Truth and reconciliation in Southeast Asia and the Melanesian Pacific: Potential Canadian contributions and potential lessons for Canada 1

Timor-Leste (East Timor)

Timor-Leste (East Timor) was occupied by the Indonesian army for 24 years (1975–1999). Indonesian military rule was brutal and exacted a high cost in Timorese lives. ⁴ It is widely accepted that Indonesian rule of Timor-Leste included mass atrocities and crimes against humanity at the hands of the Indonesian National Army (TNI) and mass famine caused by military operations. Both the Timorese Commission on Reception, Truth and Reconciliation (CAVR) and the joint Timorese–Indonesian Commission on Truth and Friendship (CTF) have affirmed this conclusion. ⁵

After the fall of the Indonesian dictatorship led by President Suharto (1965–1998), interim president B.J. Habibie gave the United Nations permission to hold a referendum in August 1999 allowing the Timorese to choose between autonomy under Indonesian administration or independence. However, the TNI attempted to derail the referendum process. After the Timorese opted heavily for independence (78.5 percent of votes, with a 98 percent voter turnout), pro-Indonesia militias embarked on a wave of mass violence that ended when international pressure forced Indonesia to accept a peacekeeping force. The UN then governed Timor-Leste for three years, ending with the restoration of independence in May 2002.

Based on a consensus among Timorese leaders, the UN administration authorized a TRC with two goals: to reconcile two sides in a long-running conflict, and to reconcile the new country with its past by crafting a narrative that would tell the truth about what had happened under Indonesian military rule. Seven Timorese commissioners and a large local staff backed by a few foreign advisers carried out public hearings, community reconciliation processes, thousands of victim and witness interviews, and other forms of research into the 1974–1999 period. In 2005, the CAVR delivered its five-volume report, entitled Chega! (Enough!). It was published in English translation in 2015.

Chega! provides a comprehensive account of violence and human rights abuses during the entire period of Indonesian military occupation. It has been described as one of the five strongest truth commissions in the world to date. ⁶ Yet it is more than a simple telling of history. It is primarily a human rights document, focused on future-oriented recommendations on how to achieve reconciliation. The report also highlights the complicity of key players in the international community, making recommendations that go beyond Timor-Leste’s borders. The findings of the Chega! report were affirmed in 2008 by an innovative joint Indonesian–Timorese truth commission, the first such two-nation collaboration in the world.

Truth and reconciliation are about more than writing a report. They do not end when the reports land on desks in government offices. Timor-Leste’s government has implemented many of the Chega! recommendations, but not all—either because they are addressed to non-Timorese actors or because the Timor-Leste government has found them inconvenient. The national parliament, for instance, has not yet debated Chega! Follow-up action nevertheless continues – in February 2017 the government began advertising for staff for a new Centro Nacional Chega! – da memória à esperança (National Chega! Centre – from memory to hope) that aims to continue victim support, memorialization, education and other projects.

Both Timor-Leste and Indonesia are now in a post-truth commission phase. In Timor-Leste, this is carried forward by a Post–CAVR Technical Secretariat, which issues follow-up documents such as the Plain Guide to Chega! and a comic-book version of the report suitable for use in schools and limited-literacy contexts. Meanwhile, civil society organizations including Chega! for Us (ACbit) in Timor-Leste and Asian Justice and Rights (AJAR) in Indonesia, continue to “socialize” (sosialisasi in Indonesian; socialisasaun in Tetun, meaning to disseminate and deepen understanding of) the reports and their recommendations. A decade after the Chega! report, there is also a growing need for international “socialization” of the reports. This is especially true for countries like Canada, which helped fund the Chega! report and played a role in the events it describes.

Canada’s government knew of the Indonesian army’s plans to invade Timor-Leste in 1975, but did not act to deter the invasion. ⁷ It was aware of specific atrocities during the occupation period, such as the use of napalm, but concealed the information. Under the leadership of Lloyd Axworthy, foreign minister from 1995 to 2000, Canada began to promote dialogue and human rights. In December 1998, the Canadian government met a long-standing request of the Timorese resistance movement by endorsing self-determination for Timor-Leste. It then played a valuable role on the UN Security Council, at the APEC summit, in the G7 and elsewhere in 1999, when the Timorese voted for independence. Canada’s government was a partner in Timorese development after independence in such areas as police training, while Canadian NGOs were active in such areas as food security and human rights after independence.

Since independence, Timor-Leste has made impressive development progress, but it remains among the poorest countries in Asia. It can boast a relatively transparent oil heritage fund, and its leaders proudly point to their ability to hold free and fair elections and to several peaceful transitions of power between governments of different political parties. Still, much work remains to be done, especially in areas like violence against women and gender equity, and development challenges persist, including the unaddressed legacy of mass atrocities.

