BARBARA BOXER, California

ROBERT G. TORRICELLI, New Jersey

STEPHEN E. BIEGUN, Staff Director

EDWIN K. HALL, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EAST ASIAN AND PACIFIC AFFAIRS

CRAIG THOMAS, Wyoming, Chairman

JESSE HELMS, North Carolina

CHUCK HAGEL, Nebraska

GORDON H. SMITH, Oregon

LINCOLN D. CHAFEE, Rhode Island

JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts

RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin

PAUL D. WELLSTONE, Minnesota

ROBERT G. TORRICELLI, New Jersey

(V)

C O N T E N T S

WITNESSES

Page

The Honorable Stanley Roth, Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific

Affairs, U.S. Department of State ...................................................................... 6

The Honorable C. David Welch, Assistant Secretary for International Organization Affairs, U.S. Department of State ........................................................... 13

Mr. Charles Costello, Director for Democracy Programs, The Carter Center .... 29

Dr. Andrew MacIntyre, Associate Dean, Graduate School on International

Relations and Pacific Studies, University of California, San Diego ................ 30

APPENDIX

Prepared statements:

The Honorable Craig Thomas, a U.S. Senator from Wyoming ............................ 40

The Honorable Doug Bereuter, a Representative in Congress from Nebraska .. 42

The Honorable Tom Lantos, a Representative in Congress from California ...... 45

The Honorable Benjamin A. Gilman, a Representative in Congress from New

York ....................................................................................................................... 46

The Honorable Russell D. Feingold, a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin .................. 47

Honorable Stanley Roth and the Honorable C. David Welch .............................. 49

Mr. Charles Costello ................................................................................................ 59

Dr. Andrew MacIntyre ............................................................................................ 66

Additional material:

Report from the East Timor Action Network submitted by Hon. Tom Lantos .. 70

Report from East Timor by The Carter Center submitted by Mr. Costello ........ 78

Statement submitted for the Record by Hon. Lincoln Chafee, a U.S. Senator

from Rhode Island ................................................................................................ 82

Questions submitted for the record to Assistant Secretaries Roth and Welch

by Senator Feingold ............................................................................................. 84

Questions submitted for the record to Assistant Secretaries Roth and Welch

by Representative Bereuter ................................................................................. 116

(1)

EAST TIMOR: A NEW BEGINNING?

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2000

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, SUBCOMMITTEE ON ASIA AND

THE PACIFIC, JOINT WITH THE U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS, SUBCOMMITTEE ON

EAST ASIAN AND PACIFIC AFFAIRS,

Washington, DC.

The Subcommittees met jointly, pursuant to notice, at 1:30 p.m.,

in room 2123, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Doug Bereuter

[Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific]

presiding.

Mr. BEREUTER. The Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific meets

today in session, jointly with the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee counterpart, to receive testimony on the political and

economic future of East Timor in the aftermath of a string of historic events. It is uncommon for the House and Senate Asia-Pacific

Subcommittees, or their equivalent names, to meet jointly, but

these have been very uncommon times in East Timor, to say the

least. That has resulted in our second joint hearing on the subject

in just 5 months. I certainly want to warmly welcome Chairman

Craig Thomas and other Senate colleagues who may join us.

I also want to thank the Commerce Committee, particularly

Chairman Bliley and his staff, for making this hearing room available to us, since our major hearing room is under reconstruction at

this moment.

I also want to indicate that the House Subcommittee on Asia and

the Pacific will be holding a separate hearing entitled ‘‘Indonesia:

Confronting the Political and Economic Crisis,’’ next Wednesday

afternoon at 1:30 in Room 2200 of the Rayburn Building. This

back-to-back pair of hearings will allow the Subcommittee to devote

the requisite amount of time and attention that East Timor and Indonesia each individually deserve. Today we will be concentrating

on East Timor, and I serve notice to my House colleagues that I

intend to try to avoid a focus on East Timor in the hearing next

week. We need to spend an equal amount of time on IndonesianAmerican relations.

I have some comments that I will come back to now, but because

there are pending votes in the House and the Senate, I will turn

to Senator Thomas for any opening statement he might like to

make at this point, and then comment further and turn it over to

my colleague from California, Mr. Lantos. Senator Thomas?

Senator THOMAS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I, too,

am pleased to be able to meet together. We have done that a couple

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of times, both, interestingly enough, on East Timor. I guess that indicates some of the interest that we have in it.

Last September, of course, the outlook for Timor was pretty

bleak. After the August plebiscite, 78 percent voted for independence, there was a great deal of problem with the Indonesian military unleashing a reign of terror designed to drive people from

their homes and into the mountains and to West Timor. Unknown

numbers were killed.

Thankfully, much of that pressure has changed, and by pushing

from the international community, the Indonesian government requested U.N. assistance, stabilizing East Timor, had the International Force there, I think carried it out very well. I certainly

want to express my appreciation for the role that Australia played

in this mission.

Today the picture is somewhat brighter, I think. Military violence has ended. Generally, the U.N. has established hopefully a

viable entity there to provide the transition. Some refugees have,

as I understand it, begun to return. The Human Rights Commission has issued a scathing report on Indonesia’s military. That is

not resolved yet, but certainly has something to be said for it.

However, the job is not finished. The infrastructure for democracy cannot be established easily, and I think has not been established, lacks the basic rudiments of self-government. There are

forces that see the situation, intend to destabilize it from the border on West Timor. I think there are going to be problems economically, certainly for attracting people to come there and be able to

support themselves, so this is a challenge we face, certainly.

As you say, we are talking about East Timor today. However,

that question is not in a vacuum. There are other issues with regard to Indonesia which may have a great deal to do with East

Timor.

I am very pleased to be here today, and I am pleased to have our

testifiers here, and who are more familiar with the situation than

we, and that is the purpose. So thank you, Mr. Chairman. I look

forward to the testimony.

[The prepared statement of Senator Thomas appears in the appendix.]

Mr. BEREUTER. Thank you very much, Senator Thomas.

We last met on the subject of East Timor on September 9th, and

murder and mayhem in East Timor were dominating headlines

around the world. The Indonesian military, in particular, appeared

to have been deliberately unwilling or perhaps in some cases unable to uphold the responsibility demanded to provide peace and

security during and after the referendum in which an overwhelming majority of East Timorese voted for independence.

One of the immediate concerns that we have, of course, is to ensure that there is basic nutritional, health, and housing services

that are reaching the population of East Timor, and of course the

still vexing problem of the repatriation of those East Timorese refugees who fled to other parts of Indonesia, and particularly to West

Timor, where some are still being held as virtual prisoners by

armed militia. Ensuring unrestricted international access to and

safe passage home for these refugees is indeed Indonesia’s obligation, and Jakarta’s continued failure in this regard will only exacVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:45 Nov 06, 2000 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 67455.TXT HINTREL1 PsN: HINTREL1
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erbate Indonesia’s standing in the international community, with

grave risk to Indonesia’s own fragile transition process.

The recent decision by the Indonesian government commission of

inquiry to charge senior members of the Indonesian militia and

military for human rights abuses in East Timor is a very important

first step toward the closure of this bloody chapter in East Timor’s

history, and appears to be the kind of strong, positive action for

which the U.S. and others have called.

While these indictments have an important bearing on U.S.-Indonesian relations, we must not allow this set of issues along to halt

the proper engagement with Indonesia’s military or do crucial damage to our overall relations with Indonesia. I strongly believe that

previous well-intentioned but in some cases special-interest motivated congressional actions, which were focused almost exclusively

on East Timor, have largely been counterproductive for America’s

interests in Indonesia. Now we have a chance to step back and certainly most energetically examine Indonesian-American relations.

I don’t believe we should repeat, of course, those mistakes, if

there have been some, nor should we do anything to unintentionally undercut the bold actions of President Wahid to investigate

and prosecute those responsible for human rights abuses in East

Timor, by once again conditioning broader U.S. relations with Indonesia primarily on developments in or with regard to East Timor.

I also believe that we should give that important internal process

a chance to succeed before proceeding any further with a Bosniastyle international tribunal for East Timor.

Those are my views and concerns. I am willing to listen to information, of course, to the contrary. I want to say, before I turn to

my colleague, Mr. Lantos, the Ranking Member, that I will introduce at this point the distinguished two panels of witnesses.

Testifying for the administration will be the Honorable Stanley

Roth, the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific

Affairs. Secretary, we welcome you back to the Subcommittee,

where you rendered long and extraordinary service as the distinguished Staff Director for the Subcommittee.

Also testifying for the Administration and concentrating on

United Nations operations in East Timor will be the Honorable C.

David Welch, an Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs. A career Foreign Service officer, Mr. Welch has

held a number of important positions with the State Department

in Washington and throughout the Middle East and Asia.

We are also honored to have an excellent second panel of distinguished witnesses. Mr. Charles Costello is presently the director of

the Carter Center’s Democracy Program, and led the Carter Center’s election observer delegation to East Timor. Prior to joining the

Carter Center, Mr. Costello had a lengthy and successful career

with the U.S. Agency for International Development, where he directed AID’s Center for Democracy and Governance.

Second, Dr. Andrew MacIntyre is a leading authority on the politics of economic reform in Southeast Asia, and is presently associate professor and director of the ASEAN-Pacific Project at the

Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies at

the University of California-San Diego. He previously served as associate dean of that school. While he certainly is well respected and

4

recognized for his outstanding writing and presentations on Indonesia and other ASEAN countries, it is his research and analysis

on East Timor and its future which makes him an especially valuable witness to our joint Subcommittees today.

So we welcome all of you distinguished gentlemen from both panels. I would ask my colleagues for unanimous consent that my entire statement may be made a part of the record. Hearing no objection, I will now turn to the distinguished Ranking Member, Mr.

Lantos.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Bereuter appears in the appendix.]

Mr. LANTOS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I have no

prepared statement. I would like to make a few observations, if I

may. I also would like to include in the record the written statement of the East Timor Action Network.

Mr. BEREUTER. Without objection, that will be in the record.

[The prepared statement of the East Timor Action Network appears in the appendix.]

Mr. LANTOS. As you know, Mr. Chairman, it was the Congressional Human Rights Caucus which held the first hearing on East

Timor of any congressional entity many years ago, and indeed it

was the Congressional Human Rights Caucus which held the first

hearing on Kosovo many years ago, at a time when neither East

Timor nor Kosovo were on anybody’s radar screen. I am mentioning

this because there is a very naive and, in my judgment, mistaken

assumption that those of us who are concerned with human rights

issues in a very intensive manner are dealing with the soft, difficult to define, nebulous arena of international affairs, unlike people who deal with economics or military matters and the like.

But in point of fact, recent experience very clearly demonstrates

that unless the human rights issues are attended to early on, unless the problems are nipped in the bud, unless the problems are

approached at a time when far more peaceful, constructive, mutually beneficial solutions are available, we sooner or later find ourselves, as we did in the case of Kosovo, with a major NATO war,

the first NATO war in NATO’s 50-year history.

In the case of East Timor we find ourselves with a catastrophe:

a referendum opting for independence because there was not

enough pressure on the previous Indonesian government to address

the human rights and other concerns of the East Timorese people.

Of course the nightmare of deliberate and wanton destruction of

the infrastructure of a whole society, leaving aside the enormous

human damage and tragedy which unfolded.

I am mentioning this because it seems to me that important elements in our society, both in and out of government, continue to

either believe in the mistaken notion or pretend to believe in the

mistaken notion that the human rights issues are soft secondary

issues and they really do not need the kind of attention that we

give to problems once the crisis is here, as it was in the case of

Kosovo as every night we watched tens of thousands of Kosovars

dragging their weary bones into Macedonia and Albania, and as we

watched in horror as the militias and the Indonesian military perpetrated the outrages in East Timor.

