Sydney – Leading figures in the Indonesian Government have said some extraordinary things about events on both sides of the Timor border over the years, but nothing to match recent comments by the new Defence Minister, Mr Mahfud. At the weekend, he accused unidentified countries of trying to suppress the real desires of the East Timorese people who, he said, wanted to reintegrate with Indonesia. On Monday, when the US Defence Secretary, Mr Cohen, was in Jakarta, Mr Mahfud suggested the US was partly to blame for the violence in West Timor because it was refusing to supply the Indonesian armed forces with equipment needed to deal with the militias.
This is preposterously silly stuff, but also worrying. It indicates that at least some senior members of President Abdurrahman Wahid's Cabinet are reacting to mounting international pressure by retreating deeper into denial of Indonesian responsibility for the terrible things that are happening in an Indonesian province.
They include this month's brutal mob murder of three United Nations aid workers at Atambua, which the Indonesian army and police did nothing to prevent, and the continuing intimidation of East Timorese refugees by militia thugs.
It is true that Mr Wahid and some of his other ministers have been trying to send out a different message. The Foreign Affairs Minister, Mr Downer, said in New York yesterday that his Indonesian counterpart, Mr Alwi Shihab, and other senior officials had assured him the Government in Jakarta was determined to disarm the militias and would be talking to the UN Security Council about a timetable. Mr Downer said he hoped the West Timor refugee camps would be disbanded before the end of the year. Wisely, he added the caution that what was needed was not just an oral commitment, but implementation.
That, of course, is the problem. The Indonesians have been promising to control the militias for months, but the gangs are still doing what they please in West Timor, with the backing of elements of the armed forces.
Indeed, an official travelling with Mr Cohen has told reporters that the militias have become better organised and armed in recent months and that active and retired Indonesian military officers are suspected of training them. The official said Indonesia's leaders did not recognise the importance of last year's independence vote in East Timor and did not want to.
If the US official is right and Mr Mahfud's comments and events on the ground in Timor suggest he is the outlook is grimmer than Mr Downer wants to believe. The only hope seems to be that Mr Wahid and his more capable ministers will be able to persuade their colleagues, and the military, that the world is running out of patience with Jakarta's broken promises, procrastination and rationalisations.
Certainly, international pressure is mounting. Mr Cohen was brutally frank during his brief Jakarta visit, demanding quick action to disband the militias so that those refugees who want to return to East Timor can do so safely. He warned that failure to disarm the gangs could lead to Indonesia being internationally isolated and losing economic aid. The president of the World Bank, Mr James Wolfensohn, had a similar message, declaring that the Wahid Government could lose financial support if it did not show it was serious about tackling the militia before next month's meeting of nations donating to Indonesia.
The question is whether Mr Wahid is listening and, if he is, whether the key players in Indonesia are listening to him. Hopes that the recent reorganisation of the Government would improve its performance and coordination have not been realised. The President is preoccupied with growing instability and violence in the capital. Bomb attacks have coincided with attempts to bring the former president, Mr Soeharto, to trial. Mr Wahid has reacted with typical impetuosity, ordering the arrest of one of Mr Soeharto's sons and then abruptly sacking the nation's police chief when the man was released. The eyes of the world may be on Timor; Jakarta is focused on itself.