On May 21 Xanana Gusmao was sentenced to life imprisonment by an Indonesian court after he upset the regime's script by refusing to make his defence plea in Indonesian and by then making a clear and strong rebuttal of the authority of the court as the instrument of an illegal colonising power. Xanana was able to read only three pages of a 21-page handwritten speech. Below we publish excerpts from this speech, which was smuggled out of Dili and released in English by the British Campaign for Human Rights in Indonesia (TAPOL).
First of all, I would like to thank you for the opportunity you have afforded me to express myself freely, without coercion of any kind.
I have always insisted in all my conversations with everyone, including my conversation with the Indonesian ambassador to the United Nations, Mr Nugroho, that considering the circumstances under which my earlier statements in Jakarta were made, they cannot be construed as being credible.
I am resistance commander Xanana Gusmao, leader of the Maubere resistance against the cowardly and shameful invasion of 7 December 1975 and the criminal and illegal occupation of East Timor for the last 17 years.
On 22 November last year in Denpasar, I signed a document in which I affirmed that I continue to be, according to international law, like all Timorese, a Portuguese citizen and before my own conscience I am a citizen of East Timor.
It is in these terms that I reject the competence of any Indonesian court to try me, and particularly the jurisdiction of this court which has been imposed by force of arms and crimes against my homeland, East Timor.
Here in this so-called court, I see only Indonesians and above all, Indonesian military from BAIS [the Strategic Intelligence Agency] and Kopassus [the red-beret elite troops]. According to Indonesian law, trials of this nature are, or
should take place in, public. Every time that I enter this courtroom, the public that I see are these same military authorities, some of whom have been the main actors in my case, throughout my imprisonment. The Timorese, my compatriots, are out in the street under strict surveillance. This is the display of foreign oppression, foreign domination which flaunts the arrogant contempt of the colonisers.
This court claims that it is trying me for crimes committed against the Indonesian state and for the illegal possession of firearms.
The ones who should be standing before an international court are, in the first place:
- the Indonesian government for crimes committed in the past 17 years in East Timor;
- the US administration which gave the green light to the invasion on 7 December 1975 and have since given military aid and political support for Indonesia's genocide in East Timor;
- the governments of Australia and western Europe for their policy of complicity towards Indonesia;
- and finally, the Portuguese government for its grave irresponsibility in the decolonisation of East Timor.
The UN recognises as legitimate all means of opposition to the colonial presence in any part of the world where people are fighting for liberation. My struggle and the resistance of my people and of Falintil [the armed forces of the East Timorese resistance movement, the CNRM, the National Council of Maubere Resistance] should be placed in this context, standing above Indonesian law.
This court mentioned the date 17 December 1975 as the day of the formation of a provisional government and a local assembly. And since all the Indonesians have forgotten, it is my duty to recall here the tragic day, 7 December of that
same year. The 7 December 1975 which witnessed the cowardly and shameful Indonesian invasion, the day on which Indonesian troops indiscriminately massacred the defenceless population of Dili, causing thousands of deaths among the elderly, women and children, including an Australian journalist.
A government which was established to the accompaniment of the sound of the sea and land shelling of the defenceless population, to the sound of advancing tanks and canons, can such a government claim any juridical standing?
Today, the Indonesian government can show the world its de facto control of the territory, and claims to be developing the territory which it is occupying, while at the same time condemning the ones who were not able to do this, namely Portugal. Is it because Portugal failed to develop East Timor for 400 years that we Timorese have had to pay for the errors of one coloniser while also paying for the crimes of the other coloniser?
BAIS is a powerful machine of the Indonesian secret police, and Kopassus are their sinister tentacles. The Indonesian military doesn't accept any policy other than the one dating from 7 December 1975. In my case, both BAIS and the Indonesian government decided to play it by taking the least possible risks, manipulating the entire proceedings. To be able to be here today and to be able to talk as I am now doing, I also chose to take risks inherent to my struggle.
On the day of my capture, in the meeting I had with General Try Sutrisno, I mentioned the question of dialogue with representatives of the people of East Timor. One of the 20 generals who were present and were congratulating each other for the imminence of their easy victory, asked me, furiously: "What people [support you]?" and when I answered: "Let's have a referendum", the Indonesian generals had to swallow their own arrogance. On the next day, 21 November — I was already in Denpasar — when the wife of the local panglima [military commander], surprised by the extent of the support I had, said, "after all, many people support
him", a high-ranking officer said, "possibly all the people of East Timor".
On the first day and on the following days, they asked me whether I considered myself to be an Indonesian and I always replied in this way: If I say yes, the bapaks [the mock deferential word meaning "fathers" by which the East Timorese address Indonesian troops] will not believe me. First they laughed but then they gritted their teeth.
The Indonesian generals do not care about the spirit, the conscience of the people. They are quickly satisfied when we just do what they want. I don't know if this is because of naivety or because of the culture of their military training.
I know that BAIS made the necessary arrangements for me to be spared the death penalty and if I were to praise integration, I would be acquitted.