5

There is one other observation I would like to make, and perhaps

our Full Committee will need to hold hearings on this. One of the

most fascinating aspects of this post-Cold War era is that we are

simultaneously observing processes of integration in many parts of

the world, particularly in Europe through the European Union, but

not the only example, and fragmentation. It is very difficult for

most, even for specialists, to make sense of these two simultaneous

but clearly contradictory phenomena.

Most outstanding examples, of course, are Soviet Union and its

disintegration, and the former Yugoslavia and its disintegration,

but Indonesia is not a bad example, because East Timor is clearly

not the only area which is interested in attaining either some degree of autonomy or independence, whether it is the Ucher region,

whether it is Bali or other areas. My first trip to Indonesia was in

1956, at the time of the Sukarno dictatorship, where while the

same centrifugal tendencies were in evidence, they were not on the

front pages of our newspapers.

What we find now is that in many societies, in Asia and in Europe and in Africa, the processes of integration and fragmentation

are unfolding simultaneously, and we stumble into the creation of

new states—whether we call them states or not is secondary—such

as Kosovo or East Timor. In some cases the very viability of these

states is very much in doubt, and the chances are East Timor for

many years to come will be an international ward.

So I want to commend you for holding this hearing and make a

general observation that I hope when the human rights community

in the future will point to budding crises, our voices will be more

carefully listened to, because unless they are, we will have many

more Kosovos and many more East Timors, with tens of billions of

dollars in international financial costs and of course the

unmeasurable human tragedy and suffering, which in the case of

the former Yugoslavia by now are close to 300,000 innocent men,

women and children who have been killed in one way or another

since the breakup of Yugoslavia.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BEREUTER. Thank you, Mr. Lantos, for your reminder and

observations which I think are entirely appropriate. Whether or not

they are formal Members, I think every Member of the House

should be a Member of the Human Rights Caucus, and I appreciate

the leadership you have brought to it as co-chairman, founding cochairman, I believe.

One observation. I do think it is probably an error for our Committee to be divided up so that we have a separate Human Rights

Subcommittee and also has major responsibilities for international

operations. It seems to me that the human rights responsibilities

ought to go directly with each geographic Subcommittee and be an

integral part of our process here, and I think our division now perhaps does not serve us well.

I would like now to turn to our witnesses, and without any objection, any Members’ statements, opening statements, will be made

a part of the record. We will call first upon the Honorable Stanley

Roth for such comments as you might like to make. The statements

of you and other witnesses will be made a part of the record in

their entirety, and you may proceed as you wish. Take 10 minutes

6

or so, whatever you would like in that respect, and any kind of

summary you want to present will be quite welcome. Please proceed.

STATEMENT OF STANLEY O. ROTH, ASSISTANT SECRETARY

FOR EAST ASIAN AND PACIFIC AFFAIRS

Mr. ROTH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman

and Members of the Committee, I will take advantage of your offer.

I have submitted a rather detailed written statement. It is a joint

statement both for my colleague, Assistant Secretary David Welch,

and myself, so we won’t be giving two testimonies from the State

Department. What I really want to do is to assume a level of

knowledge of these two Committees and not go back and review

what happened last year, which I think you are intimately familiar

with instead I’d like to start with a current assessment of where

we are and where we are going.

I would like to make one comment based on Mr. Lantos’ remarks,

because I think in one sense you are not giving enough credit to

the accomplishments of the human rights community, including

yourself. If you think back to the events of 1975 and to the events

of 1999, I think you will see a powerful difference.

In 1975 when Indonesia invaded East Timor, there was no major

international response. In fact, Australia even recognized the incorporation. There was no concerted pressure on Indonesia to change

policy. Somewhere between 50,000 and 200,000 people, probably at

the higher end of that spectrum, died. The tragedy was absolutely

off the scales in terms of enormity particularly when you think

about the percentage of East Timor’s population that perished.

As awful, unnecessary and painful as it was what happened in

1999, was different. The pressure from the international community, including, I am proud to say, the United States, both administration and Congress—I think we were together on this—was successful in mobilizing very quickly pressure on Indonesia to allow an

international force in. As a result the casualties were a small fraction of what they were the previous time.

I am not suggesting that anyone should feel good about what

happened, because obviously prevention of the tragedy would have

been far more desirable than what actually occurred. But I think

that there is a difference now in human rights and how they are

valued by countries. The fact that many Asian countries are joined

with a number of Western countries in mobilizing this coalition is

significant. So there has been considerable success in this 20-plus

years that you have been talking about, both on East Timor and

on other human rights problems.

Now, let me start on the situation in East Timor itself. What I

propose to do is talk first about East Timor, and than about West

Timor, primarily the refugees; talk a little bit about the question

of aid levels, a little bit about peacekeeping; and finish up on the

question of accountability.

First, with East Timor, if you compare the situation now to the

hearing you held 5 months ago, approximately, the difference is obvious. At that point there was no security in East Timor, the destruction was continuing, we didn’t know what the level of fatalities or damage was, and the situation looked grim.

7

If you look at it now, it is fair to say that East Timor has been

secured. The Australians did a brilliant job as the head of the multinational force in establishing security very quickly in East Timor.

Many of the concerns that we had in September did not materialize. There has not been civil war in East Timor. There have not

been concerted militia actions, only a handful of incidents. There

has not been cross-border fighting. There have not been raids from

West Timor into East Timor. East Timor is secure in terms of military forces. That is a huge accomplishment.

We are now in the process of making the transition—I know how

much you love the acronym soup—from INTERFET to UNTAET,

which are the names of the international operations. What it

means in operational terms and in terms of peacekeeping is a transition from the Australian-led force to the force that now will be

headed by a Filipino commander.

It is, of course, a very large force, established by U.N. resolution,

and I will get to that in a minute. A very able United Nations administrator, Sergio Vieira de Mello, who has done a brilliant job in

trying to manage the situation, working far more closely with the

East Timorese themselves and ameliorating many of the problems

that had started to fester before he arrived in terms of relations

with the Timorese and the U.N. force. Now he is dealing not primarily with security issues but rather with the very difficult set of

humanitarian and development issues that East Timor will have to

address.

In fact, one of the sad ironies now is, the greatest threat to the

security of East Timor is crime rather than military violence. We

have had 40-plus murders not related to politics in the past few

months, which is an unacceptable level and something that we

have to do something about. But the problems, as I am trying to

emphasize, are ones that are not subject to immediate fixes.

East Timor was poor before the violence of this past September.

It is even poorer as a result of the destruction of infrastructure,

particularly an estimated 70 percent of the houses. It is going to

take a long time to reconstruct this society, where the teachers

have basically left, where the medical establishment has basically

left, the civil servants have basically left. I think there are five lawyers in that half of an island.

You can see the magnitude of the task to be done in terms of setting up institutions, setting up government, providing education,

carrying out development. I fully expect that there is going to be

a vast array of problems. You are going to hear stories that it is

not going quickly enough, that the priorities are wrong, that the

U.N. should be doing things differently, that aid isn’t flowing fast

enough. We will work on those problems. I am not suggesting they

are spurious but those are the same problems we face in every area

where you have to deal with reconstruction on as vast a scale as

this. Compared to where we had been, when we didn’t know that

an independent East Timor, rather, was going to exist, I think we

have come a long way.

I look at East Timor in three phases. We have the humanitarian

phase, which is dealing with the immediate consequences of the

fighting, the violence that happened last September; the reconstruction phase; and, nearly simultaneously, the preparations for

8

independence. There is still a lot of work to be done in terms of

writing a constitution, holding elections, preparing the institutions

so that somewhere down the line—it is not really clear to me

whether it will be a 11⁄2 year, 2 years, or 3 years, it will depend

on progress—that East Timor formally becomes independent. But

I think those are the phases that have to take place.

Now, the situation in West Timor. This is a far more complex situation than is commonly understood. First, the success. There has

been a very major refugee return. At least 135,000 refugees have

gone back. That is out of an estimated total, and we don’t really

have the precise figure, of somewhere between 225,000 and

275,000. I am not sure we will ever have the accurate figures, but

the figures I am getting now include roughly 100,000 refugees remaining. That could be off by 10,000 to 15,000, but that gives you

a sense of the order of magnitude.

Now, what is different from when you had a last hearing in September? In September you had a situation where the refugees had

been taken to West Timor there almost overwhelmingly by force.

They were bused out, they were forced out at gunpoint, they were

terrorized until they left. You had a situation where you had a

large number of people, almost a quarter of a million, who basically

were there against their will, or at least most of them we thought

were there against their will, and with very little access from the

international community.

Now you have a situation where there is much better access by

the international community, but let me be clear, by no means perfect access. It varies not only by place but by the week. We just

had a visit by the U.N. team to West Timor and they said at this

point the Kupang area is not getting good access, whereas

Atambua is getting very good access. This changes by the day.

But overall there is international access. A lot of refugees have

returned, and, most importantly, we now have a situation where

we believe that the majority of the refugees who wanted to return

have returned. You have a situation where you now have people,

who were either involved with the militias or were civil servants.

There was an extraordinarily large civil service in East Timor

that can’t be justified now. There was featherbedding. You had

28,000 civil servants. It is going to be less than half of that. Many

of those civil servants don’t want to go back if they have no salaries, and would rather collect their Indonesian pension.

So you have groups of people who don’t want to go back ever.

You also have groups of people who don’t want to go back now, either because they have planted a crop and they want to wait for

it to harvest or because it is the rainy season and travel conditions

are poor; or, more ominously, because the intimidation hasn’t

ended and they are afraid to go back. There are still militias

present in some places and there still are examples of harassment.

There are people who are afraid because they think it won’t be safe

for them to go back to East Timor.

There has been a tremendous amount of disinformation from the

militia groups but also, regrettably, in recent weeks there have

been some incidents in East Timor itself, in terms of incidents

against Chinese, against what are called ‘‘Muslims’’ meaning nonChristian Timorese. There are some genuine examples where peoVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:45 Nov 06, 2000 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00014 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 67455.TXT HINTREL1 PsN: HINTREL1
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ple are afraid to go back because of what has happened to people

who have gone back. I am not trying to exaggerate the situation

nor create equivalence. It is nothing like the violence that happened in September, but there is real fear in some elements in the

camps.

So what we have is a far more complicated picture where, even

though the number of refugees is high, at least 100,000, I can’t tell

you that there are 100,000 people that are being held against their

will. That would be a gross exaggeration.

The challenge for the Indonesian government is to separate the

people who want to go back from those who don’t, to either create

jobs in West Timor or arrange transmigration out of Timor, for

those who have no intention of ever going back to close down the

militias, make sure there is no harassment, and making sure that

those people who do want to go back, whether there are 10,000,

20,000 or 40,000, whatever number it is, can go back; in other

words, to bring to closure this chapter in the refugee saga.

This continues to be a very high priority for the Administration.

I personally raised this issue with the Foreign Minister of Indonesia last week, and reminded him of the Leahy Amendment and

the fact that the United States will not be able to resume normal

relations, or at least training and FMF military sales, until the refugee problem is addressed and finalized. I made it clear that they

should not delude themselves that the current situation is satisfactory. We could not meet the Leahy condition today, and I have told

them that that is the policy of the administration, and that message has been delivered at many levels.