There is long-standing interest on the part of Canadian government, churches, and civil society (including past work by the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace, Kairos Canada, Unitarian Service Committee [USC] Canada, and others). These Canadian contributions were recognized in 2015 when Timorese president Taur Matan Ruak conferred the Order of Timor-Leste on the East Timor Alert Network of Canada.

Canada could therefore make a valuable contribution to the unfinished work of truth and reconciliation in Timor-Leste by promoting the report globally; calling on the UN Secretary-General to refer the Chega! report to relevant UN bodies; apologizing for its supply of military equipment to Indonesia from 1975 to 1999; refusing a visa to any Indonesian officer named in the Chega! report for human rights violations; and supporting reparations for Timorese victims and efforts by civil society groups to “socialize” Chega! As a funder of the report, Canada has an interest in seeing its work followed up. Canada also has an interest in seeing Timor-Leste, especially after its expected accession to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), emerge as a democratic, stable, rights-respecting, environmentally sustainable state governed by the rule of law. Canada should consider aid to key sectors in Timor-Leste promoting these goals, in keeping with the Chrétien government’s commitment to a long-term development partnership—a pledge abandoned under the Harper government.

Indonesia

For more than 30 years, Indonesia was ruled by a military regime headed by General Suharto which took power on the back of a wave of violence against civilians, allegedly in reprisal for a 1965 coup attempt by the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). As many as a million people died and another million were jailed following the “1965 events.” ⁸ The violence was welcomed by Western governments, who continued to support Suharto until he fell from power in 1998.

Since 1998, Indonesia has held regular elections and engaged in a process of reform (reformasi). The current administration of President Joko Widodo committed to deepening democratization, opening the territory of (West) Papua, and permitting more transparency in discussion of the 1965 killings. However, his administration may lack either the will or the capacity to enforce its will on the still-powerful army. For instance, there have been official and unofficial efforts to prevent full discussion of the 1965 events. The government has not acknowledged findings by the Indonesian National Human Rights Commission that these events constituted a crime against humanity; authorities ordered students at Satya Wacana University to burn copies of a student magazine’s special issue on 1965; and organizers of the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival held in 2015 report that they were asked to self-censor sessions mentioning the 1965 killings.

At the same time, Indonesian civil society groups are working to reveal this violent past, while researchers in Indonesia, Timor-Leste, and Australia are working to bring the Chega! report and its conclusions to a wider Indonesian public. Of the 391 perpetrators indicted by the UN Serious Crimes Unit for human rights crimes, for instance, most remain in Indonesia with no immediate prospect of having to face any accountability.

A further consideration is Indonesia’s foreign relations. Recent research points to an emerging consensus that international actors were significant during the “1965 events.” ⁹ While the key actors were Indonesian, several governments appear to have encouraged mass killings and acted to help the Suharto regime consolidate its power. Campaigns in several countries are seeking to shed more light on this story by urging the American, Chinese, and other governments to open their archives on this period, but governments remain resistant. International resistance to discussing 1965 reinforces Indonesian government resistance.

Canada has a long-standing and positive relationship with Indonesia, the largest member of ASEAN, dating back to the opening of the first Canadian embassy in Jakarta in 1953 and including an Indonesia–Canada Plan of Action signed in 2014. Canada has influence and is respected in Indonesia for its past support of strengthening civil society, the empowerment of women, and other initiatives and sectors.

Canada could therefore contribute to efforts by civil society groups to “socialize” the Chega! report within Indonesia. Canada should encourage the Indonesian army to accept accountability for upholding human rights, encourage the continued demilitarization of Indonesian politics and society, and ensure that nothing done though Canada’s Military Training and Cooperation program encourages the growth of the army’s involvement in politics. Canada should also express concern over attempts to limit discussion of the 1965 killings in Indonesia; back calls from Indonesian civil society to create a truth commission on 1965; and encourage the discussion of truth and reconciliation for past human rights abuses in both Canada and Indonesia within the Canada–Indonesia Bilateral Human Rights Dialogue process.

