1
TRUTH SEEKING AND MEMORY POLITICS IN POST CONFLICT
EAST TIMOR1
Lia Kent
University of Melbourne
[email protected]
Introduction
Truth Commissions are often ascribed a capacity to contribute to both individual healing
and national reconciliation in post-conflict societies by seeking and exposing the truth
about a traumatic past. Like other truth commissions, East Timor’s Commission for
Reception, Truth and Reconciliation (CAVR) had a substantial truth-seeking component.
Through its public hearings, the CAVR provided a platform for individuals to recount
their stories of past violence, and, the recently released truth commission report Chega!
(Portuguese for ‘No more/ Enough/Stop!’) is largely based upon personal stories gathered
through a widespread and participatory statement taking process. Chega! represents the
first national attempt following independence to create an official narrative of the
conflict under the Indonesian period.
1
This paper was presented to the 17th Biennial Conference of the Asian Studies Association of Australia in
Melbourne 1-3 July 2008. It has been peer reviewed via a double blind referee process and appears on the
Conference Proceedings Website under the Copyright Act (1954), its later amendments and other relevant
legislation.
2
In the light of burgeoning expectations of truth commissions, this article explores some of
the local effects of the CAVR’s truth-seeking process, with a view to interrogating some
of the claims made about the role of truth commissions in individual healing and nation
building. The first part of the article provides a brief overview of the CAVR’s truthseeking work and describes the ‘therapeutic ethic’ which underpinned it. The main body
of the article discusses survivors’ expectations of truth-seeking. Drawing on recent
fieldwork conducted in the districts of Suai, Los Palos and Liquica, I explore why
survivors participated in the truth seeking process and what they hoped to gain. In doing
so, I juxtapose survivors’ views about the value of truth telling as a nation building
exercise with their views about the personal value of truth-telling, which, I show, often sit
uneasily together. I consider what this dissonance suggests about the purported
therapeutic value of story-telling for individuals and nations (Humphrey 2003; Moon
2006). The final section of the article reflects on some of the longer term effects of the
truth-seeking process by charting the emergence of local level truth telling practices.
Despite widespread disappointment with the lack of ‘results’ from truth seeking, I
suggest the CAVR has provided encouragement to some local victims groups to take on
their own memory projects and voice their demands for recognition and redress to the
state (Laplante 2007: 434-435). I argue that these recent developments indicate a need to
analyse truth commissions not only in terms of their immediate impacts, but in terms of
their long term, and frequently ambiguous, effects (Dwyer and Santikarma 2007: 210).
The CAVR’s Truth-Seeking Process
The CAVR’s truth seeking process sought to ‘document human rights violations
committed by all parties to the political conflict between April 1974 and October 1999’
(CAVR 2005, Exec Summary: 20). This task was undertaken in a highly participatory
way, including through a widespread statement-taking process during which the CAVR
collected 7,669 statements from within East Timor and a further 91 statements from East
Timorese living in West Timor, conducted interviews with key political actors, and
organised public hearings at national and district level (CAVR 2005, Exec Summary: 20).
Eight public hearings were organized on themes such as Political Imprisonment, Women
3
and the Conflict, Forced Displacement, Famine, and Massacres, which provided an
opportunity for survivors to speak about their personal experiences of human rights
abuses in a public forum2 (CAVR 2005, Exec Summary: 32-33).
Significantly, the CAVR included a number of difficult or ‘taboo’ issues amongst its
public hearing themes. A special public hearing was held to explore the civil conflict
between Fretelin and UDT of 1974/75, during which key political actors spoke about
their role in the conflict and expressed regret for the harmful acts they had committed.3
The CAVR’s statement taking process also collected statements regarding abuses
committed by East Timorese political groups including Fretelin and UDT, which are
widely documented within Chega! Particular efforts were also made to be inclusive of
women’s experiences, and, the CAVR organized a hearing specifically on the theme of
Women and the Conflict, which focused particularly on the issue of sexual violence.4
Chega! also recognizes that sexual violence was committed by East Timorese actors,
including during the Internal Political Conflict, and acknowledges that victims of sexual
violence were often victimized by their own communities, which sought to blame women
for breaking tightly guarded sexual mores (CAVR 2005, Chapter 7.7: 97). Thus, as
former CAVR staff member Karen Campbell-Nelson (2003) describes it, the integration
of women into the truth seeking process demanded acknowledging uncomfortable truths
about local communities – the ways in which they stigmatized women and were, thus,
complicit in violence against them.