More briefly, in terms of aid, I think you are aware that there

was an international donors conference. This is an excellent example of burden-sharing, which is something that Congress generally

is insistent on in international situations. Australia, Portugal,

Japan, are all major donors, along with ourselves. A total of $522

million was pledged at the donors conference in Tokyo over a 3-

year period, so that there is a massive amount of aid, roughly comparable to the need, available for East Timor.

In terms of U.S. aid, I am afraid I don’t have the degree of detail

you would like this week. I hope to have it for you next week. That

is because we are finishing consultations, with both the House and

the Senate, on how to spend the $25 million that was earmarked

in the last appropriation bill for East Timor in ESF. But the overwhelming majority of that will be spent by AID for development,

and there will be some contributions to international trust funds as

well.

In addition to these funds, there will be further funds that will

be spent, not out of the earmarked funds, for civilian police. You

may have seen the figure in my statement, about $8.5 million, to

pay the salaries of American civilian police. We believe that is a

crucial component in dealing with the crime situation. During the

Indonesia hearing next week, I hope to be able to give you a precise

breakdown of how we would spend that $25 million. But the

United States can be proud that it is one of the largest donors and

is continuing to help the people of East Timor.

In terms of international peacekeeping, I think you are familiar

with the three different phases of the international operations,

10

starting with UNAMET, going to INTERFET, and now ending up

with UNTAET. At every step of the process we have not been in

the leadership role in the number of personnel, but we have played

significantly. We had a number of civilian police, 30 civilian police,

3 military observers, in the first phase.

We had more civilian police, 45, and 3 military observers in the

second phase, plus some forces on the ground that President Clinton announced in September in response to the violence. I can’t

give you one level figure for these since the number varied, but at

a maximum it was about 200 people on the ground in East Timor

plus a number offshore and in Australia.

As for the third phase, that decision is on the President’s desk

and expected, I hope, even later today, but the concept is consistent. We will maintain the basic principle of what we have done,

since September. There will be no combat troops, I can tell you

that, consistent with what was decided in September.

There will be a modest presence, which is important to show that

we are still committed to a peaceful resolution, but it will not be

a large force. They will be primarily rotational units that will be

exercising under the discretion of the CINCPAC. They will not be

formally attached to the U.N. peacekeeping mission. We will have,

again, more details for you as soon as the President signs the formal order. We will be happy to brief staff and Members and to testify next week, but again, there will be no conceptual break with

what we have been doing thus far, on which the Congress has been

fully briefed.

Finally on the subject of the commissions of inquiry and the accountability issue, there are two different processes. As you know,

they both came to a head on the same day last week. There was

the Indonesian process that you referenced in your opening remarks. It turned out to be a much harder hitting report than had

been anticipated. It named 33 individuals, including 6 generals, the

Governor of the province, the head of several of the militia groups.

It was, by anybody’s definition, a hard-hitting report.

That is not, however, by any means the end of the process. It is

the beginning. These names have now been turned over to the Indonesian attorney general for investigation. He has announced that

he will make recommendations within 90 days, and possibly sooner, by the end of March, as to who should be prosecuted. Then

there is the question of what happens in the prosecutions themselves, in terms of convictions.

At the same time, there is an international process with an international commission of inquiry. Their report has been submitted to

the Secretary General of the United Nations. That was a less detailed report actually than the Indonesian report, and it has called

for continued international involvement in the investigation and in

the judicial processes.

The Secretary General has indicated, in his cover letter submitting that report to the United Nations, that it is his desire—which,

I should say, the administration supports—to let the Indonesian

process play out first to see how effective and how credible it is.

The notion is if Indonesia carries this out all the way through, if

you have a report that goes to the top, that has a credible judicial

11

process, that has convictions, then it may not be necessary to do

more on the international side, at least in terms of a tribunal.

There may be room for cooperation on getting evidence and sharing evidence from the different investigations. At the same time we

have made clear that if the Indonesian process isn’t credible, that

if it falls short, that there will be pressure for the international

community to do more. The administration has said that at this

point it would like to give the Indonesian government the lead with

its domestic process, but we have made it very clear that if it is

not an adequate, credible process, then we will have to consider

supporting an international process.

Why don’t I stop at that point.

Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Secretary, you have conveyed to us an impressive amount of information in a brief period of time, and wellorganized.

We would now like to hear from Secretary C. David Welch, the

Assistant Secretary for International Organization Affairs. Mr.

Welch?

Yes? Have you got to vote?

Senator THOMAS. Can I ask a question or two? I just got beeped

and I am going to have to go vote.

Mr. BEREUTER. Absolutely. If you will hold off, Mr. Welch, we

will come back to you.

Mr. WELCH. That will be fine.

Senator THOMAS. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. You covered an

awful lot in a fairly short time.

Obviously the times have changed, they have changed for the

better, but the real question, and you can attach it to several

things we have been involved in lately, is you can make this first

transition but the second one doesn’t seem to happen very—Haiti,

Kosovo, all of those places. I understand that they were set up for

1,400 civilian policemen and there is less than half of that there.

Why is that?

Mr. ROTH. First, please don’t assume that that is going to be the

final outcome. We are going to get many more civilian police out

there. The delay is partially because one has to get qualified civilian police. This is a multinational effort. It includes a lot of Third

World countries. You want to make sure they have the right training and can handle the situations, particularly——

Senator THOMAS. Those are all excuses, but the fact is that they

aren’t there and I am told that they need them there.

Mr. ROTH. I agree, we need to get more out there. Including us,

by the way, since we haven’t done our share yet, because we

haven’t funded our own U.S. civilian police.

Senator THOMAS. This concerns me because, we go through this

getting away from the battle part and getting over that, and did

that very well, but then for instance the $500 million you mentioned, how much of that has been delivered?

Mr. ROTH. I don’t have the exact number, but obviously very little, considering that the pledging conference was just a few weeks

ago. But——

Senator THOMAS. How do you expect them to make a living and

do it economically? They don’t have any economy. What is the

major economy there?

12

Mr. ROTH. Overwhelmingly it has been agricultural and it has

been subsidized by the Indonesians in the past. I don’t mean that

to sound as positive as it sounds. I talked about the featherbedding

of the civil service, which we are not going to repeat.

Part of Indonesia’s shameful legacy there is that not one factory

was ever built in East Timor. We have to look and see if we can

get some investment once you have the appropriate conditions. But

I think there are several sources of money. One, very promising on

the coffee side, which is a major export and something the United

States has been trying to develop.

A second source is Timor Gap revenues. As you know, there is

believed to be a lot of gas and maybe oil in the gap between Australia and East Timor. In the past there was an agreement between Indonesia and Australia about how those revenues should be

shared. Now there is a process going on to try to renegotiate so

that East Timor gets its share of those revenues, which could be

quite a lot.

We are talking about a place of 700,000 to 800,000 people. We

are not talking about multibillion dollars worth of needs. There is

a potential for tourism. They have a granite industry. I am not telling you that they are going to be rich, but there is a chance that

they could make it if they can get past this reconstruction.

Senator THOMAS. Just one more observation, and I am positive

about it, as you are, and I think we can do something. But here

is a country with 700,000 people and basically no economy, basically no structure for self-government, and they want to be independent.

Now we have kind of completed the main thing. That is always

in the public arena, and we have done that. Now I guess the real

issue is, what do we do now to make this work. You could even ask

the basic question: Is that the basis for an independent country?

Mr. ROTH. I think the answer is going to have to be the choices

that the people of East Timor and their leaders make and how they

set this country up. For example, an East Timor that gets along

with Indonesia, that gets along with ASEAN, that has positive relations, is going to have a better chance of making it—it shares an

island, or half an island, with Indonesia—than one which doesn’t.

Senator THOMAS. Absolutely.

Mr. ROTH. We have seen some extraordinarily impressive leadership from Xanana Gusmao and Ramos-Horta and some of the others, despite the horrific violence which was inflicted on them. They

have traveled to Jakarta, met with the Indonesian leaders, and

said they are interested in reconciliation and want to work together. Indonesia is now talking, incredibly, about opening up a liaison office back in East Timor, and the Timorese are talking about

doing it in Jakarta.

Senator THOMAS. That’s good.

Mr. ROTH. Don’t sell them short.

Senator THOMAS. Good. I guess my whole issue is that we have

gone through this. I am very pleased with what has happened. I

think we have done a good job, Australia has done a good job, but

unless there is some pretty serious planning done now and some

movements to implement that, it is hard to imagine that this thing

is going to take off.

13

Mr. ROTH. You are absolutely right.

Senator THOMAS. And you are exactly right. If they are going to

completely identify—move themselves away from Indonesia, they

are——

Mr. ROTH. Agreed.

Senator THOMAS. Thank you, sir.

Mr. BEREUTER. Thank you, Senator Thomas. Come back if you

can.

Now we will turn to Secretary Welch. You may proceed as you

wish.

STATEMENT OF C. DAVID WELCH, ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION AFFAIRS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

Mr. WELCH. Mr. Chairman, perhaps we should just proceed to

questions. I have little to add to what my colleague Stanley Roth

has already said.

Perhaps I should point out, in answer to the Senator’s question,

that the U.N. leadership is concerned with, bedeviled by, some of

the very same problems he identified. The Under Secretary for

Peacekeeping was in my office yesterday. We had a long discussion

about the pace of CIVPOL deployment. It is an issue that they are

riveted on, given what is probably a more pressing need for policemen than for military at this point. They are focused on it.

Second, Sergio de Mello, who I think we all agree is a very capable administrator, identified as one of his two primary problems,

when he briefed the Security Council just a couple of days ago,

would be the flow-in of dollars to begin the process of reconstruction and rehabilitation in a way that will get money into the economy to sustain people there, and so that livelihoods can be rebuilt

again. The Secretary General of the United Nations is planning a

trip to East Timor imminently, and I expect this will be on his

agenda, as well.

[The joint statement of Mr. Roth and Mr. Welch appears in the

appendix.]

Mr. BEREUTER. I thank you, Secretary Welch. We are aware of

the fact that you had a joint statement, the two of you, and so we

will proceed to questions at this point. Since we began with Senator Thomas so he could leave, we will go the Ranking Member,

Mr. Lantos. We will proceed under the 5-minute rule, but I believe

we will have a chance for two rounds.

So, Mr. Lantos?

Mr. LANTOS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to commend our

witnesses and I want to commend the administration for handling

a very difficult situation very effectively. I am sorry that our colleague is no longer here, because I think our insistence on others

paying their pledges and commitments would have a somewhat

more authoritative sound if we had not been delinquent for so long

in paying our United Nations dues, but it is certainly the hope of

all of us that these pledges will be fully met.

I have a rather specific general suggestion. I know that Japan

has been quite forthcoming in terms of economic contributions to

all of these international endeavors, and I commend them for this.

But I find it unacceptable that two generations after the end of the

14

Second World War, Japan is still hiding behind what is clearly an

obsolete constitution in terms of their military participation in

peacekeeping efforts.

My understanding is that there are a handful of Japanese in a

support role, but I would like to ask both of you, if both of you wish

to deal with this, whether there is any high level—and I mean high

level, Secretary of State level—initiative that we can anticipate,

pointing out to the Japanese that if German troops can participate

in the Balkans, as they have in large numbers and continue to do

so, since they have recognized that the new Germany has very little to do with Hitler’s Germany of the 1930’s and 1940’s, what do

we need to wait for in terms of Japan accepting its proper share

of responsibility in peacekeeping or even peacemaking activities in

Asia and the Pacific region?

I find this lack of burden-sharing, from the point of view of one

Member of Congress, unacceptable. I find the notion that the Japanese are prepared to write a check but they are not prepared to

participate physically—had it not been for the Australians, this endeavor, just as the Kosovo endeavor, would have fallen overwhelmingly on the shoulders of the American military.

