---------------------------------------------------------- Visit Indonesia Daily News Online HomePage: http://www.indo-news.com/ Please Visit Our Sponsor http://www.indo-news.com/cgi-bin/ads1 ---------------------------------------------------------- Sydney Morning Herald 28/08/99 Floating free could mean a mess-up in the paperwork By HAMISH McDONALD, Herald Foreign Editor in Pante Makassar, Timor In a village called Kunya, a few kilometres from here, Augusto da Costa idles with his friends at a crossroads under a big banyan tree that serves as shelter for a tiny market and for people waiting for minibuses. Stapled to a wooden ticket office are United Nations posters, showing the two options for East Timor in Monday's vote. Augusto, 26, looks at the small wedge of territory in which the village of Kunya is part of an enclave on the north coast of Indonesian Timor's western half, called variously Oecussi, Ambeno, or sometimes Oecussi-Ambeno. If East Timor itself is a colonial anomaly, a former Portuguese possession surrounded by the Indonesian nation that succeeded the Dutch East Indies, Oecussi is an anomaly within an anomaly. The voting symbol for the autonomy option in the UN-supervised ballot shows Oecussi linked to the rest of East Timor by a strip along the north coast, corresponding to a road that actually runs there. In the independence symbol, Oecussi is floating free. "If we have independence, how would we get to Dili?" asks Augusto, who refuses to divulge his voting preference. Indonesian officials here think most of the nearly 30,000 registered voters from Oecussi's 57,000 people will raise the same question, and vote for autonomy - an outcome that could save them a lot of petty problems in paperwork in their daily business, which often takes them across the territory's border. They also point out that most of Oecussi's people speak Dawan, a language shared across central Timor, while the most widely spoken language in the main part of East Timor is Tetum. "We expect that about 80 per cent of voters here will go for autonomy," said one official. "I wouldn't be surprised if there are perhaps 20 per cent for independence - students, people fired up by reform, and so on." Oecussi's border is certainly informal. The main road into it climbs out of the central West Timor town of Kefamananu through jagged brown hills, lightly timbered with teak, ghost gums and red-flowering coral trees. A large replica of Jesus on the cross stands on the brow of a rise, and the view extends for kilometres down to a distant triangle of green palms, white breakers, and hazy blue sea. Police lazing under a tree flick open a boom gate, and suddenly the buildings take on a colonnaded, Mediterranean look. Portugal hung onto this small and largely unproductive enclave when it divided up the island with the Dutch in the second half of last century, long after moving its capital to Dili in 1769 for better security and berthing for its ships. More recently, Oecussi has avoided most of East Timor's tragic violence. The civil war of 1975 hardly touched here, and pro-Jakarta parties declared their desire for integration with Indonesia in November that year. This week, the campaign for the independence alternative was scarcely visible. In Kunya, a couple of trucks full of youths waving red and white flags goes by and the same flag flies outside most houses. The UNAMET military advisers, and a police team including Australians, Filipinos, and Malaysians under a South Korean commander, admit they have a relatively easy time of it. This day the integration side is due to hold a rally at Usa Takeno and the independence CNRT are to hold a meeting at Lele Aufe, two widely dispersed locations in the hinterlands. Before the meetings, the UNAMET chief on Oecussi, Mr Luis Bitencourt, has called in two autonomy leaders to talk to them about campaign rules. Two days earlier, on August 21, roadblocks had gone up around a village called Passable where a CNRT rally was due. Manned by people whom the UN feels can be called militia, they prevented many people from attending the rally. Mr Bitencourt, a Brazilian, says the campaign has been comparatively low key, and the local militia have not been seen with firearms. "People from the pro-autonomy side or the administration have a sense that they will win easily," he said. "Because of that they feel less threatened and are less prone to pressure the people." But if Oecussi is a calm anomaly in a heated and violent campaign, it may present an acute problem if East Timor's overall vote is for independence. No regional breakdown is to be given in the voting results and even if 80 per cent of Oecussi people do want to stay with Indonesia their wishes could be submerged. A new nation of East Timor could then be confronted immediately with a secession problem it could do little about. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Didistribusikan tgl. 27 Aug 1999 jam 21:18:31 GMT+1 oleh: Indonesia Daily News Online <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.Indo-News.com/ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