One unusual feature of the CAVR was that unlike many truth commissions, it had not
been formed as part of a political compromise between forces in a single country. The
focus of the CAVR was on documenting human rights abuses committed primarily by
Indonesian forces, which had already departed from the country. As John Roosa (2008)
acknowledges, the absence of the main perpetrators had both advantages and
2
One hundred and twenty four survivors spoke at these hearings.
The Uniao Democratica Timoresnse (Timorese Democratic Union) staged a coup in August 1975 and
then lost a brief battle with Fretelin, a more radical populist party. (CAVR, Chapter 3: 43)
4
Eight hundred and fifty three cases of sexual violence are recorded within Chega! which also notes that
the actual number may be much higher due to the stigma and shame associated to speaking out about this
issue.
3
4
disadvantages. On the one hand ‘it allowed the commission to work with complete
freedom, unconstrained by a compromise with elements of the ancien regime’ (564-565).
This also enabled the writing of a ‘truth’ based on a collective Timorese memory of
suffering and oppression that enjoys widespread acceptance amongst the general
population. On the other hand, the CAVR could not demand that the former rulers of East
Timor appear before it to testify, which placed constraints on the nature of ‘truth’ that
could be revealed, and, as will be discussed below, fuelled frustrations amongst
individuals who testified at public hearings.
The Therapeutic Ethic
The emerging field of ‘transitional justice’ identifies truth commissions as an essential
component of the ‘tool kit’ for successful post conflict recovery. There are growing
expectations that these institutions may play a role in fostering individual recovery and
societal reconciliation as well as facilitate the transition to a democratic future. Truth
commissions are underpinned by what Christopher Colvin terms a ‘therapeutic ethic’,
that is, a belief in the therapeutic power of testimony for individuals and nations (Colvin
2003; Shaw 2007; Moon 2006). Rosalind Shaw traces the origins of this ethic through
Enlightenment concepts of language and violence as antithetical discourses, and
psychoanalytic ideas of repressed memories and catharsis, suggesting that this paradigm
of redemptive memory has come now to appear ‘natural’ and ‘universal’ (Shaw 2007:
192).
The CAVR’s work was, at least in part, informed by this therapeutic ethic. The truth
seeking process was envisaged as an opportunity for individuals to recount their stories of
suffering and pain, and to receive public acknowledgment, which was expected to
contribute to the restoration of their dignity. And, at a broader level, this therapeutic ethic
was applied to the nation; it was expected that truth seeking would foster nation building
by delineating the violent and unjust Indonesian order from the present era, and
constructing a new, shared vision of the future; thereby, promoting the legitimacy of the
new, independent state of Timor Leste (Grenfell 2006). The title of the truth commission
5
report Chega! is symbolic of this rupture with the past and commitment to a new,
peaceful future. According to Grenfell (2006) Chega! can be understood as a ‘foundation
document of the nation’ that ‘codifies and narrates the consequences of the violence,
effectively re-writing a pre-national period into a fulfillment of national liberation in a
way that becomes a generalized history for all of the population’ (21). Indeed, in the
Executive Summary of Chega! the Chair of the CAVR Aniceto Guterres Lopes
articulates the importance of truth telling for both individual and nation, explaining:
This begs the deeper question, however, as to why Timor-Leste chose to address
its difficult past? Central to this was the recognition that victims not only had a
right to justice and the truth but that justice, truth and mutual understanding are
essential for the healing and reconciliation of individuals and the nation (CAVR
2005, Exec Summary: 4).
Nonetheless, the CAVR’s faith in truth telling is tempered to some extent by the report’s
concrete recommendations to assist survivors. Chega! acknowledges that revealing the
truth is not enough, and the report contains recommendations for the establishment of a
reparations fund to assist the most ‘vulnerable victims’ with contributions from
governments and institutions that supported the Indonesian regime (CAVR 2005, Part 11:
35). It also makes recommendations regarding justice, suggesting that the United Nations
(UN) renew the mandates for, and provide sufficient resources to, the Serious Crimes
Investigations and Prosecutions process to continue investigations and prosecutions of
cases from throughout the period 1975-1999. In the event that Indonesia persists in the
‘obstruction of ‘justice’ it recommends that the UN ‘be prepared to institute an
International War Crimes Tribunal’ (CAVR 2005, Part 11: 26).