Indonesia also faces truth and reconciliation challenges at the local level. For instance, there are moves to finally create a truth and reconciliation process dealing with events in Aceh, a region that was home to a secessionist rebellion from 1976 to 2005. Elsewhere, the government has tended to treat local conflicts as ethnic disputes or sideshows in the global war on terrorism. For instance, a local conflict in Poso, Central Sulawesi, broke out in 1998. ¹⁰ The region, roughly half Christian and half Muslim, suffered a thousand killed and some 79,000 displaced in inter-communal conflict until the government opened a reconciliation process in 2001. Due to its top-down nature and the way it treated violence as simply a matter of religious conflict, this reconciliation process did not end violence, which continues and has seen increasing radicalization and the entry of violent fundamentalist Islamic groups, accompanied by increased militarization by the Indonesian army. Poso could benefit from a community-based truth process. This conclusion holds for many regions of the sprawling Republic of Indonesia.

Tanah Papua

Nowhere is current conflict more severe than in Tanah Papua (the Indonesian-ruled provinces of Papua and West Papua). ¹¹ This region was a Dutch colony until 1962, when it was transferred to United Nations administration. In 1963 the UN transferred control to Indonesia pending an “act of free choice” by local people. The act, held in 1969, was widely considered to be fraudulent, including by the UN’s own officials. The Papuan nationalist assertion that self-determination was denied is an unresolved grievance contributing to the ongoing conflict. Part of the assertion of difference is a claim that Papua is geographically and ethnically part of Melanesia, rather than Asia. As in Timor-Leste, Indonesian rule has been heavily militarized and implicated in severe and ongoing violations of human rights. ¹²

Papuan independence claims did not vanish after 1969, but continued in the form of a guerilla Free Papua Movement (OPM) during the Suharto years. In the period of reformasi that followed, Papuan leaders called for a dialogue with the Indonesian government and for a referendum on independence. Papuan claims are often couched in the language of indigenous rights, and pay special attention to the demographic transition that has seen a massive influx of Indonesian migrants reduce the indigenous population to a minority. Papuan nationalists were involved in early conversations around creating the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.

The Indonesian government offered “special autonomy,” which has allowed a larger share of natural resource revenues to remain in Tanah Papua. The autonomy package included a TRC, but this commitment was first watered down and then dropped entirely, just like the proposed TRC for the “1965 events” in Indonesia. Jakarta’s approach in Tanah Papua, based on harsh security measures and the promise of development, has failed to end pro-independence aspirations. President Widodo’s promise to open the territory to foreign journalists and NGOs has not been fully respected. ¹³ Papuans continue to be killed, jailed, and silenced. In May 2016, Indonesian authorities carried out the largest mass arrests since 1965, when they took nearly 2000 Papuans into custody.

Tanah Papua is one of the last remaining big stands of tropical rain forest. The survival of Papuan ecosystems is therefore a matter of global interest. Papuan civil society groups are keenly aware of the link between natural and human environments and constantly preoccupied with the unbreakable links between humans and nature. This is a point that has also been highlighted by the Canadian TRC. ¹⁴ Indigenous and especially women’s traditional knowledge informs peacebuilding efforts at the local level throughout Tanah Papua.

Canadian civil society has a long-standing engagement with Papuan civil society, including indigenous-to-indigenous links. These have been fostered by such NGOs as the Pacific Peoples’ Partnership in its “Papua Land of Peace” project. Canada–Papua links were symbolized by the bestowal of the John Humphrey Freedom Award on Papuan advocate Yan Christian Warinussy in Ottawa in 2005.

It would therefore be valuable if the Canadian government reconsidered its policy on Tanah Papua to back calls by Papuan civil society for a dialogue with the Indonesian government. Canada should engage in Tanah Papua through civil society connections, including partnerships between Canadian and Papuan NGOs and indigenous groups. Canada should urge the demilitarization of the region and press for improvements to human rights, the release of political prisoners, and the full opening of the territory to international NGOs, aid agencies, and journalists.

Solomon Islands

The region of Melanesia consists of four independent countries (Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, and Fiji), plus two territories ruled from outside (Tanah Papua and Kanaky/French New Caledonia). All six territories saw the birth of independence movements during the 1960s wave of African decolonization and have expressed a sense of pan-Melanesian identity. All hold some form of membership in the Melanesian Spearhead Group regional forum.

To date, the only truth commission in Melanesia is the one created in Solomon Islands after an internal conflict on the island of Guadalcanal that raged from 1998 to 2003. The Solomon Islands Truth and Reconciliation Commission (SITRC) leaned on the model of South Africa’s TRC. Its five commissioners (three Solomon Islanders and two international commissioners, from Fiji and Peru) held public and closed hearings and carried out a number of interviews from 2009 to 2011, then presented their report in 2012. ¹⁵ The commission paid extensive attention to indigenous kastom (custom) and to gender aspects and produced an impressive five-volume report. However, the report was not published or debated in parliament, and its text is available online only because it was leaked by a Canadian Anglican serving as a bishop in the Church of Melanesia. Unlike Timor-Leste, there is no truth commission follow-up institution or NGO dedicated to carrying out the report’s legacy. However, the country does have an active civil society, much of it linked to church and women’s groups.