This is an absurd situation, and I have raised this issue with

previous administrations, and I will continue to raise it with this

one and future ones. I would be grateful, Secretary Roth, if you

would address it as fully as you are willing to do, because this facade of a clearly obsolete constitution is no longer an acceptable answer.

Japan’s role in trying to build a Greater East Asia co-prosperity

sphere three generations ago is not an answer as to why the Japanese are not participating at least to the same extent that the Australians are participating. They have the resources. They have the

manpower. They have certainly the economic capability. Our timidity in approaching this issue in bilateral dealings with the Japanese is extremely disconcerting.

Mr. ROTH. I am sorry that you raised the issue in the context of

constitutional reform rather than in the context of Japanese policy,

because I don’t think they need to reform their constitution in

order to address this issue. As you know, Japan has had some participation in international peacekeeping—I am thinking about

Cambodia—and it is not impossible for them to do it.

The issue is not their constitution, and I would argue in fact that

there would be huge reactions in Asia if Japan were to amend its

constitution; that you might see a surprising amount of negative

feedback. There was a lot of hostility, you may recall, when Japan

sent the peacekeepers to Cambodia, even though we hugely applauded it.

But I don’t want to beg the issue, which is more Japanese participation in these peacekeeping exercises, and I have not only

heard your comments but agreed with a lot of it. On my last trip

to Japan, which was about 3 weeks ago, I had many conversations

with them. My emphasis was more on the police than on the peacekeepers in this case, and the reason for that is, the real need in

East Timor is for the police rather than the peacekeepers.

Mr. LANTOS. No, but my question is a generic question. There

will be future crises in Asia, and unless we have the United States

15

or Australia again carrying the main burden, there will be no

mechanism by which to implement policy, when the Japanese are

fully capable of participating.

Mr. ROTH. I agree with that, and I think there is a further point

which has been made to them, that if Japan wants a permanent

seat on the Security Council, it is going to be expected that it will

play a larger role in the decisionmaking process and in the international activities that are approved. So this is an issue where

Japan is going to have to do better.

I must tell you, though, I met with a number of parliamentarians

on the same trip that I just described, and the reaction I got was,

‘‘You know, if they had one fatality in Timor, it could set back Japanese participation in peacekeeping for 10 years.’’ There is this

mentality that Cambodia was a close call and almost got them permanently out of the peacekeeping business.

So there is a tremendous timidity, but I think in terms of the

trends for the future, you are right, there is not one standard for

Japan and one standard for all other countries that do peacekeeping, and they are going to have to do better.

Mr. LANTOS. Now, this degree of sensitivity, which I agree with

you is present, will have to be overcome. I mean, the notion that

no Japanese can potentially be hurt anyplace on the face of this

planet is an idiotic and naive notion. This is still a dangerous

world. Large numbers of other people get hurt. To have Japan exclude itself from carrying any of the physical burdens of activities

such as this, sticks in the throat of many of us, and we hope that

the administration will raise the issue with the seriousness that it

merits.

Mr. BEREUTER. Maybe the gentleman and I would want to talk

about a hearing on that subject.

Mr. LANTOS. A good idea.

Mr. BEREUTER. The Chair will recognize himself now under the

5-minute order.

We all recognize the role of the Portuguese, and certainly it is

self-evident that there has not been enough focus on training for

self-government in East Timor. I am reminded also that when the

Portuguese left their colonies, East Timor was absolutely in the

worst condition of all their colonies, with not a single college-educated person in East Timor, as I have noted in various books.

I would like to focus a little bit on our effort to see progress toward independent governance in East Timor. I don’t think it makes

sense that they are going to be an independent country in an economic sense, but I am glad, since autonomy is now acceptable, we

are going to proceed in that direction, and we have to think of

them, I guess in a benevolent sense, as an international welfare

case for a while.

How long is it expected for the U.N. to set up the necessary functioning institutions for self-government? Maybe we will start with

you, Mr. Welch. What are your predictions in that respect?

Mr. WELCH. I think first we ought to speak to their intentions,

that is, the U.N.’s. It is inherent in the title of the organization.

It is a transitional administration.

The way I understand it from talking to de Mello and other senior leadership at the United Nations, they want to work themselves

16

out of business, and as far as they are concerned, the sooner they

do that, the better. Now, they realize of course that they can’t—it

isn’t going to be that simple because they have a variety of targets,

and you mentioned some, which pose some serious challenges, and

I think the question is at what pace and what phase they would

do those things.

When this was addressed in a session of the Security Council at

the beginning of this week, de Mello put his emphasis first on

starting the—doing a more effective job in rehabilitation, reconstruction, and resetting the economy on somewhat of a footing, but

on a firmer footing, with some reluctance to pursue immediately

into some of the political issues for fear of politicizing the environment there.

He had listed two principle challenges in his briefing to the

Council. First was to establish some rapport and cooperation with

the East Timorese. That I think he has made a credible and good

start on. Second was this economic area that I mentioned earlier,

where there have been more difficulties. So, to the extent I understand their phasing, it would be that.

Mr. BEREUTER. Let me, in order to draw you out further on this,

what can be done, not only by us but internationally, to expedite

the self-governance process? What conditions have to be met before

elections are possible? With respect to democracy building, what

specifically will our country do to help build democratic institutions

and institutions of self-governance? Can you take on that three,

that combined three questions there? Mr. Roth?

Mr. ROTH. Sure. First it is useful to know what the Timorese

themselves are thinking. I have talked about this precise question

to Xanana Gusmao and Ramos-Horta, and their thinking has been

quite pragmatic. Prior to the violence in September, their hope had

been—they had always assumed they would win the referendum—

that they would have independence in 6 to 9 months. Following the

violence and the reports of what had gone on, they were talking

more in terms of 3 to 5 years.

Now that they are back on the island, not outside, living there

and seeing the international efforts, we are hearing about shorter

time periods. We have heard as little as 18 months. We have heard

2 to 3 years at the outer limit. So, it is coming down to a manageable bite. They have defined the first year as reconstruction, and

the second year as both development and institution-building.

Xanana Gusmao and Ramos-Horta talk about the need for a constitution, the need to have an electoral process. Right now there

are no elected leaders. Xanana, by virtue of his role as a guerilla

leader, has been prominent. Ramos-Horta, by virtue of his role the

past 20 years in exile and his receipt of the Nobel Prize has been

another leader. But they don’t have elected officials. So they need

to work out procedures for local elections, figure out what it is that

they want, a process by which they have a national election, and

have the campaign and do it.

So there is a fair amount of work that needs to be done just in

building the basic building blocks of politics. There are no government institutions. But I think the intent is to move quickly on it.

Again, if you take the 18 months to 3 years I think is the expected

outcome, nobody is saying that they have to be fully independent

17

economically before they can move toward political institutions,

elections and independence. The feeling is that they are going to

get aid after they are independent, as well.

Mr. BEREUTER. My time has expired. I will come back on a second round for more specifics on the aid and the current budget.

The gentleman from Florida, Mr. Hastings, is recognized for 5

minutes.

Mr. HASTINGS. Thank you very much, Chairman Bereuter.

Gentlemen, thank you for your presentations. In your joint offering under the heading ‘‘U.S. Policy-Meeting the Challenges,’’ you

say the following: ‘‘These then are the challenges that we face:

building a new East Timor, resolving the fate of remaining refugees

in West Timor, and ensuring accountability for past atrocities.’’

And that is where I wish to place my focus.

As an observer of international tribunals where bringing people

to the bar of justice for their actions in other areas of the world,

the process has been glacial to say the least, and the results have

not in all instances approached what some of us might think would

be a reasonable conclusion.

I am curious, in this area, what is the United States position on

the development of an international tribunal with reference to East

Timor? What has been the Indonesian government’s response to

calls—for example, Carlos Belo called for an international tribunal—and what about the military? Has there been a response

from them in this area?

Mr. ROTH. I thought I had laid out what the Administration’s

policy is. We are giving priority first to seeing how the Indonesian

domestic process rather than the international process proceeds. As

you know, it is not the norm that there is necessarily an international tribunal for every egregious human rights situation that

happens everyplace in the world. It is more when you don’t have

a prospect for justice that you have to look at an international

mechanism.

What we are looking at now is a process in Indonesia that could

potentially be a historic break from the past, where there has not

been accountability for a wide range of human rights abuses. By

contrast, there has been an investigation of East Timor. It was

quite thorough. It named a number of individuals. It was unusual

in Indonesian terms by naming specific people, including high level

generals up to General Wiranto, the Governor of the province, militia leaders. If you had sat down with experts on East Timor and

asked them to draw up a list of people that they thought needed

to be investigated, and compared it with what the Indonesian investigation concluded, you would be quite satisfied.

So now the question is, what is next? It is one thing to do a report. It is another thing to indict them and it is another thing to

prosecute them and still another thing to convict them. We are

going to have to see how this process plays out before we can give

you any kind of answer as to whether there has been justice and

accountability in East Timor.

The point we have made to the Indonesians is a basic one. The

Indonesian government is strenuously opposed to an international

tribunal. That is not just the military, that is the government

18

itself. They have said this is a different Indonesia, it believes in the

rule of law, it believes in justice, and it is going to do this.

We have said and many other countries have said, fine, we are

certainly prepared to give you the chance, but you have to do it,

and if you don’t do it, then the international community is not

going to give you a blank check. We are withholding the right to

support an international mechanism if we don’t feel that the job domestically is adequate.

So that is the stage we are at, but I have to emphasize that the

Indonesian process has gotten off to a very strong start.

Mr. HASTINGS. Let me shift emphasis, then, to USAID. It is reasonable, I believe, to assert that food aid is going to be required for

quite some time. With the rainy season ensuing there and many

roads being impassable, my curiosity is piqued to ask the question

whether or not there is any direction toward projects that would,

for example, build roads that would help the delivery process or for

an infrastructure.

Is there anything being considered along those lines? Or otherwise you are just—there are a lot of places we go in the world, you

know that if you can’t drive a truck or you can’t get something

there, even the food aid that we propose to give sometimes becomes

difficult, and not just the United States but donors otherwise. That

will be my final question, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. ROTH. First, let me commit to get you a more detailed answer for the record, since this is not an area of expertise on my

part. But let me give you some general impressions, having traveled to Timor twice last year and flown over it several times.

My impression is, food is not the major problem. You had a food

problem at the time of September because you had displaced people. More than half the population of East Timor was either internally displaced within East Timor or was across the border in West

Timor. The farms were not being attended to, crops were being pillaged, and so of course you had a food problem. Even when you had

food growing, you didn’t have the people living there to tend to it.

But that is not the biggest problem, and Timor is such a tiny

place that it is not really the question of getting the food to market

that is the biggest problem. We are not talking about vast distances. Sure, the roads can be improved, but let me tell you it is

vastly different from when I went to East Timor for the first time

in 1981, when there weren’t roads. It is not like that now.

So I suspect that that is not necessarily going to be the biggest

focus. It is going to be a health delivery system, it is going to be

creation of some kind of investment for industry, creation of some

jobs program that they are going to need very badly. It is government. They have no police force. They have no courts. They have

no medical processes. There are no doctors. There are no nurses.

There are no civil servants. I mean, it is an incredible absence of

personnel in these areas that the U.N. is just beginning to address

now.