The therapeutic ethic has been challenged by recent scholarship - particularly
ethnographic studies of truth commissions and transitional justice- much of which has
suggested that the link between truth commissions, individual healing and nation building
is far from axiomatic (Colvin 2003; Daly 2008; Humphrey 2003; Wilson 2003; Shaw
2007). Some scholars suggest that victims may participate in transitional justice
mechanisms processes for a range of diverse reasons that may have little to do with the
aims and objectives of these institutions (Dembour and Kelly 2007). I now turn to an
6
exploration of why East Timorese survivors of violence participated in the CAVR’s truthseeking process and what they hoped to gain. In doing so, I draw on findings from a
series of interviews conducted in the districts of Liquica, Suai and Los Palos, in mid
2007.5
Survivors’ Views of Truth-telling
Chega! as Nation Building
At the time of interviews, dissemination of Chega! had just commenced, and thus not
surprisingly, very few respondents had seen the report, heard about it or read it.
Nonetheless, almost all were overwhelmingly optimistic about the idea of an official
‘story about the conflict’. The production of an official record of the Indonesian period
was valued as a means to cultivate a distinctive national identity, forged out of a
collective experience of suffering and sense of shared history. One community leader for
example, described the way in which Chega! had given him an appreciation that ‘people
in the West [of the country] suffered and people in the East also suffered.’6 Another
explained, ‘If we don’t know the story we don’t know how our foundations were built.
We don’t know where our nation has come from.’7 Chega! was also viewed as a means to
educate the young, and generations to come, about East Timor’s history and the struggles
of their parents and grandparents, and to ensure that historical mistakes were not
forgotten or repeated. In this sense, Chega! was valued for its commemorative or
‘honoring’ role, in addition to it’s educative or forward looking function. Part of the
report’s legitimacy was seen to derive from its inclusion of the stories of ‘ordinary
people’, not only those of the nation’s elite; in this sense, Chega! was understood as
5
This fieldwork was conducted from May-July 2007 and involved semi-structured interviews with sixtyfive individuals (forty- two men and twenty-three women) in the districts of Suai, Los Palos and Liquica.
Although local perspectives are not uniform or static, a number of common themes emerged from these
interviews. I acknowledge that the terms ‘victim’ and ‘survivor’ are not unproblematic. However, for the
purposes of this study these terms are used to refer to those who participated in the CAVR’s various
processes as a ‘victim.’
6
Interview with community leader, Suai Kota, Tuesday 29th May 2007
7
Interview with youth leader, Suai Kota, Wednesday 30th May 2007
7
providing form of recognition of ‘ordinary peoples’ contribution to the struggle, by
writing them into the broader story of national liberation.
That many survivors are positive about Chega! as an historical record is perhaps not
surprising. Chega! largely expounds a story that resonates with a version of the past
promoted by the East Timorese leadership; it tells a story of struggle and oppression, and
codifies the narrative of resistance against the brutal Indonesian occupation, which
ultimately resulted in liberation. In essence, it is a narrative of progress and national
unity. There is already a high degree of consensus about this broad narrative, which, as
Michael Leach (2007) suggests, may be considered a unifying official narrative of
national history (197). The fact that Chega! seeks to tell an East Timorese truth has
arguably made the CAVR’s nation-building much easier than in many post-conflict
societies. Where most people agreed on the basic facts, their interpretation and their
moral significance, a truth commission may, as Erin Daly (2008) suggests, ‘provide
comforting confirmation of what people already know in their hearts’ (38-39). At the
same time, this narrative of unity sits somewhat uneasily alongside Chega!s ‘search for
complexities and a non-elite perspective’ (Webster 2007-8: 582). At this point in time, it
is unclear whether some of the more contentious truths unearthed by Chega! including
those relating to the internal political conflict, will be formally acknowledged in, and
transform, this official narrative of the past.