Ensuring the continuity of peace in the Solomons, an important aspect of peace throughout the region, requires public discussion and implementation of the SITRC report. The report was a joint international–national project, and the international progress of truth and reconciliation processes may be harmed if the report is not published and acted on. Canada’s government could usefully inquire of the Solomon Islands government as to progress on publication, discussion in parliament, and implementation of the SITRC report, and support efforts by church and civil society groups in Solomon Islands to “socialize” the report.

A comparison of two truth commissions in this region, Timor-Leste and Solomon Islands, shows that both made strong efforts to “mainstream” gender concerns and to integrate indigenous traditions into the work of their truth commissions. Although both drew on international funding and international models, they were created and operated by national actors. Both have lessons to teach the wider world, contributions to make to global truth and reconciliation theory and practice. As the only Western developed country to have held a full truth commission, Canada could play a powerful role in promoting and supporting mutual dialogue on the implementation of truth and reconciliation reports between such countries as Timor-Leste and Solomon Islands.

Canada’s TRC began with a session in Vancouver in which practitioners in commissions from around the world were invited to share their experiences. TRC Canada focused on the toxic legacy of Indian residential schools. It produced a wide-ranging report that called for nothing less than a new relationship between indigenous people and the settler population of Canada. Why not build on the links between indigenous peoples in Canada on the one hand and Solomon Islands, Tanah Papua, and throughout Indonesia on the other? Expertise exists in indigenous communities and in NGOs such as the Pacific Peoples’ Partnership, and affiliations that could be supported between (for instance) the Assembly of First Nations and the Aliansi Masyarakat Adat Nusantara (Indonesian for, loosely translated, the Alliance of Indigenous Peoples of the Archipelago). Canadian churches are heavily involved as parties and repentant participants in reconciliation processes in Canada, ¹⁶ and are among those groups in Canada with the most active ties to Southeast Asia and the Melanesian Pacific. This expertise is present in denominations such as the Anglican and United Churches of Canada; in church-sponsored groups such as the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace; and in ecumenical coalitions such as KAIROS.

Conclusions and Canada’s contribution

Several broad conclusions can be drawn from this comparison of truth and reconciliation processes. First, we need to understand truth and reconciliation as processes. They involve both formal commissions and calls for historical truth-telling that have not (yet) led to truth commissions. The process starts with a pre-TRC phase in which people and groups begin to call for truth-telling about a violent past. If and when government accepts these demands, the process moves into a formal TRC, which conducts hearings, interviews, archival research, and other forms of investigation that end in a final report. But these reports are most effective when “socialized” in a post-TRC phase. In both the pre- and post-TRC phases, non-governmental organizations take the lead. A second general conclusion, then, is that truth and reconciliation processes are most effective when carried by civil society more than government actors.

This leads to a third conclusion: the most effective truth and reconciliation processes are community based, with a leading role assigned to the voices of victims and survivors. A TRC that integrates indigenous custom and recognizes gender issues is likely to be a more effective TRC. A reconciliation process imposed from the top down is far less likely to succeed than one with community support and involvement. Government refusal to allow an open truth process is likely to exacerbate rather than resolve conflict.

Finally, truth and reconciliation cannot be limited to one country. Each of the cases of mass atrocity examined here has an international dimension. Only one TRC (the Timorese–Indonesian CTF) has involved two governments, and its effectiveness has been limited by Indonesian resistance to accepting responsibility for crimes against humanity in Timor-Leste. Western governments need to examine openly their own past role in violence in other countries if there is to be a chance of true healing.

These conclusions, in turn, lead to general policy recommendations for how Canada can play a role in the global process of truth and reconciliation. As a northern country grappling with its own legacies of violence and struggling to implement the 94 calls to action issued by TRC Canada, and as a donor to commissions in the Global South, Canada is well positioned to consider border-crossing issues of truth and reconciliation, of memories of trauma and crimes against humanity.

Canada has a history of engaging in global debates and action for human rights, a point recognized by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau soon after he took office. “Many of you have worried that Canada has lost its compassionate and constructive voice in the world over the past 10 years,” he said. “Well, I have a simple message for you: on behalf of 35 million Canadians, we’re back.” ¹⁷ This message is a welcome sign of the government’s intention to resume Canada’s role of international engagement. Truth crosses borders. Reconciliation crosses borders. Memory crosses borders. Canadian policy can cross borders, too.