East Timor in the dynamics of Indonesian politics

Abstract This article examines the issue of East Timor in the overall context of Indonesian politics. Once an issue that failed to capture the attention of the major political groups in Indonesia, East Timor moved higher on the agenda of Indonesian pro-democracy activists in the wake of the massacre of Timorese citizens in the Santa Cruz cemetery in Dili in November 1991. Indeed, some pro-democracy activists began to see the fight for democracy in Indonesia and for the right of the East Timorese people to self-determination as parts of the same struggle. The author identifies racism as the main reason why the East Timor issue has never been prominent in Indonesian reform discourse and contends that three groups in Indonesia have been aggressively promoting a narrow nationalism and jingoism that portrays the independence struggle of the East Timorese as the work of conspiratorial outsiders and third parties. These groups are the Indonesian national army, various Islamic political groups, and associates of Abdurrahman Wahid, the president of the Central Board of Nahdatul Ulama (Moslem Scholars) and the recently elected president of Indonesia.