The Desire for ‘Results’
Despite acknowledging, and perhaps absorbing, ideas about the importance of Chega! for
the nation, respondents were more conflicted when it came to discussing the personal
benefits of telling their stories. Some of those who had spoken at a public hearing had
embraced the opportunity to speak publicly about their experiences as a means of gaining
public recognition from the state after many years of being silenced. As one woman, from
Los Palos, reflected:
8
We spoke so that our children could see this. Not just how my children can
understand but so my family can understand my experiences and how we became
independent. So that the State, all people can see. Its important that the big people
hear us victims speak. This is how we got independence. We didn’t buy
independence like buying a buffalo or horse. We bought it with our bodies.8
Yet, not all survivors felt that telling their stories had resulted in the desired public
recognition. Some survivors hoped that the public hearings would enable a direct
encounter with the perpetrator of violence against them or their family member,
providing an opportunity to ‘set the record straight’ and receive an apology, in addition to
yielding information that would assist in the location and recovery of bodies of loved
ones. These expectations were particularly heightened amongst those who spoke about
the internal political conflict, given that a number of former leaders of the Resistance
movement, including Xanana Gusmao, are now leaders of the country. Speaking out
about these issues has fostered very real expectations of gaining a response from the
political leadership. Jose, of Los Palos, for example, participated in a public hearing on
the theme of Political Prisoners in order to speak about the death of his brother in 1979, a
military commander of Falintil who had been suspected of being a ‘traitor.’ Jose believes
that Xanana Gusmao has knowledge of the whereabouts of his brother’s body and had
hoped that by speaking out, he would receive information that would help him to identify
his brother’s remains. As he explains, ‘Justice for me is to know the truth and have the
body of my younger brother recovered. We still don’t know what happened to him.’9 Yet,
direct encounters with perpetrators were not possible through the CAVR public hearings
which were based only upon survivors’ testimony. Moreover, the absence of Indonesian
participation in the CAVR foreclosed this possibility in relation to the vast proportion of
testimony, and placed constraints on the extent of truth that could be revealed.
The revelation of ‘truth’ was not always perceived to be positive. Some survivors were
anxious about the fact that previously ‘secret’ issues had now been aired in local
communities. For some, the desire for others to know their story has been mixed with
feelings of ‘shyness’ or shame. This is particularly so for those who spoke about difficult
8
9
Interview with female survivor, Los Palos, Friday 13th August 2007
Interview with male survivor, Monday 9th August 2007
9
issues including sexual abuse, and violence committed during the internal political
conflict, some of whom were speaking about these issues for the first time. Mario, from
Los Palos, for example, spoke at the public hearing on ‘Massacres’ about his survival of a
forced march and execution of prisoners by Fretelin in 1976, during which his father and
brother were executed. When I interviewed Mario, he alluded to the stigma attached to
speaking publicly about these issues. ‘Before the CAVR hearing, I had not even spoken
of these things to my own children’, he says. His son later tells me that even after the
hearing, he does not allow his children to watch the video recording of his testimony as
he does not want his children to ‘beat up’ those named as responsible for the massacre.10
Angela, who spoke at the public hearing on Women and the Conflict about her
experiences of sexual violence, expressed a similar sense of ambivalence about telling
her story explaining, ‘At the time I spoke at the public hearing in Dili I felt moe
(ashamed, shy.) I thought of my body, my family who died, my husband who had died.’11
Another common perception was that the truth-seeking process was linked to the criminal
justice process – some of those who had provided testimony to the CAVR believed that
this information was now with the court. Others spoke out in the hope that they would
receive economic assistance, expecting or hoping that telling their stories would
somehow connect them to national and international resources that would assist their
everyday lives (Shaw 2007: 205). Individuals frequently pointed to the circumstances of
poverty in which they lived, highlighting that their suffering was not ‘in the past’ but
continues to reverberate in the present in very concrete ways.
Overwhelmingly, survivors who participated in the truth-seeking process invoked a
frustration with the lack of ‘results’. While they embraced the symbolism of telling the
nation’s story, they were skeptical of the view that speaking alone would transform their
personal lives. Their participation in the CAVR had rarely arisen out of a desire simply to
be heard; they expected that speaking would lead to practical outcomes including
criminal justice, economic assistance or compensation, recovering bodies of loved ones
10
11
Interview with male survivor, Los Palos, Friday 6th August, 2007
Interview with female survivor, Los Palos, Friday 13th August 2007
10
who had died, or an apology from the perpetrator. The perceived lack of results has
fostered a pervasive sense of disappointment and a reluctance to tell their stories to
strangers. Thus, as one woman asked, ‘What are we to talk about? Whether we talk or not
it is still the same.’12
Survivors’ appeals for ‘results’ chart the limits of the therapeutic ethic. In contrast to
assumptions that truth-telling has intrinsic therapeutic and transformative power for both
individual and nation, for East Timorese survivors, revealing the truth is seen to acquire
meaning ‘not through a moral victory in the abstract sense’ but as means of gaining a
response from the state to the ongoing injustices in everyday life (Colvin 2003: 168).