I remember once while in Jakarta, in order to make a change from recording all my movements in jail, they took me handcuffed for a tour of the city and they showed me the gold of Monas, the national monument of Indonesia. I felt like shouting to my warders that I would never sell my soul for the crest of gold Monas, and still less would I ever sell my people. I cannot betray the hope of my people to one day live free and independent.
I can never recognise the criminal occupation of East Timor only in order to be able to live for a few more years. My struggle is superior to my own life. The people of East Timor have sacrificed their lives and continue to suffer.
I continue to recall the need for dialogue, with the participation of the East Timorese. I have always said to all those who wanted to listen to me that the Maubere people don't like the word, "pembangunan" [development]. The problem is that it is not free. Freedom is what my people value, the aim of their struggle. Dom Ximenes Belo put it very clearly when he wrote to the UN secretary-general: "We are dying as a people and as a nation".
Minister Ali Alatas in a speech last January said the following: "If we don't accept, if Jakarta won't accept a [self-determination] referendum, it is not because we are afraid of losing the vote but because many people have already suffered so much".
The ambassador to the UN told me: "The problem is that dialogue as it is conceived by us (and therefore by Jakarta) has its parameters. We do not accept a referendum."
In 1983, during the cease-fire, Major Gatot and another major told us clearly: "We don't accept a referendum because we know that all the people belong to Fretilin!"
All the proceedings connected with my trial are a matter for BAIS and Kopassus, and their officers fill this room, watching everything and everybody. Jakarta should be ashamed of its criminal behaviour in East Timor and should long ago have recognised that it has lost in East Timor.
The Indonesian generals should be made to realise that they have been defeated in East Timor. Here, today, as the commander of Falintil, the glorious armed forces of national liberation of East Timor, I acknowledge military defeat on the ground. I am not ashamed to say so. On the contrary, I am proud of the fact that a small guerilla army was able to resist a large nation like Indonesia, a regional power which in a cowardly fashion invaded us and want to dominate us by the law of terror and crime, by the law of violence, persecution, prison, torture and murder.
The moment has come for Jakarta to recognise its political defeat on the ground. I don't know if it was to impress me that they placed armed soldiers on the route to the court.
I have been flattered in all kinds of ways in order to convince me to behave here like a docile Indonesian. I have had to behave like one, and the witnesses brought here have also had to behave in the same way. I know that behind me, the men from BAIS and Kopassus are gritting their teeth with rage. They should be doing it for being the real
murderers of the Maubere people.
Who is afraid of a referendum? Why are they afraid of the referendum? I am not afraid of a referendum. And if today, under international supervision, the Maubere were to choose integration, I would make a genuine appeal to my companions in the bush to lay down their arms and I would offer my head to be decapitated in public.
Whoever is afraid of the referendum is afraid of the truth.
Why is there all that military apparatus in front of this disgusting court? Why are there armed soldiers posted along the route with their arms held at the ready?
I appeal to the new generation of Indonesians to understand that the people of East Timor attach much more value to freedom, to justice and to peace than to the development which is carried out here with the assistance of Australia, the United States and European countries who maintain close economic relations with Jakarta.
I appeal to the people of Indonesia to understand that according to universal principles and international law, East Timor is considered to be a non-autonomous territory in accordance with the norms that govern decolonisation. I appeal to the Indonesian people to understand that East Timor is not a threat to Indonesia or a factor threatening Indonesia's security. The story they tell you, that East Timor is communist, is old [stale]. We don't want to dismember Indonesia. The fact is that East Timor was never part of Indonesia.
I appeal to the international community to understand that it is time to show that the New World Order is about to begin. This requires acts that will bring to an end the situation inherited from the past.
I appeal to the European Community to be consistent with its own resolutions and also to be consistent with all the resolutions adopted regarding East Timor.
I appeal to all the friends of East Timor, parliamentarians from Europe, America, Japan and Australia, to go on pressing their own governments to change the double standards applied to similar cases where systematic violations of UN resolutions occur, as in the case of Indonesia's behaviour regarding East Timor.
I appeal to President Bill Clinton to reconsider the problem of East Timor and to press Jakarta to accept dialogue with the Portuguese and the Timorese in the search for an internationally acceptable solution.
I appeal to the Portuguese government never to abandon its responsibility towards East Timor.
I appeal to the secretary-general of the UN to ensure that the solution he seeks for East Timor is based on universal principles and international law.
Finally, I appeal to the government of Indonesia to change its attitude and to realise that the moment has come to understand the essence of the struggle in East Timor.
From today, I will start a hunger strike, as a practical way to appeal to the EC, the US government and the government of Australia.
No agreement can be reached between a prisoner and his warders.
To the secretary-general of the UN, I would like to say that I am ready to participate in the negotiating process at any moment or in any place. I will, however, never accept to be a part of the Indonesian side in the negotiations because I am not willing to participate in the farce of integration and in the criminal repression of my people.
As a political prisoner in the hands of the occupiers of my country, it is of no consequence at all to me if they pass a death sentence here today. They have killed more than one third of the defenceless population of East Timor. They are killing my people and I am not worth more than the
heroic struggle of my people who, because they are a small and weak people, have always been subjected to foreign rule.