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By Ron Moreau
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JUST OVER TWO YEARS AGO, INDONESIA'S then president Suharto found himself in a corner. During a visit to Jakarta, South Africa's President Nelson Mandela asked to meet the jailed resistance leader from East Timor, Xanana Gusmao. Suharto reluctantly agreed. After the meeting Mandela gave Suharto some trenchant advice: release Gusmao, who had fought to reverse Indonesia's 1975 occupation of the former Portuguese colony. In freedom, Mandela argued, Gusmao could help lead Jakarta and Lisbon toward a solution for East Timor, ending a long and bloody conflict.
Now Suharto's successor, B. J. Habibie, has finally taken the big step. Or at least a small step. Last week Habibie ordered Gusmao's release from Jakarta's Cipinang Prison and had him transferred to a nearby bungalow, where he remained under house arrest. The 52-year-old former guerrilla was allowed to meet with diplomats, visiting foreigners, Indonesian politicians and his own followers. As in the case of Mandela, power and authority seemed to flow to Gusmao almost automatically.
The comparison is not completely far-fetched. As a resistance leader, prisoner and now politician, Gusmao exudes a similar sense of destiny. He received a classical education at a Jesuit seminary in East Timor, learned at least five languages (including Latin) and subsequently used his prison time to hone his skills as a painter and poet. All along Gusmao was also a revolutionary firebrand. He took his Fretelin guerrillas into the hills after the Indonesian occupation and continued his struggle for 17 years before his capture in 1992.
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Gusmao's struggle is far from over. The Indonesian Army never was able to bring stability to his homeland, and now that Jakarta appears to be relaxing its grip, pro-Indonesian forces in East Timor appear eager to kindle a new civil war. ""East Timorese have been forced into a culture of violence,'' says Florentino Sarmento, a human-rights activist in the province. ""They have never had the space to develop democracy, human rights or peace.''
Gusmao's first priority, Sarmento says, will be to try to ""create a peaceful climate'' in East Timor. Sarmento favors five to 10 years of autonomy under Indonesian sovereignty, followed by a United Nations-organized referendum on independence. Gusmao may pursue a faster timetable. But first he must work to engineer a ceasefire among warring factions in East Timor, persuade Jakarta to rein in rogue military elements and create an East Timorese political consensus virtually from scratch. Winning his full freedom would help--""and it had better be soon,'' says a Western diplomat in Jakarta.
Habibie may go along with that: he insists that his government truly does intend to rid itself of the old sore. ""We do not want to be burdened by the problem of East Timor as of Jan. 1, 2000,'' Habibie said last week. In other words, the president of Indonesia more than anyone else now depends on the skills and good graces of Xanana Gusmao.
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