Mr. HASTINGS. Mr. Chairman, I had said that that was my final

question. I don’t have another question. I just, not meaning to

argue with you, Mr. Secretary, but while CRS may not be an eminent authority, at least they make offerings. In their November 5th

report that I have in hand, they say because of destruction of

19

homes, crops and farmland, the World Food Program estimates

that 740,000 of a total East Timor population of 890,000 will need

food aid over the next 6 months, and this is a November 5, 1999,

report. I am not suggesting that it is inaccurate, but I am glad to

hear what you said, and somebody needs to tell CRS that food ain’t

the issue.

Mr. ROTH. No, I think we are talking about two different things.

What I am trying to suggest is, of course there was a staggering

need, as a result of what happened, in what we call humanitarian

aid. That is housing, medical, as well as food. That is clear, and

there has been a major international response to that.

But that is a very short-term piece. It has been the question—

I took your question to be on the development side rather than on

the immediate emergency humanitarian and disaster relief side.

There once we get past this initial hump, once you have the next

crop, I don’t think food is going to be the overwhelming problem

of East Timor. Jobs, will be a huge problem for East Timor.

Mr. HASTINGS. Thank you.

Mr. BEREUTER. Thank you, Mr. Hastings.

The gentleman from American Samoa, Mr. Faleomavaega, is recognized.

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I do want

to commend you and Chairman Smith for calling this joint hearing.

I think it is not only timely but it is important that we also get

the latest information from the administration, and I certainly

would like to offer my personal welcome to Secretary Roth and Secretary Welch for their presence here in the Committee.

So that I won’t be redundant in expressing my personal sense of

frustration and advocacy, because I have always said in the past

several hearings, Mr. Chairman, and I am just going to say it very

briefly, when we talk about East Timor, we have to talk about

West Papua, New Guinea. But I will not talk about West Papua,

New Guinea today, Mr. Chairman. It will be definitely my intention to offer legislation concerning this very serious matter affecting West Papua, New Guinea, but let us just touch the issue of

East Timor.

I think that I would be remiss, Mr. Chairman, if I did not say

something for the record, to offer my personal commendations to

the government of Australia for taking the initiative and the resources and the efforts that they have made, not only in the geographical sense but certainly taking the leadership of what they

had to do to bring peace and to restore peace in that region of the

world, especially when it directly affects its own security and wellbeing.

I recently, and I am sure both of you Secretaries have noticed the

latest development out of Indonesia, where the Prime Minister has

asked the former general of the army or whatever the armed

forces, Mr. Wiranto, to step down, and he has refused to do so.

What are the implications, do you think, in the future for this as

far as Indonesia’s own stability will be for the future? I say this

because I think it will also have real serious implications on the

stability with East Timor. I would just like to ask you gentlemen

for your reactions to that.

20

Mr. ROTH. Let me first say that this is a work in progress, the

story is not over, and that, as you know, President Wahid is due

back on Sunday. It is expected at that point that there will be some

resolution of this issue. Most people are betting that General

Wiranto will step down.

I will have more to say on this subject when we have the second

hearing next week, but just to answer your question head-on, it is

very clear what the position of the United States is. We believe

strongly in the importance of civilian supremacy. This was a point

which Secretary Cohen made on his trip to the previous government, pointing out that the military had to abide by the results of

elections and not attempt to take matters into its own hands.

Here you have the president of the country, exercising his right

to determine who is going to be in his cabinet. So for us this is a

question of civilian supremacy. The exact mechanism for working

it out is something that I leave to the Indonesians, but the U.S.

position is clear.

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. I appreciate your response to that, but I

thought we had a similar problem also with Cambodia where there

was a coup taken, and Mr. Hun Sen is still around. What will be

our policy toward a military coup, if Wiranto does decide—I know

I am being hypothetical, but will our position be just to say, ‘‘Well,

you shouldn’t do that,’’ or will there be any strong position taken

by our government, if there will be a military coup on the part of

Wiranto, on this issue?

Mr. ROTH. Let me first say that we are not seeing indications to

suggest a coup will take place, in terms of the unit that would have

to participate. Futher more key generals in Indonesia have made

statements expressing their support for the government, including

the head of their military forces on the uniformed side. I don’t want

to perpetuate the story that the United States has any information

suggesting a coup is imminent. We don’t.

Nevertheless, if you ask me the question, what would be the policy if there is a coup, Ambassador Holbrooke has already spoken

authoritatively for the U.S. Government on this several weeks ago.

You have undoubtedly seen his statement where he indicated it

would have very dramatic and severe consequences; that the

United States supports the democratic government, and there

would be many consequences if that was overthrown by military

force.

I think, and I hope, that the Indonesian military has learned a

lesson. They were warned there would be consequences if they did

not abide by the outcome in East Timor. They didn’t. There were

major consequences for them, including a suspension of the military relationship with the United States and other aspects of international opprobrium. There would be similar consequences, even

stronger ones, in the event of a coup.

But again, the main message I want to say is we do not have information suggesting that any kind of coup situation is imminent.

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. I notice in your statement also, Mr. Secretary, that we plan to provide about $300 million in aid for a 3-

year period. What kind of assistance is Portugal planning to give

to East Timor for its reconstruction?

21

Mr. ROTH. Considerable. One of the hard things in explaining or

even evaluating these aid programs is, a lot of the contributions

are in kind rather than in dollars, and so it becomes more difficult

if you are providing a hospital ship to service individuals or if you

are sending a unit to help administer something. It is more difficult

than just cash transfer. If you would like, I would be happy to give

you more detail than this for the record on what Portugal——

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. If you would, please.

Mr. ROTH. Yes, certainly.

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Chairman, may I have one more question, or am I——

Mr. BEREUTER. We can come back to you, but if it is a brief one

we can go ahead and take it now.

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. I just wanted to follow, Mr. Secretary, and

Mr. Welch also, the question and the concerns expressed by my

good friend from California, Mr. Lantos. Japan is the largest investor in all of Southeast Asia. No other country makes more money

out of these Southeast Asian countries than Japan. I do want to

express that similar concern.

If they want to be top of the heap, be a permanent Member of

the Security Council like Germany, there should be added responsibility given to them, especially when it comes to—it is very easy

to give money. I mean, anybody can make money. But when your

sons and daughters come back in body bags, that is a very difficult

situation, what our country has had to go through.

Do you think that, in adding to what Congressman Lantos has

said earlier, is Japan offering assistance to East Timor for reconstruction?

Mr. ROTH. Japan is offering very substantial assistance to East

Timor for reconstruction.

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. How much?

Mr. ROTH. I could fish out the numbers but I——

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. That is all right. You can just provide it for

the record.

Mr. ROTH. They are probably the largest or the second largest

donor. It is a very large, significant program.

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BEREUTER. Thank you.

The Chair will exercise discretion and grant the gentleman from

California, Mr. Bilbray, an opportunity to engage in questions here.

It is, after all, his Committee hearing room, and half his relatives

are Australian so he has taken a great interest in the East Timor

issue. The gentleman from California, Mr. Bilbray.

Mr. BILBRAY. Yes, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the chance to participate. For those of us in California, we have always been frustrated with the tradition in the United States of—America has a

bad habit of looking East in foreign policy all too often. I guess it

is a tradition that goes all the way back to our Founding Fathers.

But obviously there was a lot of us that had major concerns of

what was going on in this part of the world as we were looking at

Eastern Europe and were so obsessed with Eastern Europe, and

there was a concern about what was happening in East Timor.

In fact, my relatives in East Timor and the Ambassador and the

Prime Minister of Australia kept hitting me up as a Member of

22

Congress about, ‘‘Where are you? Where are you coming from? Why

isn’t there anything being talked about this?’’ And I am sure that

my colleague from Samoa would say you get the same thing. It is

like, hey, guys, you know there is something going on out here, and

I guess as much the media should be blamed for the lack of focus

on this as anything.

My question gets around, and really I want to reinforce my colleague from California’s comment about the fact of trying to get

across the message to the economic powerhouses of the world, that

with the economic opportunities and prosperity comes the responsibilities, and with those rights the responsibilities need to be

borne. I think Japan is one that quite clearly needs to understand

that part of this brave new world that exists out there, if I may

use that term—it is not very politically correct, but it is—is that

if you want to be a world leader and participate economically, then

you have a political and cultural and social responsibility to participate in a lot of fields.

The $500 million that you were talking about over 3 years, that

is compared to what kind of contribution have we seen from—

Japan has matched that pretty close, or how close have they come

to it?

Mr. ROTH. The $500 million was the total contribution of all the

countries and international organizations that attended the pledging conference. It is an exceedingly complex figure to unravel because a lot of countries included what they were already giving to

East Timor, please future contributions, plus in-kind contributions,

plus contributions to two international trust funds, one for the expenses of the U.N. operation, the UNTAET trust fund, the other for

the World Bank trust fund, which is the coordinating mechanism

for development.

So trying to sort it out in a very simple fashion for you is not

that easy. The $500 million figure includes everyone. That includes

Japan, Australia, Portugal, U.S., and all the other donors. By the

way, that is roughly in line with what we think the needs are.

Mr. BILBRAY. Yes, and I would just like to remind all of us, I

guess we forget about that, is that in the South Pacific, United

States, Australia and New Zealand have placed massive amounts

of resources into their protectorates, taken on a responsibility that

the rest of the world community has not taken on in a lot of ways.

I think that too often when we see this, we forget that Australia

and New Zealand are very much, for such small countries, very

much committed into cooperating with the small island communities. They are trying to protect, trying to participate and get involved with it. Our involvement with our released protectorates,

our newly created independent island nations out there, we still

have participation out there.

My constituency is just saying, are we paying our fair share? I

will just say this, and I have said it before, and I have said it on

the House floor: If it wasn’t for Australia and the pan-Asian countries stepping forward, we probably would have been in this Catch–

22 of going in and doing it for them again. I think that we need

to encourage everyone, including the Japanese, to bear their fair

share.

23

I would say this to my colleagues who are looking at Europe: I

would only ask NATO, look at what Australia has done and say,

how could a little country like this make such an effort, and you

guys constantly be looking at us to do it? I guess the answer is,

is we will do it. We will get in there and do it for them.

Is it really beneficial for us in the long run, and for places like

East Timor, to have the United States always be the one who goes

in and be the lead group? I guess that is a rhetorical question, because I think it is great having subregional participation like we

are seeing in East Timor.

Would you like to comment on this as being a prototype for the

future? Not just in Asia and Europe. I am talking sub-Saharan Africa and South America, too.

Mr. WELCH. I think as a general matter, wherever we can find

capable, determined regional leadership, that helps in any multilateral effort.

Now that at least three Members of the Subcommittee have

raised this question of Japan, I would note that Ambassador

Holbrooke will be testifying on another peacekeeping issue to the

Committee next week. He is intending to visit Japan in the not too

distant future. I hope you will communicate the same message to

him, and I will do so myself, about your concern in this area, because it is where both the responsibility to pay and the capacity to

pay meet up, is in their interest in playing a global role such as

by permanency on the Security Council.

Mr. BILBRAY. See, my concern is that we need to be proactive,

Mr. Chairman, and I will close with this statement. We need to be

proactive and send a signal around the world that we are willing

to participate and be a supportive nation anywhere in the world,

but that we no longer should be looked at as being the primary

source of relief everywhere in the world.

I think that that message needs to be sent, like sub-Saharan Africa, we need to be proactive and communicate in sub-Saharan Africa that they need to get their act together. We will help them,

we will participate with them, but the days of doing it for them,

need to come to an end. We have to teach them how to fish rather

than keep giving them fish, and I think that East Timor has been

an example we should use as a prototype.

I yield back, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BEREUTER. Thank you, Mr. Bilbray.

