East Timor became independent May 20.

After more than four centuries of colonial rule by Portugal and occupation by Japanese forces during World War II, East Timor was annexed by Indonesia by force in 1976. Since then, the people of East Timor had been forced to put up with hardships torn between integration into Indonesia and longing for independence. At long last, they have entered a new age of independence of their own accord.

Shaking off past bitterness, Indonesian President Megawati Sukarunoputri also attended the ceremony to celebrate East Timor's independence. While her presence gave the impression that bilateral relations between the two countries have entered a new era, some members of the parliament and veterans' groups strongly objected to her visit.

It is true that circumstances do not permit Indonesia, which treated East Timor as its ``27th province'' for 23 years, to unconditionally celebrate its independence. At the same time, however, we must not overlook the fact that some Indonesian citizens have actively shown sympathy to the plight of East Timorese people and provided continued support toward the movement to respect their basic human rights and self-determination.

For example, Solidamor (Solidarity Organization for Self-determination of East Timor People) is a nongovernmental organization founded in July 1998 immediately after the collapse of the Suharto regime. The purpose of the organization is to raise public awareness in Indonesia to respect the right of self-determination of East Timor residents. As part of the effort to accomplish that goal, it published a record of human rights violations by militiamen supporting integration immediately after a referendum in 1999.

Because of such activities, the group was also subject to various forms of persecution. In May 2000, its Jakarta office was attacked by a group of people believed to be anti-independence militiamen.

Also in the early 1990s, when the Suharto government was at its peak, there was a movement to publicize the predicament of East Timorese people under the centralized political system. The most typical example is a series of works published by Seno Gumira Ajidarma, a renowned journalist and writer.

On Nov. 12, 1991, when Seno was the managing editor of a news magazine published in Indonesia, soldiers of the Indonesian armed forces opened fire at civilians at the Santa Cruz cemetery in the East Timorese capital of Dili, killing a large number of them. Seno's magazine, despite of being under strict censorship, ran an article that carried a detailed account of the incident based on the testimonies of eyewitnesses.

As a result, he was not only subject to harsh reproof by military authorities but was also subject to demotion by the management of the magazine's publisher. However, he unflinchingly continued to put out works that described the sufferings of East Timorese people. They include ``Saksi Mata'' (Eyewitnesses), a collection of short stories, and ``Ketika Jurnalisme Dibungkam Sastra Harus Bicara'' (When journalism is gagged, literature must speak), which is a collection of essays. Since the first editions were published in 1994 and 1997 respectively, they have both run into several editions and become best sellers.

Looking back on East Timor's long and thorny path to independence, we cannot help but realize how the people had been constantly swayed by such ``major powers'' as Indonesia and Portugal.

Be that as it may, when we remember that there were sincere efforts by Indonesian citizens and journalists to sympathize with the plight of East Timorese people, bilateral relations between the two countries must not stop at the establishment of diplomatic ties but advance to building citizen-level friendship and solidarity.

　　　　　　　　　　　　*　　　　　　*　　　　　　*

The author is the executive director of the Center for Japanese Studies at the University of Indonesia. He contributed this comment to The Asahi Shimbun. The article has been translated from Japanese.