Although survivors embraced the need of telling the nation’s story, a dissonance has been
created between the symbolic rhetoric of nation building and survivors’ concrete
expectations of story-telling (Moon 2008). Indeed, these two levels – the support for
Chega! as a nation building document and frustration with the lack of ‘results’ – appear
to coexist, albeit in an uneasy friction.
Frustrations with truth- telling have been compounded by a number of factors, many
beyond the control of the CAVR. One of these is the pervasive lack of comprehension
about the CAVR’s mandate and its limitations. Despite the CAVR’s significant attempts
at public outreach, there is a widespread sense of confusion about the purpose of the large
number of transitional justice processes that have been initiated, from the CAVR, to the
Serious Crimes Investigations and Prosecutions process in its various incarnations, to the
more recent bilateral Truth and Friendship Commission.13 Many respondents were
unclear as to which institution had documented their testimony and for what purpose,
and, frequently referred to the transitional justice process collectively as Estadu (the
‘State’), indicating that they understood these processes to be one and the same. The
limits of the Serious Crimes Investigations and Prosecutions process, in particular, its
12
Interview with female survivor, Suai, Wednesday 30th May 2007
The Serious Crimes Investigations Process was established by the United Nations in May 2000 to process
the large number of cases of murders, sexual violence and torture perpetrated during Indonesia’s
occupation of East Timor and in the lead up to the international intervention. In March 2005, East Timor
and Indonesia agreed to form a Commission of Truth and Friendship (CTF.)
13
11
inability to prosecute many of the most serious perpetrators, has also impacted on
perceptions of the CAVR.14
More significantly, the lack of response from the East Timorese government to Chega!
has restricted CAVR’s ability to translate its recommendations into practical policies to
benefit survivors. The sociologist Michael Humphrey (2003) suggests that this is a
common failing of truth commissions. While truth commissions have been reasonably
good at developing inclusive historical records, they have been less successful in
translating their recommendations into practical public policy outcomes. Indeed, at this
point in time, the East Timorese leadership’s responses to Chega! and its
recommendations can perhaps best be described as lukewarm, although they have varied
over time. On tabling the report to the Parliament in November 2005, the then President
of East Timor, Xanana Gusmao was critical of the ‘grandiose idealism’ expressed in the
report and raised concerns that the recommendations could be used to ‘manipulate our
people’s state of mind’ (Gusmao 2005). He raised particular concerns about the extension
of the serious crimes process and the recommendations pertaining to reparations,
suggesting that this could help to foster a victim mentality and make East Timor seem
‘ungrateful’ in the eyes of the international community. Invoking a ‘forward looking’
vision based on redistribution rather than recognition, and forgetting rather than
remembering the past, Gusmao has continued to emphasize a pragmatic vision of nation
building, suggesting that true ‘justice’ is the self-determination of the East Timorese
people.15
Despite their ‘forward looking’ vision, certain aspects of the past are being acknowledged
by the current East Timorese leadership. Some contributions to the past are also being
14
The serious crimes process has been criticized by a number of commentators for a range of shortcomings,
including a lack of community outreach, inadequate resources, (including the defense council) and its
reliance on inexperienced East Timorese judiciary. Its main limitation has been the failure to prosecute over
75% of indicted suspects, due to the fact that most perpetrators are in Indonesia. (Cohen 2006; Hirst and
Varney 2005; Reiger and Wierda 2006).