We have been joined by Chairman Ben Gilman and Senator

Feingold. Welcome, gentlemen. I will recognize you under the 5-

minute rule in that order. Chairman Gilman?

Mr. GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I will be brief. I

want to thank our distinguished Chairman of the Asia and Pacific

Subcommittee, Mr. Bereuter, for holding what I consider a very

timely hearing today, and for his diligent attention to the problems

in Indonesia and East Timor. I also want to welcome to the House

our former colleague, Senator Craig Thomas, and his colleague,

Senator Feingold from the East Asian and Pacific Subcommittee of

the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. We welcome them as

well.

Although the situation in East Timor is stabilizing, it is obvious

that much is left to be done. First, the refugee repatriation process

24

must be completed expeditiously and safely. There are still a substantive number of refugees who still remain in West Timor and

want to return home.

I am pleased that our former staff Member, Stanley Roth, has

now gone up to higher levels and is keeping an eye on all of this,

and we welcome him along with Mr. Welch.

Second, the remaining militia elements must be controlled and

ultimately disbanded, and Indonesia is going to have to dissolve

these militia groups which are crossing the border from West

Timor into East Timor, and I hope we can find a way to do that.

Third, all those responsible for the violence in East Timor must

be held accountable for their actions and eventually brought to justice. We are all anxious to see the report of the Indonesian National Commission on Human Rights, and we call upon the government of Indonesia to take action on the findings and make that report public as soon as practicable.

In that regard, former armed forces chief General Wiranto should

step down from his government post and account for his actions in

the aftermath of the referendum on independence in East Timor

last year. His resignation as well would send an important signal

to others that the military must extricate itself from Indonesian political life and return to the barracks and provide civilian control.

Fourth, the United States and the international community

should recognize the challenging transition that is now underway

in East Timor and extend a helping hand to assist that important

transformation. Our Nation has a key role to play in the democratization and reconstruction of this new island nation.

Last, I want to thank the forces of INTERFET, but especially the

Australians, who played a key role in its deployment and the cessation of violence in East Timor. I also want to commend our brave

American forces who, half a world away from home, supported this

historic transition to an interim U.S. stewardship.

We look forward to free and fair elections at an appropriate time

in the future in East Timor, and wish the U.N. Transitional Administration for East Timor and the East Timorese people the best

as they undertake this unprecedented journey.

Mr. Chairman, if I have a moment, I would like to ask a question. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

When Bishop Carlos Belo, a 1996 Noble Peace Laureate, has

called for an international tribunal to bring to justice those who

perpetrated violence in East Timor. I would like to ask our witnesses, what is our position on such a proposal, and what has been

the Indonesian government’s response to calls for such an international tribunal? The international community’s experience with

such tribunals is, to be kind, uneven. Are there more appropriate

methods to bring to justice those who planned the violence in East

Timor? Mr. Roth?

Mr. ROTH. First, let me say that I think in terms of your opening

statement I could basically say I agree. I made many of the same

points in my testimony, only not as well, but I think I see no conceptual differences or nuance differences in anything you have said

and the Administration’s positions.

In terms of your specific question, the position of the administration is that at this point we would like to give the Indonesian doVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:45 Nov 06, 2000 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00030 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 67455.TXT HINTREL1 PsN: HINTREL1
25

mestic process on the commission of inquiry a chance to play out.

I have detailed previously that this Indonesian press has had a

very credible start; that there was a significant investigation; that

a number of high level individuals, including prominent generals,

were named, also the governor of the province and the heads of key

militia groups. It was a very credible report.

But I also stressed that this was the beginning of a process, not

the end of the process, and that we in the administration do not

consider the box checked simply by the report. It now goes to the

attorney general, who has 90 days to make recommendations for

indictment and prosecution. Then they have to have trials, and

then they have to have convictions.

We would like to see a situation where Indonesia is capable of

getting justice and accountability in its own right. That is the position of the Indonesian government. ‘‘Let us do it ourselves. This is

something we need to do to show that Indonesia has changed.’’ But

we have made it very clear that until the process has played out,

until we see the end result, we are not prepared to say that we are

opposed to any international effort or that there won’t be an international effort. We are rather saying, ‘‘Do the job right, and if you

do the job right, then there won’t have to be an international effort.’’

Mr. GILMAN. Just a quick followup. At a recent seminar in Washington hosted by the U.S. Institute for Peace, Indonesian Attorney

General Marzuki and other senior officials discussed truth and reconciliation commissions in South Africa and in Latin America.

Would we be supportive of the establishment of such a commission

in Indonesia?

Mr. ROTH. This is an Indonesian government decision. If they decide to establish such a commission, we will be supportive of it.

Mr. GILMAN. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BEREUTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We appreciate you

pursuing those questions.

Now we recognize the gentleman from Wisconsin, Senator Feingold, for questions that he might have.

Senator FEINGOLD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize for

being late, but in the 10 minutes that I have been here, I have already heard more that I agree with than I sometimes hear in the

Senate in a whole day, and that certainly does not apply to Chairman Thomas.

But let me just say, first of all, thanks to Chairman Bereuter and

Chairman Thomas for scheduling the hearing. I certainly agree

with Chairman Gilman’s comment about his idea for General

Wiranto’s career future. I think that is an excellent suggestion. I

also want to say that I agree with much of what Congressman

Bilbray was saying.

One of the reasons I voted against the Kosovo operation and the

Bosnia operation, as much as I wanted to support it and the administration policies, I did not feel that the European nations were

doing as much as they might have to take the lead in that situation. What I thought was impressive and exciting about the East

Timor situation was the Australian commitment, and I want to

take this opportunity to publicly commend the people of Australia,

26

the government of Australia, the military of Australia, for what

they did in that situation.

Let me just say, as you go forward with the hearing, if I heard

correctly, I believe Ambassador Holbrooke will be before the Committee. When he speaks to you about the Congo operation, I want

folks to notice, if they could, that that fits in with what Congressman Bilbray was saying.

It is an African-led initiative, where specifically no American

troops are being requested. This in the model of people in the region saying they want to take the lead, and I very much concur

with those remarks that I think can be the basis for some bipartisan agreement about the kind of commitments that we make as

a country in the future.

But I am especially pleased that the Senate and House Committees with jurisdiction over U.S. policy in East Asia have again

taken the opportunity to convene a joint hearing on the important

issue of the future of East Timor. As the people of East Timor start

down the road toward independence, we should focus our attention

on two important issues: accountability for the past and action for

the future.

The international community should join the people of East

Timor in embracing their transition to independence, and I really

do welcome the day when East Timor is truly independent and our

policy toward that new country is not considered only in the context of our policy toward Indonesia. Of course the two will always

be interrelated, but this is an important step forward. East Timor,

as Ambassador Holbrooke likes to say, is the first new nation of the

new millennium. It should be treated in that way, and our conversations and our efforts with regard to it should not always be

simply with regard to its position vis-a-vis Indonesia.

I know many of the things that I was interested in, Mr. Chairman, have already been asked, so I just have two brief questions.

One is for both Mr. Roth and Mr. Welch. One of the recommendations made in the report of the International Commission of Inquiry on East Timor focuses on establishing procedures for assisting survivors, and I will just quote:

‘‘A clear-cut policy should be established for official custody of remains, their return to families, and the support families can expect

during this process. Those involved in interviewing survivors

should be trained in supportive and sensitive techniques for doing

so.’’

As we all know, almost every East Timorese citizen has been

touched by the violence that has scarred that territory over the

past year, and I commend the Timorese for their courage in this

horrible situation. I would ask, what is the United States doing to

ensure that there is adequate counseling and other appropriate

care for the East Timorese people as they seek to rebuild their lives

and their country? Start with Secretary Roth.

Mr. ROTH. I don’t know. This is not something I have focused on.

I would rather get you an answer for the record than make it up.

Senator FEINGOLD. Secretary Welch?

Mr. WELCH. Get you an answer for the record.

Senator FEINGOLD. Both of you? OK. I look forward to that.

27

I know that the administration is seeking $18 million to support

ongoing bilateral and multilateral efforts in East Timor, but I notice that the ESF request for East Timor is $15 million less than

the 2000 estimate of $25 million. Would you speak to the priorities

that our assistance will focus on East Timor? Then, given the vast

needs of the territory, where rampaging militias wiped out virtually all of the infrastructure, would you please explain why

would this reduction be appropriate, given the needs?

Mr. ROTH. I am puzzled by the numbers. I am not aware of any

reduction in aid to East Timor, only increases. There is the $25

million that the Congress earmarked, as you know, to ESF. You

had a lot to do with that. On top of that, there is money that is

going to be made available, $8.5 million, I mentioned in my statement, for paying the salaries of civilian police, and then there will

be some additional sums that will be provided for police functions

and the like.

I indicated before you arrived that we are still in the last phases

of consultation on spending of the $25 million, and so I can’t announce it today. I hope I can announce by next week exactly how

we are going to break it down, but I did say that the overwhelming

majority of the money is going to be for AID and it is going to go

on the development side, and be for precisely the types of things

you have talked about.

Rather than going in many different directions, the focus is to try

to get as much money as possible for poverty alleviation and development in East Timor. I will be able, as soon as we finish the consultation process, to give you an exact answer. There is no reason

to withhold that from you.

Senator FEINGOLD. I thank you very much, and I thank the

Chairs.

Mr. BEREUTER. I thank you, Senator.

Senator Thomas, do you have any concluding remarks for this

panel?

Senator THOMAS. No, sir. Thank you.

Mr. BEREUTER. Thank you.

I would just say I heard numerous commendatory comments

about Australia here, and I think in general that is shared by

Members of Congress and the American people. In fact, I don’t remember so many positive comments about another country since

the Canadians helped us rescue hostages, and it is well deserved.

Finally, let me say that in today’s paper I noticed an indication

that a ‘‘notorious East Timorese military leader’’ suspected of being

involved in massacres, leading attacks on Australian peacekeeping

soldiers, has been arrested, and the Indonesian government arrested him. Do we expect any additional arrests soon? How is it

that the U.N. can call for this military leader to be extradited to

East Timor? There is no judicial system in East Timor.

Mr. ROTH. I asked the same question this morning when I saw

the press story. Presumably it means that the U.N. would have to

do something in terms of dealing with the person from a judicial

perspective, but I am waiting for a real legal answer rather than

a common sense answer like that.

Mr. BEREUTER. Share it with us.

28

Mr. ROTH. First of all, though, let me say that with all the welldeserved praise of Australia today, I hope we won’t forget the many

other countries that also participated. Don’t forget that we had a

deputy Thai commander, which was an extraordinary step, as well

as a Thai detachment. We had a large Filipino detachment. We

have had a Korean detachment.

So there is a lot of Asian participation and a number of other

countries outside the region, and now we have a Filipino taking

over from the Australian as commander. So I completely agree with

everything wonderful that has been said about Australia, but I

would just like to add some praise for some of the other countries.

Mr. BEREUTER. So noted, and I think that is appropriate you call

that again to our attention.

Mr. ROTH. Second, on the specific incident, what is significant

about this arrest is, one of the only negative developments on the

security side recently has been the fact that in the enclave, OecusiAmbeno, that there have been several recent incidents, violations

of that border and threats to the security.

The militia leader arrested was specifically linked to that violence, and it was a response to the United Nations saying to the

Indonesians, ‘‘This is unacceptable,’’ that the security of the enclave

is just as inviolate as the security of the rest of the border between

East Timor and West Timor. So they took a step by arresting this

individual, who was found, apparently, according to the press, with

some arms.

