A story of integration and disintegration

On the eve of May 20, 2002, I was hopeful, even elated. I attended, in a remote, Southwestern district of East Timor called Suai, the first independence celebration of the world's newest officially recognized sovereign state. The celebration was held in a soccer field, and was a tiny replica of a much larger celebration being held in Dili, East Timor's capital city. The East Timorese struggle for Independence from an Indonesian occupation, and from their former colonizer, Portugal had culminated with international recognition of a viable new country.

There was reason to be hopeful. And the general mood of the thousands of people in the small soccer field watching traditional tribal dancers and listening to speeches by the East Timorese district leaders and United Nations representatives was one of pure benevolence and goodwill. You could feel it. The people of East Timor were ecstatic and proud, and they deserved to feel that way, having struggled for so long to achieve statehood, and having sacrificed so much during that struggle.

That night marked the culmination not just of the struggle for independence by the East Timorese. It also represented, at least on the surface, a real situation that gave credence to the idea of international institutionalism. The East Timorese situation, from the help received by international NGOs and human rights groups during the Indonesian occupation, to the UN-administered referendum for independence, through a 3-year period of UN administration, seemed to mark a glowing success for international cooperation. It seemed that the international community had done something right.

But every silver lining is part of a darker cloud. And sitting here, safely back in the U.S. several years after that night, I can't help but think that the dark cloud of international cooperation is about to burst. I hope I'm being pessimistic. But when the issue of East Timor's recent history is examined contextually, it is troubling. Indonesia's illegal annexation by Indonesia went unchecked by the international community 25 years. And even on the eve of East Timor's independence, one only had to scratch the surface of the new state to find that the brief legacy of UN administration had given birth to a country with barely functioning institutions. Four years later, East Timor is a microstate with little ability to support or to defend itself, almost entirely dependent on international aid. A recent article in The Times of London reported that East Timor is the poorest country in East Asia. But a major part of East Timor's depressed situation is the legacy left by years of Indonesian occupation, and the report notes that the poorest and most vulnerable members of East Timor's population are those living in the countryside who were widowed or orphaned by the Indonesian military or pro-Indonesian militias.

This paints a difficult portrait of one small country, at once a shining example of the international community in action, and a grim picture of its failures. Sometimes nationalist urges give people hope and a promise of a new existence, and sometimes the push toward nationalism leads to the disintegration of states and territories. Whether East Timor's long quest for independence as a nation will lead to its eventual collapse remains to be seen, but I suspect that it is far too early to throw in the towel for these resilient people.