c. 1996 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) _ When a Roman Catholic bishop and an exiled political activist from East Timor were chosen to receive the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize world attention was focused on a long-simmering but long-ignored dispute _ the struggle by primarily Catholic East Timor to gain its independence from Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim nation.

Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo, 48 _ the first Catholic prelate to ever receive the prestigious peace prize _ will share the $1.2-million award with Jose Ramos-Horta, 51, who served as East Timor’s foreign minister prior to Indonesia’s annexation of the one-time Portuguese colony in 1976. Ramos-Horta now lives in Australia.

Both Belo and Ramos-Horta have been leaders in the effort to keep the East Timor cause before the world community, with Belo acting from within East Timor and Ramos-Horta traveling the world on behalf of his people.

The Nobel committee said in a statement that it was honoring the two men for “their sustained and self-sacrificing contributions for a small but oppressed people.” And Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls hailed the decision to award the prize to Belo, saying it “constitutes a recognition of his activities as a man of the churchâÂ?¦” who is seeking a peaceful solution to the conflict.

On the surface, the dispute over East Timor appears to be another example of religious differences leading to ongoing bloodshed. But experts familiar with the Indonesian religious scene say the Southeast Asian island nation’s colonial past bears greater responsibility for the conflict.

“Although there are people on both sides who like to portray this in religious terms, this fundamentally is not a dispute over religion,” said Mark Woodward, an associate professor of religion at Arizona State University and an expert on Indonesian Islam.

“It’s an outgrowth of the colonial legacy and Indonesian nationalism that views East Timor as part and parcel of Indonesia regardless of its faith. There are other parts of Indonesia that are strongly Christian or Hindu and there are no secessionist problems in those areas.”

East Timor became Catholic as a result of Portugese missionaries who arrived in the 16th century. The western portion of the island of Timor, which is northwest of Australia, is predominantly Muslim, as are almost 90 percent of Indonesia’s 190 million people.

The Dutch colonized the remainder of the approximately 3,000 islands that today constitute Indonesia, but did not seek massive conversion of the indigenous population as did the Roman Catholic Portuguese.

Ever since Indonesia gained its independence from the Netherlands following World War II, Indonesian nationalists have sought to absorb East Timor, which they see as a reuniting of the region with its historic roots.

“Racially, there is no difference between the people of East Timor and Jakarta (Indonesia’s capital),” he said.

The cultural, linguistic and religious differences that do exist, Woodward said, are a product of East Timor having been colonized by the Portugese while the reminder of Indonesia fell under Dutch influence.

In 1975, Indonesian troops marched into the island’s eastern half during the civil war that followed Portugal’s abandonment of its colony because of its own political turmoil. Indonesia, which already included West Timor, proclaimed East Timor its 27th province the next year.

East Timor separatists have waged a campaign to gain independence ever since. The conflict has been violent, and Amnesty International has accused the Indonesian military of massive human rights abuses.

Belo claimed in 1983 that as many as one-third of East Timor’s pre-invasion population of 650,000 had died from military action or starvation and disease between 1976 and 1980.

“We are dying as a people and as a nation,” Belo wrote in a 1989 appeal of the East Timorese cause to the United Nations. He received no reply to his letter.

In 1991, Indonesian soldiers fired on unarmed East Timorese demonstrators, killing 50 according to the government’s count and more than 200 according to East Timorese activists. During his second visit to Indonesia in 1989, Pope John Paul II _ who has been an outspoken advocate on behalf of Timorese Catholics _ prayed on a field in the East Timor city of Dili where the killings took place.

As recently as February, the pontiff urged recognition of the “legitimate aspirations” of the East Timorese.

A small, poorly armed guerrilla force continues to exist in East Timor.

Despite the international condemnation that Indonesia has received for its handling of East Timor, most Muslims view the conflict as Woodward does.

Syyed Hossein Nasr, a professor of Islamic studies at George Washington University, echoed the Indonesian government’s comments Friday by labeling the Nobel committee’s decision “pure politics.”

Nasr said Indonesian and other Muslims regard the Vatican’s support for East Timor independence as “sheer colonialism.” Western efforts to shake East Timor free of Indonesian control, Nasr added, “carry a hint of Christian belief that Christians are best off when free of Muslim dominance.”

On Friday, the news service of the Salesians, the Rome-based religious order to which Belo belongs, quoted the bishop as a man of peace, not politics.

“Our role,” he said, “is simply to work for peace and human rights. … My work is purely pastoral, in favor of man, woman, young people and all people.”

He also said the fate of East Timor should be decided by the United Nations, which has never recognized Indonesia’s annexation of the region.

The Nobel committee citation called Belo “the foremost representative of the people of East Timor. At the risk of his own life, he has tried to protect his people from infringements by those in power.”

END RNS