I have no specific information about whether there are plans to

arrest other militia leaders, but I did note before that the Indonesian report on accountability did mention several of the militia

leaders, so I think there is going to be an effort to have some accountability for that.

Mr. BEREUTER. Thank you. I noted Senator Feingold’s comments

about budgetary questions. I have no doubt that the informal caucus here on East Timor will take care, if the administration

doesn’t, of the funds.

But I also noted that there are not the funds—the funds are

short in the administration’s budget with respect to what the assessment team said about Indonesia itself. I would just ask the

State Department to focus a little more attention on Asia. When it

comes to budgetary questions, Asia shouldn’t be neglected.

I would now expect we would thank you gentlemen for. Mr.

Welch?

Mr. WELCH. If I may interject, of course Mr. Roth will take back

your concern about focus on assistance, but if I might say something about another form of funding that is still pending, and that

is with respect to our peacekeeping assessments in support of the

United Nations effort in East Timor.

Mr. Chairman, we have a reprogramming request that has been

submitted to the Congress for a significant sum of moneys in this

regard. We have now received a bill from the United Nations for

East Timor which we cannot pay. We can’t pay it because we

haven’t had action on the reprogramming request. That is not a

problem in the House; it is a problem on the Senate side. Ambassador Holbrooke has raised this with the appropriate people on the

29

Senate side. I hope that will be clarified and allowed to move

through.

Mr. BEREUTER. Thank you very much. We are going to have the

second panel now, and Chairman Thomas, Senator Thomas, will

conduct the hearing for that portion.

Senator THOMAS. [Presiding.] I thank the gentleman. We appreciate it very much.

The next panel, as has already been introduced, is Charles

Costello, Director for Democracy Programs, the Carter Center; and

Dr. Andrew MacIntyre, associate dean, Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, University of California.

Welcome, gentlemen. Glad to have you here. Yours appears at the

top of the list, Mr. Costello, if you would care to begin.

STATEMENT OF CHARLES E. COSTELLO, DIRECTOR FOR

DEMOCRACY PROGRAMS, CARTER CENTER

Mr. COSTELLO. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to testify today about East Timor’s future. I have submitted a longer written statement which I will summarize briefly.

I also have a short document describing the Carter Center’s actual

observation of the public consultation process, the referendum balloting, and our findings, and I ask your permission to include that

in the record as well.

Senator THOMAS. Without objection.

[The information referred to appears in the appendix.]

Mr. COSTELLO. I led the Carter Center’s observation mission to

East Timor in August 1999, a mission which had generous support

from the U.S. Agency for International Development and the State

Department, with help, personal help, from Assistant Secretary

Roth, and we received some support from Portugal for that mission

as well.

I personally witnessed the incredible determination of the East

Timorese people to express their will peacefully at the ballot box

in the face of serious intimidation and violence from the Indonesian

government and military, mainly through their surrogates, the militias. The people literally came streaming out of the mountains on

foot at dawn on August 30th, and most voting was over by noontime. More than 98 percent of registered voters turned out, with

78.5 percent favoring independence.

The rest of the story is well known. It is ultimately a happy

story, thanks especially to Australia and the United Nations, and

East Timor by no means should be thought of as a disaster in spite

of the suffering the East Timorese people have had to endure to

achieve nationhood. But independence will be a hollow victory indeed if the transition over the next 2 to 3 years does not lead to

a democratic political system in East Timor. Fortunately, prominent East Timorese leaders such as Alexander Xanana Gusmao,

Jose Ramos-Horta, and Bishop Belo all proclaim their commitment

to democratic values.

If there is one thing we have learned in the last 20 years about

political transitions, as part of the so-called democratic wave in the

ex-communist world and elsewhere, it is that these countries need

help in building their new governance structures and civic institutions just as much as they need help with their economies and

30

physical infrastructure. Truly democratic societies, ‘‘free countries’’

we might call them, are only built up over time, and sustainable

democratic political systems depend on a foundation of democratic

values embedded in a nation’s culture.

Neither public administration training for new civil servants nor

a single free election alone will deliver democracy to East Timor.

Long-term programs of democratic development assistance are

needed as badly as any for economic recovery or infrastructure rehabilitation. Democracy, like most anything else, is learned by

doing it, and unfortunately the East Timorese under Portuguese or

Indonesian occupation have had precious little practice.

It is our view that support to civil society, primarily nongovernmental organizations, for the strengthening of civic institutions

that will work alongside the U.N. Transitional Authority for East

Timor and later the elected East Timorese government, deserves

the highest priority. Be it assistance to fledgling political parties,

the independent media, or to NGO’s that participate actively in the

public policy arena, this is the area where U.S. bilateral assistance

can play a vital role.

This is also where the U.S. has a comparative advantage, based

on the experience gained by American organizations working with

strong bipartisan support from the Congress for democratic development around the world over the last 20 years. A vibrant civil society is the basic underpinning and guarantor of a democratic society and strong political institutions, as de Toqueville brilliantly observed about our own country more than 200 years ago.

Civil education in the broadest sense, through participation in

public life by private groups acting freely and peacefully, will be essential to building a successful democratic future for East Timor.

Good governance doesn’t just happen; you have to work at it. It is

as dependent upon civil society actors and organizations as it is

upon elected public leaders. Freedom rests with self-government,

and self-government rests first and foremost with the people. I urge

you to give East Timor that kind of support. They have earned it.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Costello appears in the appendix.]

Senator THOMAS. Mr. MacIntyre?

STATEMENT OF ANDREW MacINTYRE, ASSOCIATE DEAN,

GRADUATE SCHOOL OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND

PACIFIC STUDIES, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO

Dr. MACINTYRE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I hope I can bring

some fresh thoughts on this discussion here, coming from well outside the beltway. I don’t want to go over the points and themes

that have come up in the earlier discussion, so let me just try and

hit a few main points and then we can open things up to questioning.

We all have a very clear sense of just how horrible the situation

has been in East Timor in the not too distant past, but I guess the

first point that I would like to underscore is just how extraordinarily well things have gone in the past 4 months. I think they

have gone way better than anyone would dare to have expected

back in September or October last year.

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I mean, if you just think what has gone on, we have already

heard how security has been now assured in the territory, thanks

to the INTERFET forces. We have got a U.N. Transitional Administration now in place. The ADB, the Asian Development Bank, and

the World Bank are now gearing up to get moving. We have got

the National Council for Timorese Resistance which is functioning

as an umbrella political organization in Timor, moving to play a

very constructive role in getting Timor’s political elite thinking and

talking about issues. We have got the National Consultative Council, which is a joint body set up by the U.N. including Timorese

leaders, which is actually getting moving now on some serious decisions.

This is all pretty significant progress, and I don’t think many

people would have thought it at all likely in such a short timetable.

So if point one is, things are actually going better than we might

have hoped, given how bad they had been, point two is, not surprisingly, there is still an enormous task ahead, a truly enormous task

ahead.

I think the most immediate priorities are fairly clear, and we

have heard this from other speakers. There is just urgent need now

to get the economy moving, particularly in the rural sector. That

is where a lot of the employment activities are going to becoming.

Urgent needs to get stable administration and governance reestablished through the territory.

But it the challenges that come a little further out that are actually the more interesting ones, and in some ways contain potentially more complex matters. I think it is very important that people start to think now about getting the United Nations out, and

that seems an extraordinary thing to say since all the attention has

been on getting the United Nations in. It is clear that East Timor

could not have come into existence without the United Nations.

The United Nations is critical to the birth of East Timor.

But it seems to me that we need to be very careful to avoid a

situation of a protracted presence of this big, large international

bureaucracy sitting on a place that has never had self-government.

Think of metaphors of big ocean liners being slow to turn around.

I think we need to be giving thought now to what the exit strategy

is for the United Nations.

The projections I have seen are for them to leave sometime toward the end of 2003. Timorese leaders Xanana Gusmao and

Ramos-Horta are talking much more in terms of the end of 2002,

and I think they are right to. I think that the critical issue here

is, when we look at getting this new democracy up on its feet, is

for us to be thinking sooner rather than later about permitting

these people to have self-governance.

So that is one point that I would like to put up for your consideration, because it is not getting much air play in all the discussion.

I think more broadly about priorities for a newly democratic East

Timor, perhaps the single most pressing international priority is

their relationship with Indonesia, and one of the big achievements

you folks are achieving here in setting up two separate discussion

sessions is to detach these two discussions, and I think that is very

constructive.

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But we also need to remember that East Timor’s relationship

with Indonesia will have more bearing on its future than just about

anything else that happens. It would be very easy for Indonesia to

create enormous difficulties for East Timor. Now, there is no sign

that that is what we are looking at. We are seeing the military

elite, the civilian elite in Jakarta, all looking in another direction.

We are seeing the militia, what remains of them in West Timor,

being quite weak. But the fact remains that East Timor has to

have very careful regard for its relationship with Indonesia.

This is where, I guess, the difficulties start to come, and it focuses on the issue of accountability. I think there is widespread

agreement on the need for accountability on the part of the Indonesian armed forces for what has happened in East Timor. There

is no debate on that. The issue really is how this proceeds, and I

was very heartened by Secretary Roth’s comments that the administration’s position is to have this proceed through Indonesian

channels to begin with. I think that is the way for us to proceed.

I think it is important that Timorese leaders themselves,

Gusmao and Ramos-Horta, are both taking the approach of let’s

put emphasis on truth-telling rather than retribution. But there

could be difficulties here, and I do think we need to be careful that

any efforts to bring Indonesian military officers to account do not

destabilize democracy in Indonesia. Because let’s not forget the single worst thing that could happen for East Timor, the single worst

thing that could happen would be a collapse of democracy in Indonesia. That would be the most worrying scenario. So we are going

to have a very delicate balancing act in front of us all as we on the

one hand want to see serious movements toward accountability,

but at the same time ensuring that this does not fundamentally destabilize the situation in Indonesia.

I had some other points in my written remarks that I won’t go

into here, but which were more to do with the importance for East

Timor of building links more broadly in the region, so that they are

not dependent just on the United States, Australia, Portugal, for

assistance. I think it is going to be very important for them to build

links to the rest of Southeast Asia, to the Association of South East

Asian Nations, and in particular to the Philippines as the other

Catholic democracy in the region.

So let me simply close by hitting I guess two main points here.

We know how bad this situation has been, and we know that the

challenges ahead are truly daunting. But let’s not lose sight of the

fact that there has been surprising progress, surprising progress in

the last 4 months, and let’s not lose sight of the really quite difficult balancing act that is going to be needed in the next several

months, in the short-term future, as we all seek to see continued

progress with nation-building in Timor and at the same time pursuit of accountability and justice for the Indonesian military.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Dr. MacIntyre appears in the appendix.]

Senator THOMAS. Thank you very much, both of you. Very insightful.

Let me go, Dr. MacIntyre, to your last comment. It is going to

be very difficult to steer the next period of time, however long that

33

is, toward accomplishing both the governmental establishment as

well as the economy. Who do you see taking the leadership in that?

Dr. MACINTYRE. I think to begin with the ball is in the Indonesian court. Let me make sure I understand your question. Taking the leadership, are you referring there to the question of accountability or——

Senator THOMAS. No. Let’s assume that if everybody walked

away from East Timor, they would not do very well.

Dr. MACINTYRE. Right.

Senator THOMAS. So who is going to manage this idea of putting

together a democracy? Is it going to be the U.N.? I don’t think it

is going to be Indonesia is going to break their neck, when they are

in as much trouble as they are, to be working on somebody else’s

success, do you?

