Another Kosovo simmers half a world away

Indonesia invaded East Timor, a predominantly Catholic former Portuguese colony, in 1975 and unilaterally annexed it the following year, an annexation not recognized by the United Nations.

Does that sound confusingly familiar? While the world's attention has been directed at the tangled relationships among Serbs, Croats, Albanians and others involved in the Kosovo crisis, another delicate spot on the globe has been heating up: East Timor.

Last Sunday, in fact, Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo of East Timor, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1996, escaped injury or death when a machete-wielding mob of pro-Indonesia militia attacked vehicles in his convoy. The incident occurred after he celebrated Mass in Liquica, where more than two dozen people had been massacred a few days earlier by a militia that is armed, trained and financially supported by the Indonesian military.

During his homily at the Mass, Bishop Belo said: ``Jesus suffered but accepted everything. We have to be like Jesus. We have suffered, but we have the faith that we will build a new Liquica. We have to build life again; we have to help each other, to be free to go to the church whenever we want to go, without fear.'

Bishop Belo transferred two of the town's parish priests to his own residence because they were in shock after the massacre. ``They told me they tried to stop the militia from shooting at the people, but they were led by force away from the church, and then the massacre began,' Bishop Belo said.

The United Nations had planned a vote in July on the future of East Timor, but the escalating violence there has put that into doubt. The balloting could have paved the way for the region's long-sought independence. However, the UN warned last week that it could not organize a vote unless the violence stops. As it is, an estimated 10,000 people have sought refuge in churches and safe houses after fleeing attacks from paramilitary groups, one measure of how desperate the situation is becoming.

Long-term, seething antagonisms can be found in many places on the face of the Earth. NATO and the U.S. are trying with bombs to put an end to one of those antagonisms, while others have been allowed to fester and new ones threaten to break out.

Commenting this week on the Kosovo situation, Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, the Vatican's chief diplomat, said that "political leaders made the judgment that, having exhausted all diplomatic instruments, only force remained as a way to impose a solution that could favor peaceful coexistence among the populations of Kosovo. Obviously, the responsibility for such a choice is with those who maintained that it was opportune to adopt it."

Long before missiles and tanks become the dubious choice in other places around the globe, such actors as religion, politics and international agencies must work harder to find ways to resolve these schisms. Otherwise, next year's Kosovo could be East Timor.

(04-15-99)

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