15
Although there have been increasing references to Chega! since the 2006 crisis, these are generally
related to Chega! as an official history rather than its recommendations. Nonetheless, at the time of writing,
Chega! is expected to be considered by the East Timorese Parliament when it resumes sittings later this
month. (Walsh 2008)
12
recognized, generally, those that accord with the preferred narrative of national liberation,
unity and continuity. There is a general consensus for example, about the need to
recognise former Falintil (armed resistance) and Clandestine movement leaders and, a
new veterans process is now underway to valorise ‘heroes’ and ‘martyrs’ through the
provision of medals and pensions. But, acknowledgement is limited to those who played
leadership roles within formal Resistance structures, which excludes the experiences of
many others such as young people, women, and those who were not ‘politically active’
within formal structures. National memorials have also reflected a focus on the
valorization of Falintil, and for example, while there is a national memorial to Falintil
soldiers in Metinaro, there are few monuments to reflect the struggles of the civilian
resistance, the efforts of ‘ordinary people’, or to commemorate massacres. There is as
yet, no national monument to commemorate those young people who were killed during
the 1991 Santa Cruz massacre.16
Local level truth telling and the struggle for recognition
Despite survivors’ widespread disappointment with the lack of practical results, the
production of Chega! is not the end of the ‘truth telling’ story. In this final section I chart
some recent developments in local memory practices and reflect on the way in which the
CAVR’s truth telling process has, to some extent, fostered the development of these
practices and facilitated the opening of a new political space for some victims to exercise
agency and to voice their demands for redress to the state. These developments suggest
that the CAVR should not be analysed only in terms of its immediate impacts and
contribution to public policy, but in terms of its longer term influence on the politics of
memory, the contours of which are still unfolding.
Over the last few years there has been a visible increase in local practices related to
remembering and commemorating the past. In some districts, victims’ organizations or
widows groups have been established, often with the assistance of national human rights
organisations such as Yayasan Hak (Rights Foundation) Fokupers (East Timor Women’s
16
Interview with NGO leader, Los Palos, Saturday 7th August 2007
13
Communication Forum), or the CAVR. In the districts of Liquica, Suai and Maliana,
widows support groups were established in early 2000, comprising of women who lost
their husbands during the 1999 violence. The names of the groups evoke their shared
experiences of violence and are defined by their loss; for example Mate Restu (leftovers
from the dead) in Suai, Rate Laek (without graves) in Liquica, and Novi Novi (Ninteynine), in Maliana. The formation of these groups has enabled these women to occupy a
space in public and political life that has previously been denied to them, through which
they can provide mutual support, become engaged in income generation activities, and
conduct activities in the local community. Over the years some members of the groups
have become prominent public advocates on issues such as justice and reparations and in
organizing public commemorations of massacres. The Liquica widows group was active
in instigating the construction of the ‘Angel’ monument at the site of the Liquica church
massacre, where as many as sixty people were killed by the Besih Merah Putih (Red and
White Iron) militia group in April 1999. With the encouragement of the post-CAVR
Secretariat - the successor institution to the CAVR – they have continued to lobby the
government for a national day of commemoration of the April 1999 Liquica Church
massacre and for the implementation of the Chega! recommendations.17
Memorialisation and commemoration projects are also occurring at the suco (village)
level. In the suco of Maupitine, in Lautem district, community members have erected a
small monument of stone and cement to commemorate the massacre of five members of
the village in 1983. This was a particularly brutal massacre, in which villages were
ordered by the local Indonesian military command to kill members of their own village,
during a specially organized public festa (party). One panel of the monument inscribes
the names of the five men who were killed and depicts the scene of the massacre visually,
while another lists the names of all those members of the village who died or
‘disappeared’ during the Indonesian occupation period. The creation of this monument
was stimulated by the CAVR’s truth- seeking activities in the community, with funding
provided by an international NGO. Strategically, the community of Maupitine invited the
then President Xanana Gusmao to the unveiling of their monument in 2006.
17
Interview with member of Rate Laek, Monday 21st July 2008
14
Local memory projects can be seen both as attempts to remember and make narrative
sense of the past and to commemorate those who have died, as well as struggles for
official recognition by certain individuals and groups who perceive themselves and their
experiences to be left out of the nation building process. In other words, they should be
understood as intrinsically political acts that derive their authority from their collective
experiences of suffering. Humphrey and Valverde (2007) describe such movements that
make ‘private grief public’ in order to demand recognition from the state as acts of
‘political mourning’ (181). These movements ‘trace the boundaries of full citizenship and
are directed toward the 'recovery of what is perceived to be absent - real rights and
justice' for those at the margins of the state (Humphrey and Valverde 2007: 187). Local
memory projects contest the national leadership’s current entreaty to focus on the future
rather than the past by publicly declaring that the past is important and that victims’
suffering continues to resonate in the present. In addition, they seek to enlarge current
official categories of recognition which have focused on acknowledging the contribution
of ‘veterans’ who fulfilled leadership roles during the Resistance. They are statements
about the need to recognize the many so-called povu kiik (small people/ordinary people)
who suffered.