Dr. MACINTYRE. Absolutely not. No, I think the key players to

begin with will indeed be the U.N. Transitional Administration

that is there, together with the other main developmental agencies,

the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. But I suppose

the point that I would really like to emphasize is, a lot of the discussion so far today has all been about what is everyone else in the

world going to do, what can the United States do?

That is all fine and important, but I think what we are overlooking here is the importance of empowering East Timorese themselves, East Timorese themselves, to take control of decisions. I

think that is critical to things moving ahead.

Senator THOMAS. Mr. Costello, do you see any—you were there

for the election and you indicate it went well, apparently so—do

you see any indication of the establishment of the elements of democracy? Do you see a constitution? Do you see a rule of law? Do

you see a structure for some final elections to take place?

Mr. COSTELLO. All of that remains to be done. The transfer of authority from the United Nations to an elected East Timorese government should occur after free elections have been held, with the

likelihood of having a constitution in place prior to elections, although it could be the other way around, with the newly elected

Timorese government dealing with its constitutional issues.

But we are of the view that elections too early in that process

will be counterproductive. That has been learned, a lesson learned,

I think, in a number of places around the world, that a bit of a

cooling off period, a concentration on some of the other issues, and

adequate time to prepare the Timorese for their national elections.

I mean elections should be held off until year 2 or year 3, at about

the time that the U.N. is ready to hand over administration, although I am referring to national elections. I think that early establishment of local councils, elected local councils to deal with governmental matters at the district level would be indeed quite helpful.

One of the issues with elections at the earliest possible date is

that it is clear that right now the only organized political force is

really the CNRT, and in terms of fostering pluralism and a

multiparty system, early elections would lead, as a foregone conclusion, to just them assuming full control of the government.

Senator THOMAS. Do either of you know of an example or a pattern that has been done by the United Nations, to take a country

34

that has never governed themselves into governance in a democracy?

Dr. MACINTYRE. No. I don’t disagree with anything my colleague

here has said. I guess the spirit of my remark is, I have great fear

for the possibility of the U.N. staying three, four, 5 years and stifling development. I need to be cautious that the burden of my remarks don’t sound like I am suggesting a mad rush to elections.

I completely agree with the spirit of the previous comments. I just

fear ocean liners that don’t turn round.

Senator THOMAS. I agree with you. However, there needs to be

some help. I am not an expert, but I was in Jakarta some time ago,

a few years ago, and they were seeking to do some things but they

didn’t have a rule of law, for example. They had a human rights

Committee but they had no way to enforce it. So these folks are

not very familiar with what it takes to cause a democracy to work,

and somehow someone has to be helpful in that regard.

Mr. Chairman?

Mr. BEREUTER. [Presiding.] Thank you very much. Gentlemen,

sincere thanks to you for your contribution here today. I appreciate

the administration witnesses that we had before us, but their answers tend to be more predictable and guarded, and so I always

look forward more to the second and third panels that we have at

our hearings.

Dr. MacIntyre, I want to express my appreciation to you for

bringing your Australian knowledge and experience and knowledge

of Southeast Asian island countries to our country. Mr. Costello,

thank you for the work that you did in early difficult days in East

Timor.

I remember when, in fact one of the most unforgettable experiences of my life is working as an election observer with the Carter

Center team and former President Carter in Nicaragua, and so I

am interested to know what the Carter Center’s continued role will

be in East Timor. Has it been decided?

Mr. COSTELLO. As Director of the Democracy Program, I know

that I would like to continue work of the sort that I described in

my statement, concentrating on strengthening of civil society.

There are a number of organizations, NGO’s, in Timor that were

tolerated during the Indonesian period, others that worked in

semiclandestine fashion, but now a great number of new NGO’s

that have sprung up but have very little experience and training.

So, along the lines of what I said in my oral statement, I think

it would be important for us, I would certainly like to see us carry

forward a program. We have indeed internally presented an initial

proposal for review, so I hope that we will be able to do work like

that. So that the constitution-making process, for example, should

be one which includes hearings, which includes participation of

civic groups, and that whole preparation for elections is not simply

about the machinery of elections but about media, about organization and training of political parties, all of the elements that fit

around your formal government institutions that really sustain a

democracy.

Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Costello and Dr. MacIntyre, I ask both of you

this question, just some assessment of how deep the divisions are

between those that supported independence and those that did not

35

in East Timor, and that implies their ability to work together, your

commentary on that.

Dr. MACINTYRE. The answer to that is not clear. It depends on

who we have got in mind. I think there is a portion of the population that at least nominally was in favor of integration with Indonesia, but did so perhaps out of fear or perhaps because they were

themselves employed in state bureaucracy or in some ways locked

into the system. I think a fair portion of those people would be

quite able to switch sides now, but that is clearly not true of everyone.

There are clearly—we heard about this in the refugee camps—

it is also true of some Members of the elite that have left East

Timor and are not in Jakarta or elsewhere in Indonesia, who feel

they can’t go back. So I think it very much depends on who we are

talking about.

Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Costello?

Mr. COSTELLO. Let me add to that, that I don’t see that as a

major problem now, a major obstacle. Obviously the voting demonstrated that nearly 8 out of 10 in Timor favor independence.

Some people who left the country, the majority in fact, were driven

out as part of this depopulation strategy of the Indonesian military.

But there is a goodly number, and as Secretary Roth said, they

are not sure but would estimate perhaps half of those who are outside of East Timor won’t go back. They have in fact voted with

their feet. They were civil servants who don’t want to go back.

Some of them had links to the militias or to pro-integration groups.

They don’t feel comfortable in the new Timor.

So I think that the more dangerous issue in terms of democratic

development will be something that you saw that dates all the way

back to 1975, the Timor uprising against Portugal, is factionalism

on the part of the pro-independence groups. There is a certain element of small town politics in East Timor, a lot of personal rivalries and old grudges, and if those groups start feuding they could

really damage the kind of basic consensus around their new democratic system that is so badly needed.

Mr. BEREUTER. Thank you. Dr. MacIntyre, I would like to end

with two economic questions for you. First, what is there in East

Timor that you would expect to be the most likely areas for economic activity in the future, economic development?

Second, there is often discussion about the hope for major oil and

gas findings in the Timor Gap. Do you think it is likely that Australia and Indonesia would renegotiate their agreement in that

area so that East Timor could in fact have an opportunity to benefit from any oil and gas that might be discovered in that area?

Dr. MACINTYRE. With regard to the first question, if we look in

broad terms, what is going to be the main economic activity, it is

very clear it will be agriculture. Most people in East Timor will be

engaged in agriculture. That will be the basis of the economy.

Mr. BEREUTER. Is coffee one of their crops?

Dr. MACINTYRE. If we look to what is going to give them export

dollars, that is where coffee comes in, that is where oil might come

in, and conceivably, given some time and some good luck, tourism,

et cetera, et cetera. But if we look at the basis of the overall economy for the next so long it is going to be agriculture, and that is

36

why getting the agricultural economy moving again, fertilizer, credits, all those sorts of things that are necessary, is so important.

Your second question, my understanding of the situation is that

that is indeed what is anticipated, that there will indeed be a restructuring of previous agreements to take account of what are basically changes in the map now, and that the Australians are fully

expecting to play ball on that. It is not clear to me how Indonesia

could resist it. Maybe they could drag the chain, but I don’t see

that as a major issue.

Mr. BEREUTER. I enjoyed visiting the campus where you did your

study last August.

I would like now to turn to our colleague from the Commerce

Committee, representing a part of the San Diego metropolitan

area, to make inquiries of one of the gentlemen who is from the

San Diego metropolitan area. You are recognized.

Mr. BILBRAY. Yes. Dr. MacIntyre, I would just like to say we

have more in common than we would like to admit sometimes,

right?

I would just like to compliment both our witnesses. I really have

to reflect on my colleague from San Diego’s comment about we

should celebrate how well it has gone. Anybody who is a betting

person probably would have laid money that between the time of

the election to this day, we would have expected so much more social upheaval, so much more problem and so much more difficulty

for the peacekeeping forces, and we have been lucky that way.

You may disagree with me strongly, but I would say this and I

will ask you this question. I think that those of us in the States

may grossly underestimate how much not having the Yanks on the

ground helped in the process. I think that too often we forget as

Americans that we really are, an easy target for extremists to point

fingers at and try to justify actions based on the fact that it is the

imperialistic Yanks and they are moving in, or whatever.

I think part of the formula we need to learn from East Timor is

having the Aussies go in and be the higher profile took away the

extremists, at least to some degree, not that they can’t hate the

Aussies as much as they do Yanks, but it takes away some of the

tools that extremists use traditionally as a way to cause turmoil,

to cause violence and whatever, by saying, ‘‘Once the Americans

move in, you’ll never get them out, the imperialists.’’

I am just wondering from your comment, is that really that much

off base? Could that be part of the secret, that we were able to have

a group of peacemakers who weren’t so overwhelmingly intimidating and didn’t play into the extremist lines? Could that be part

of the formula that gave us the success?

Dr. MACINTYRE. Mr. Bilbray, thanks for the comments. Let me

come to the first part of your remarks first. I need to be careful

in underscoring or focusing on the progress that has been made in

the past 4 months. I don’t in any sense want to diminish from the

horrors of what went previously or the scale of the challenge that

lies ahead. But I guess I want to discourage people from being despairing of the scale of the task at hand, because much more that

is good has happened than I think we would have expected.

To the second part of your question, I strongly agree with you.

I think this is a model we should be looking at for U.S. foreign polVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:45 Nov 06, 2000 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00042 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 67455.TXT HINTREL1 PsN: HINTREL1
37

icy more broadly. I mean, this is real burden-sharing in action.

This is the thing we want to see.

It seems to me that the U.S. in fact played a more important role

in all of this than the burden of the discussion has suggested. I

think it was important for Australia to know where the United

States stood on this issue. I think that mattered to them in their

decision to go in. But in broad terms I very much agree with you.

This is the model for burden-sharing that it would be good to see

more of.

Mr. BILBRAY. It is funny you say that about where America stood

on this issue, because like I said before, I was just astonished that

every time I went back to visit family and every time I met with

a diplomat, every time I met with a Member of parliament, they

kept coming up, ‘‘Will you be there if we need you in East Timor?

Are you willing to go in there with ANZAC? What about the repercussions of some kind of claim of Europeans moving into an Asian

country?’’

There was just an absolute concern that political correctness or

some kind of race-baiting would scare us away from being supportive, and I was glad to see that didn’t materialize, and it was

just interesting for me hearing this, and I never heard anything

here in D.C. from Americans even reciprocating on it. So I was concerned there.

But getting back to this issue that I want to keep pinging on, is

the fact that I guess the fact that the Americans were not the high

profile up front, I guess I would say to those of us who are Americans, we forget that we are today what the British were in 1774.

There is a bit of status at taking a shot at an American soldier,

just the fact that you are taking a shot at an American soldier. I

think when you go back and read our history, there was a bit of

status to the fact that we were willing to stand on a village green

and actually face off with the world’ premier military power, and

that added status even though we fired and ran like hell.

I leave it with that, but I just think that we need to think about

the fact that those of us in the States really do live insulated from

some of the pressures and some of the perceptions the rest of the

world have of us. Thank you.

Mr. BEREUTER. Thank you very much, Mr. Bilbray. Mr. Bilbray,

you are welcome anytime you would like to join us on an Asia Pacific Subcommittee.

Gentlemen, thank you very much for your testimony here today.

We appreciate your contributions, and your entire statements will

be made a part of our record. Thank you. This hearing is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 3:32 p.m., the Subcommittees adjourned.]

(39)

A P P E N D I X

FEBUARY 10, 1999

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