A Nobel Peace Prize Laureate’s Views on the Kurds

This week I participated in the 12th International Conference on the European Union, Turkey and the Kurds. While I naturally got to hear a lot of great speeches from people I admire very much, some of the things people said stayed in my mind more than others. I thus wanted to share with readers some of things that Jose Ramos-Horta, former president of East Timor and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, had to say regarding the Kurds.

For more than twenty years, Mr. Ramos-Horta was part of the East Timorese opposition to Indonesian occupation of his small island nation -- an occupation that violated numerous United Nations resolutions and killed some 100,000 East Timorese. After East Timor finally gained its independence in 2002, he served as the country’s Foreign Minister and then Prime Minister. When his term as Prime Minister ended in 2012, he left office precisely at the time that the East Timorese Constitution mandated. In 2008 he was wounded in an assassination attempt.

Regarding Iraq, Mr. Ramos-Horta unequivocally placed blame for the collapse of the country on “mismanagement by the post-Saddam Hussein government.” He pointed out that Nuri al-Maliki’s government did not “seize the opportunity to build a new Iraq where everyone embraces each other, Sunnis and Shiites and Kurds.” Today, as a result, he says that we are seeing the inevitable redrawing of Iraq’s borders, wherein Kurdish independence now seems irreversible. Part of the reason that Iraqi Kurdistan’s independence is becoming a reality, he said, is thanks to the efforts of Kurdish leaders there, who prevented extremism from engulfing their community.

On the topic of Turkey, Mr. Ramos-Horta expressed the hope that the leaders of this great country would learn from the historical mistakes of others. At this point he gave the example of Indonesia and its rule over East Timor, an oppressive venture that the Indonesians thought would be easy given the East Timorese’s poverty, illiteracy and powerlessness. Of course it did not turn out that way, and after some twenty-five years, Indonesia decided to cut its losses and finally leave the East Timorese in peace.

It’s not clear whether or not Mr. Ramos-Horta sees an exact parallel of Indonesian rule over East Timor and Turkish control over what the Kurds see as North Kurdistan, however. That was not really the focus of his comments, although it is possible. His main point about historical lessons came after this, when he discussed the “great statesmanship” and “vision” of the post-Suharto Indonesian government. His glowing depiction of later Indonesian leaders was nothing short of remarkable for a man who spent most of his adult life opposing the Indonesian government. He said that as he was speaking to us, Indonesia’s current president was in East Timor on a visit, and that every Indonesian president has visited his country since independence. On the day East Timor gained its freedom, Indonesia’s president attended the ceremony along with U.S. President Clinton.

The very fact of East Timor’s independence, he insisted, showed the maturity and statesmanship of the Indonesian leaders and people. “Today,” he said, “there are no two countries in east Asia that have better relations than East Timor and Indonesia.” This was coming from a man whose small population lost 100,000 people to Indonesian occupation. He pointed out that once wisdom prevailed in Indonesia, Jakarta also took the previously inconceivable step of allowing autonomy for the province of Aceh, thereby ending another long-running conflict. This kind of politics became possible with the end of the Suharto dictatorship in Indonesia. Wisdom for Mr. Ramos-Horta also included not “over-estimating your own strength and under-estimating that of others,” something which generally runs against the pride and arrogance of leaders, who often fail to see when even their own house is on fire.

The Nobel Laureate then went on to point out that “you cannot claim a people to be yours when you do not treat them as your people.” Ramos-Horta’s specific advice to Turkish President Erdogan, whom he described as “a powerful leader presiding over a great country with a rich history,” was to realize that “the greatest leaders are those who show compassion and some humility – the greater you are, the more humble you can be.” He advised Mr. Erdogan to extend his hand to all the Kurds, to raise them up and build a common future.

At the same time, opposition movements need to show some wisdom as well. In some twenty-five years of fighting the Indonesian state, Mr. Ramos-Horta pointed out, “Not one Indonesian civilian was killed by our resistance fighters.” He added that “We captured many Indonesian soldiers, and not one captured soldier was ever killed.” Also, “Do not demonize your adversary,” Mr. Ramos-Horta advised. “We Catholics [of East Timor] never demonized Indonesians as Muslims. It had nothing to do with religion, but rather with a military that decided to invade. Now we have a splendid relationship of people to people. Do not demonize your adversary. They may demonize you, but I never call the other side ‘enemy.’ I dislike the word ‘enemy.’”

David Romano has been a Rudaw columnist since 2010. He holds the Thomas G. Strong Professor of Middle East Politics at Missouri State University and is the author of numerous publications on the Kurds and the Middle East.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.