Break-ins and Breaking News: the Timorese Fence-Jumpers of Jakarta

Picture: Jim Della-Giacoma

In an article by New Mandala, Jim Della-Giacoma recounts his experiences reporting the break-ins of the US embassy in Jakarta by East Timorese.

As an accredited foreign correspondent in Jakarta between 1994 and 1998, I saw and reported on many of these break-ins. So many, in fact, the French ambassador once accused me of being part of the clandestine movement. My personal archive from those days holds many of these reports but not records of all these incidents. Over the years, I have been adding documents on my cloud drives. I have told stories over Portuguese wine that never made the wire. It was while recounting these tales last year in Dili that a Timorese friend urged me to write more of them down before we all forgot them. By doing so, I hope to distinguish art from history and fact from recollection and add to what is publicly known about this part of Timor-Leste’s struggle for independence.

In its lengthy history of the conflict, the Report of the Commission for Reception, Truth, and Reconciliation (CAVR), Chega!, has two paragraphs on the embassy break-ins, writing that Timorese students turned many foreign embassies in Jakarta into fortresses as they jumped fences to seek asylum. The protest at the US embassy was a “stunning public relations success organized by RENETIL.” The Chega! findings are based testimony of RENETIL members, including Virgilio Gutteres, Avelino Coelho, Naldo Rei, and Mariano Sabino Lopes, the current deputy prime minister. It said the break-ins were a well-coordinated strategy that the student group executed in in coordination with Xanana Gusmão, with whom they had direct and regular access during his detention at Jakarta’s Cipinang prison. The report only mentions three actual incidents: the US embassy break-in, a November 1995 asylum claim at the French embassy, and December 1995 protests at the Russian and Dutch embassies. The CAVR did not tally the numbers of those who entered the embassies either seeking asylum or to protest.