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Allan Nairn freed, deported by Indonesia
The American reporter who revealed rights abuses in East Timor, detained by Indonesian soldiers last week, is released.
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Free Allan Nairn!
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Nairn's incarceration was only a symptom of a deeper problem afflicting the U.S. and the U.N. as they strive to contend with the Timorese crisis: deep divisions within Indonesia's leadership about the country's future direction. Military leaders like Wiranto are struggling to hold onto their traditional power while civilian leaders seek their first foothold.

Nairn himself believes some of the supposed outpouring of nationalist resentment at giving up East Timor is pure theater, drummed up by the military and intelligence services to deceive the foreign press and secure their position.

President Habibie has promised to cooperate with Commissioner Robinson's tribunal -- which if followed up on will, once the thousands of murdered Timorese are accounted for, shake the military power centers of Indonesian politics to their deepest foundations, and rattle some cages in Washington as well.

For East Timor, the window between now and November -- when Indonesia's parliament is pledged to formally approve last month's independence referendum -- is a time of considerable peril. Washington, hoping to normalize its strained relations with Jakarta, may seek to ease the military and IMF aid it abruptly suspended -- a temptation that would send entirely the wrong message, convincing Indonesia's military leadership that they could return to business as usual, fomenting civil disturbance in the Timorese protectorate.

The surviving Timorese and the U.N., meanwhile, now face the task of building a democratic and independent nation up from the ruin to which Allan Nairn, almost alone among journalists, bore witness. This tiny, marginalized nation that has suffered so much over the last 25 years deserves a fighting chance.
salon.com | Sept. 20, 1999

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