Sonny Inbaraj Krishnan – This Saturday marks the 25th anniversary of the Dili massacre, when 270 East Timorese – including Malaysian-New Zealander Kamal Bamadhaj – were killed when Indonesian troops opened fire on a peaceful demonstration at the Santa Cruz cemetery in East Timor's capital Dili on November 12, 1991.

The killings in Dili transformed East Timor – now known as Timor-Leste – from a non-issue to a major news item overnight due to the presence of foreign witnesses – journalists masquerading as tourists, as the Indonesians later alleged. The unthinkable had happened for East Timor's self-determination movement, albeit at a terrible human cost.

Almost eight years later, in late August 1999, the East Timorese would go on to vote in a UN-sponsored referendum to break away from Indonesia – again at a tremendous human cost with retreating Indonesian special forces and their machete-wielding militiamen torching Dili, ransacking homes and running amuck in an orgy of violence and killing.

The UN, which ran East Timor after the ballot, estimates that more than 1,000 people were killed in the violence.

Mr. Bamadhaj, of Malaysian and New Zealand parentage, was in Dili on November 1991 working as a volunteer translator for Community Aid Abroad, an Australian-based NGO. Witnesses said the student from the University of New South Wales, who was in his early 20s, had died a week after being shot at least three times by Indonesian soldiers during the incident.

In September 1999 this was verified by this writer, then on assignment in East Timor, and Indonesian researcher George Aditjondro when we stumbled upon military documents in a burned-out Indonesian special forces interrogation center in Dili. These documents were later handed to Yayasan Hak – an East Timorese human rights NGO.

A week after the November 12 shootings in Dili, Mr. Bamadhaj's body was flown to Malaysia where he was buried in a Muslim cemetery in Kuala Lumpur. The curious thing was that even though reporters from the local media covered the funeral service, there were no reports about it in the next day's papers.

One newspaper went as far as saying that the mother of Mr. Bamadhaj, a New Zealander, had requested the Indonesian authorities to fly her son's body to New Zealand for the burial. Ironically, a reporter from that paper had been present at Mr. Bamadhaj's funeral in Kuala Lumpur the previous day.

To the relatives of Mr. Bamadhaj, it was clear that there was a concerted attempt to downplay the fact that he had legitimate claims to Malaysian citizenship and therefore Malaysians had a right to be informed of the circumstances that led to his death. The Malaysian government's tight control over the press made this task relatively easy.

The Home Ministry ordered the media to mention only that Mr. Bamadhaj was a New Zealand passport holder, and hence only report the reaction of the New Zealand government.

In the name of Asean "solidarity," the Malaysian government had chosen to censure all news on Mr. Bamadhaj's identity in order to avoid stepping on the toes of its bigger neighbor, Indonesia.

In November 1996, Malaysia again responded the "Asean way" when challenged over its stand on East Timor. That meant time in detention for 66 local activists and local and foreign journalists – including then Asiaweek correspondent Roger Mitton and Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Catherine McGuire – who attended an Asia-Pacific conference on East Timor at a hotel in downtown Kuala Lumpur.

Malaysian immigration police also deported 46 foreign participants who were at the conference.

Former Malaysian deputy prime minister, and now jailed opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim, in justifying the arrests, said: "This is Indonesia's internal issue and it [East Timor] is part of Indonesian territory. We respect their national integrity. If there are issues, we will discuss them the Asean way."

Fast forward 25 years later after the Dili massacre and things have dramatically changed for the better. East Timor became independent in April 2002 and former senator Walden Belo of the Philippines aptly described the world's newest nation, at the time, as an emerging Vietnam in the South Pacific.

"The [East] Timorese have emerged as the Vietnamese of the South Pacific, people willing to take endless punishment to keep alive the dream of a liberated country. And like the Vietnamese in their struggle against the French and the Americans, the [East] Timorese need all the help they can get from the rest of the world."

Indeed, history has its quirks as moments in time. Zadie Smith, the author of White Teeth, writes: "Every moment happens twice: inside and outside, and they are two different histories."

Ironically, both Malaysia and Indonesia now are ardent supporters of the new East Timor and are pushing hard for its inclusion into Asean, supported strongly by Cambodia. Malaysia and Indonesia, too, have given numerous scholarships to East Timorese youth to study in both countries' universities and technical colleges.

And all this has been made possible by the magnanimous reconciliatory efforts of East Timor's former prime minister and Nobel Peace Laureate Jose Ramos-Horta and former president Xanana Gusmao.

Mr. Ramos-Horta once told this writer: "In this struggle for independence there are no winners and losers. We are all winners and we are all, also, losers."

In 2002, East Timor was recognized as an Asean observer and joined the Asean Regional Forum in 2005. In 2011, with help from development partners and support from the charismatic Asean secretary-general Surin Pitsuwan, East Timor submitted a formal application to join the regional bloc in 2011.

Twenty-five years ago, the cries for self-determination by the East Timorese were met with brutal force. Now, in the 21st century, East Timor is enjoying the elixir of independence – in no small part due to the sacrifices of Mr. Bamadhaj and the numerous East Timorese who have refused to allow East Timor to be wiped off the face of the Earth, and gave their lives for the birth of a nation.

[Sonny Inbaraj Krishnan is the author of East Timor: Blood and Tears in Asean, published by Silkworm Books, Thailand.]

Source: http://www.khmertimeskh.com/news/31768/recalling-the-dili-massacre/