Bung Donald,
Kalau anda tidak keberatan, dan mumpung anda memang sedang banyak bertanya
kepada Etan, tolong sekalian tanyakan kepada mereka bagaimana hubungan
antara Fretilin dengan Khmer Merah-nya Kamboja tahun 1970-an. Sebagai
referensi, silakan gunakan bahan dibawah ini dari Phnom Penh Post yang
menunjukkan bagaimana akrabnya hubungan antara Lobato, Panglima Perang
Fretilin dan Falintil sebelum Xanana, dengan rejim Khmer Merah di Kamboja
tahun 1970-an.
Terima kasih sebelumnya.
Salam
Mahendra
[Source: Sarah Stephens, Phnom Penh Post, 9/17-30/99]
KHMER ROUGE CONTACT GIVES IRONIC TWIST TO EAST TIMOR CRISIS.
When Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer last week
compared East Timor's deserted capital Dili with Phnom Penh in
1975, he almost certainly had no idea of the irony of his
comments.
Because in 1977 the Khmer Rouge spent a year training East
Timor pro-independence rebels in the arts of revolution -- but
now their sometime students have fallen prey to the KR's own
tactics of city clearing, terror and genocide.
The connection between the groups came to light in recent
months when the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam)
uncovered evidence of secret visits by an East Timorese
delegation in 1977.
The visit was ostensibly to garner support for the
still-born socialist republic, but also to arrange revolutionary
training courses for East Timorese diplomats and cadre.
A letter from then military commander Rogerio Lobato to then
Deputy Prime Minister Ieng Sary was uncovered by DC-Cam Director
Youk Chang and indicates that the delegation had been in Phnom
Penh for about a year from 1976.
"The one year period of visit and stay of the three of us in
the Democratic Kampuchea, together with the precious knowledge we
have gained, renders great significance for the revolutionary
resistance in East Timor," says the letter, which is dated
December 21, 1977, before going on to inform Sary that the
delegation would be cutting short its visit due to pressing
engagements elsewhere (including "at least six months, secretly,
in [North] Korea").
At the time of the visit, Lobato had been dispatched as an
overseas ambassador for the newly declared Democratic Republic of
East Timor (DRET), in an effort to get official support from
other countries. During the years 1975-79 (co-incidentally the
same time span as Democratic Kampuchea) East Timor was undergoing
one of the most hellish periods of its turbulent history, with
the invasion by Indonesia in 1975 leading to civil war until
1979. (Later, Lobato became discredited when he was caught
diamond smuggling in Mozambique, and now has no relevance to the
struggle in East Timor.)
That East Timorese should have made their way to Cambodia at
this time is not so surprising, according to Peter Carey, a
British academic at Oxford University who specializes in East
Timor and also has an interest in Cambodia.
"Obviously, when the Democratic Republic of East Timor
(DRET) was declared, it was conceived as a radical socialist
republic and looked to 'brotherly' support from other socialist
states," he said by e-mail. "Democratic Kampuchea was one of the
handful of countries which, I believe, recognized the DRET --
though perhaps not formally -- the only four to accord de jure
recognition were Mozambique, Angola, Guinea-Bissau and Cap Verde,
all ex-Portuguese colonies in Africa."
According to Ngo Pin, who was then a translator at the
Foreign Ministry and is now Secretary of State for the Ministry
of Water Resources and Meteorology, the delegation, which he says
comprised five members, stayed only for a week in Phnom Penh
(something seemingly contradicted by the letter), but the visit
paved the way for a series of revolutionary training courses for
the East Timorese, organized by Ieng Sary.
"The courses wre to teach the East Timor students the art of
revolution," he said. "The courses lasted for a long time --
years -- but were conducted in secret. The cadre were taught how
to fight with guerrilla tactics. They were taken to see the B52
bomb craters made by the Americans, and were told what Cambodia
had gone through to get to that stage."
According to Pin, the East Timorese were not the only ones
brushing up their guerrilla tactics at the hands of the KR
leaders.
"We had delegations from the Philippines and Peru as well,"
he said, "The courses were taught across Cambodia."
These visits came at a time when Cambodia was closed off to
most of the world, except for a weekly flight to Beijing.
According to Pin, secrcy was certainly the key element of the
delegation's trip. He recalled how he himself was not allowed to
move around freely, but was kept in the compound at the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs, and how "sometimes I only got half an hour's
warning before I had to go and translate for the delegation."
He said the East Timorese mostly stayed in Phnom Penh, but
were taken around the provinces to see the revolution at work. In
fact, one of the photographs uncovered by DC-Cam shows the
delegation standing outside a collective warehouse somewhere in
the suburbs. The trips were tightly regulated -- but perhaps not
quite tightly enough, as Timorese and Cambodian experts say that
there may have been a more sinister significant reason for the
eventual rapid end the visit.
"It would be understandable that given the DRET's radical
leanings and need for support from 'brotherly socialist' regimes
that the East Timorese leaders in exile would have looked to
Cambodia for help in training and diplomatic assistance," said
Carey, "but the realities on the ground in KR-ruled Cambodia were
just too awful for the young East Timorese cadres sent there to
stomach, and so the training (such as it was) was curtailed and
terminated in 1977."
Carey, who spoke to East Timorese activist and Nobel
Prize-winner Jose Ramos Horta in 1988 about the delegation's
visit to Cambodia, recalls that Ramos Horta was less than
complimentary about Democratic Kampuchea's home-grown revolution.
"I asked him what he thought [of Ieng Sary]. He pulled a
long face, and gave a hollow laugh, saying that he was a pretty
sinister individual, who had offered to help the East Timorese
[Fretelin] aspiring diplomats and cadres, some of whom had been
dispatched to Cambodia for training, but who had had to be
withdrawn because they were so disturbed at what was going on in
the country and what they witnessed with their own eyes."
Pin said he was not sure whether the delegation had been
upset by what they say. "I did not get that impression," he said.
But surely they must have been somewhat disturbed that there
was not a single soul living in Phnom Penh?
"Well, I'm sure it must have struck them as a bit unusual,"
he said, "but I don't remember them seeming disturbed."
While it is tempting to jump to conclusions about the effect
of the KR training that the delegation received, given the
situation in East Timor today, experts say there is no connection
between the two regimes, and no evidence that the KR influenced
the East Timor movement to any degre. Yet it is still sadly
ironic that a movement dedicated to upholding the freedoms of a
small group of oppressed people should have come to seek
edification from a group who were conducting systematic slaughter
in their own country.
Youk Chang said he was amazed at how far the KR managed to
influence people at the time. "That was their skill," he said.
"They managed to hide their brutality so well, and get support
from other regimes."
"It confirms that a lot of people were fooled by their
regime. That delegation was being met by devils in angels'
costumes."
Two pictures accompany the article: A member of the East
Timorese delegation visiting Democratic Kampuchea in 1977 is
hugged by a member of the Cambodian Foreign Ministry, watched by
Ngo Pin, now Secretary of State for the Ministry of Water
Resources and Meteorolgy; The East Timorese delegation drives
away from the Council of Ministers in Phnom Penh, farewelled by
Democratic Kampuchea Deputy Prime Minister Ieng Sary.