Local memory practices should also be contextualized within a growing ‘victim
consciousness’ in East Timor, which has been influenced by the discourse of rights and
justice that national and international human rights organizations, and the CAVR, have
been engaged in since the 1999 Referendum. Prominent national human rights NGO’s
such as Yayasan Hak and Fokupers, and the East Timorese Alliance for an International
Tribunal, together with networks of international human rights NGO’s, have actively
supported victims’ groups and lobbied the East Timorese government and United Nations
on the need for accountability for serious crimes, and, more recently, for reparations.
United by the phrase ‘no reconciliation without justice’, they emphasize that the
principles of ‘rule of law’, punishment of perpetrators and recognition of victims’
suffering, must form the basis for new national identity. The effects of this political
activism upon local and national politics are still unfolding. While it has encouraged
15
many individuals to identify themselves as victims and to become political actors, it is
important to recognize that certain kinds of victims have been more prominent in this
activism than others - in particular, those who were victims of the 1999 violence, and
those who live in district capitals and accessible areas. Those engaged in national level
advocacy represent an even more elite group of articulate - and generally Dili-based individuals. The prominence of these individuals in victims’ rights advocacy is largely
reflective of national and international NGOs’ preoccupation with the 1999 postreferendum violence. Yet, there are signs that some victims’ groups are being broadened
to encompass a more inclusive category of individuals, including those who experienced
violence during the pre-1999 period, and those who were victims of intra-Timorese
violence. This shift is perhaps largely attributable to the CAVR’s truth- seeking efforts,
which shed light on a range of previously undocumented harms.
It is important to reflect on the kind of politics that may emerge from the discourse of
victims’ rights and who this discourse includes and excludes. Although a politics based
on victims’ rights may form a basis for solidarity and commonality based around
experiences of shared suffering, there are also dangers it may create a basis for further
division and competition amongst different kinds of victims, based on perceptions about
‘who suffered the most’. The politics of victims’ rights is also being enacted in a broader
context of identity politics in which the current government is sensitive to the demands of
different interest groups and has its own priorities for recognition and provision of
financial assistance. The government’s recent provision of financial assistance to
veterans, and other groups such as ‘Petitioners’ and internally displaced people is already
cultivating resentment amongst those who feel they have ‘missed out.’18 In this context
‘victims’ may become another interest group competing for scarce state resources, which
may contribute to entrenching a hierarchy of those ‘worthy of assistance’ and raise
questions about the development of an inclusive polity focused on the general rights of
citizens and protection of the vulnerable.
18
These opinions are based on interviews and observation conducted in East Timor in July 2008. In
addition to veterans, ‘Petitioners’ – those military officers who joined the Alfredo Reinardo rebels in 2006
and internally displaced people from the 2006 crisis, have recently received financial assistance.
16
5.0
Conclusions
Although immediate ‘results’ from truth telling have not been forthcoming, this article
has showed that the effects of the CAVR’s truth seeking process are still reverberating in
unexpected and ambiguous ways. In this sense, Chega! needs to be viewed as only the
beginning, rather than the end, of discussions about the meaning of the past and its role in
the future. The truth-seeking process has enabled a wide range of non-elite perspectives
on the past to be articulated – some for the first time – and has encouraged local memory
projects to remember and commemorate the past. Survivors – some of whom have
historically been marginalized and denied a place in public life – are embracing the
concept of ‘truth-telling’ by engaging in local memory projects. Emerging in the context
of a growing victims’ rights consciousness, local memory projects are engaged in a
political struggle for justice, truth, reparations and official recognition in the present.
These projects can be seen to be contributing to an ‘imagining’ of the nation from the
bottom-up, as individuals come to see themselves as political agents and challenge
official nation building priorities. While the contours of this memory politics remain far
from fixed and the category of ‘victimhood’ is still open to contestation and
renegotiation, what is becoming clear is that the politics of victims’ rights is now
embedded in a broader context of identity politics in which victims represent one interest
group among many. As interest groups compete for recognition and state assistance in a
context of scarce state resources, the ensuing ‘hierarchy of the deserving’ may have
implications for the development of an inclusive national polity.
17
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