A country’s agonising birth 备受苦难而生的国家

A country’s agonising birth

备受苦难而生的国家

Feb 25th 2010 | From The Economist print edition

Ready to die for freedom 准备为自由献身

“If You Leave Us Here, We Will Die”: How Genocide Was Stopped in East Timor. By Geoffrey Robinson. Princeton University Press; 317 pages; $35 and £24.95. Buy from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk

《你们走了，我们会死的！——东帝汶种族灭绝终结记》，杰弗里•鲁滨逊著，普林斯顿大学出版社出版，317页，售价35美元或24.95英磅，可从Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk网站购买。

FEW countries have suffered as much, merely to be counted as countries, as did Timor-Leste, the former Indonesian province of East Timor. Under the Indonesian occupation from 1975 to 1999, perhaps one-third of the population died before their time. Survivors suffered hunger, deprivation, torture and systematic terror. Against the odds, on August 30th 1999 the East Timorese found themselves with the chance of a vote to choose between independence or autonomy under Indonesian rule. Turnout was 98.6%. Of those, four in five voted for independence.

很少有什么国家，只不过为了要（被人们）当做国家（看待）， 就像东帝汶（前印尼的东帝汶省）那样， 遭受过那么多的苦难。在1975年到1999年印尼占领期间，大约三分之一的人死亡。幸存者遭受饥饿、贫困、酷刑和有组织的恐怖袭击。临此困境，1999年8月30日，东帝汶人利用公投机会作出抉择——是独立为一个国家还是成为印尼统治下的一个自治省。投票率达到98.6％，其中，五分之四赞成独立。

The author of this fine book, Geoffrey Robinson, was there that day, as a member of the United Nations mission that organised the poll. Before that, as an academic and human-rights researcher, he was one of a small doughty band of foreigners who helped keep East Timor alive as an international issue, at a time when most governments preferred to cultivate good ties with Suharto, Indonesia’s dictator.

本佳作的作者杰弗里•鲁滨逊，作为联合国主持全民公投特派团成员之一，当时就在东帝汶。此前，他作为一位学者和人权研究员，曾是一个勇敢的外国人小团体的成员，在那时大多数政府都宁愿与印尼独裁者苏哈托建立良好关系[的背景下]，他为将东帝汶持续作为国际关注的重大问题提供了积极的帮助。

Mr Robinson was also there in the nightmarish aftermath of the referendum: as Indonesian-sponsored militias trashed the country, hundreds died and terrified refugees took shelter in the UN compound in Dili. That period provides the book’s title. “If you leave us here, we will die,” was what a Timorese woman in the compound told a visiting UN delegation.

在全民公投所招致的恶梦般创伤期间，罗宾逊先生也在东帝汶：亲印尼民兵组织捣毁了这个国家、成百上千的人死亡、恐惧的难民们涌到联合国在帝力的避难营避难。这一时期为本书提供了书名 “你们走了，我们会死的”——这是在避难营的一位东帝汶妇女向到访的联合国代表团诉说时的一句话。

But in fact the title sells both East Timor and the book seriously short. That a second genocide was averted in the country should not conceal the ugly truth that the outside world ignored and connived at the first, in the terrible years after Indonesia’s invasion. And the title misrepresents the book because, though enlivened by the narrative of Mr Robinson’s own time as a participant in and eyewitness to the events described, it is also a subtle and nuanced work of history and analysis.

其实，这本书的书名不仅对东帝汶而且就是对这本书本身都作了低估。该国第二次种族灭绝得以幸免这一事实不应当（用来）掩盖（此前）在印尼入侵之后那些恐怖的岁月里，外间的世界是如何对这第一次种族灭绝视而不见（甚至）默许纵容的丑陋真相。因为该书是讲究微妙曲折的历史之作，理论分析之作， 所以该书书名配不上书中的内容， 尽管作者亲历其境，目击暴行， 描写生动。

It contrasts the way the world looked the other way in 1975 with the swift intervention by an Australian-led peacekeeping force in 1999. That was in part a consequence of press attention, the courage of the East Timorese and a unique, brief period in history when “liberal interventionism” seemed to have a future. It also owed something to a collective sense of guilt over past atrocities in Srebrenica, Rwanda and East Timor itself.

本书比较了1975年世界对[暴行]视而不见和1999年澳大利亚为首的维和部队实施的快速干预方式。[认为]该快速干预在某种程度上说，是媒体关注、东帝汶人民的勇气和“自由干涉主义”似乎有了前途这一空前绝后、稍纵即逝的历史时刻共同作用的结果，该快速干预也部分地归因于外间世界的一种集体负疚感， 这种负疚感来自过去对发生于斯雷布雷尼察、卢旺达和东帝汶本身的罪行视而不见。

As for Indonesia, the behaviour of its soldiers and their local allies was sadly not an aberration. The outcome was predictable as soon as the flawed UN mandate put the security for the referendum in the hands of the main threat to it: the Indonesian army. Mr Robinson traces the violence back to the Suharto regime’s original sin, the massacre of hundreds of thousands as it took power in 1965-66.

可悲的是， 就印尼而言， 其士兵及当地盟军的暴行并不是什么脱离常轨的行为。一旦联合国那份有缺陷的训令把公民投票的安保权力交给对公民投票构成主要威胁的印尼军队手中，这个血腥的结果就完全可以预见了。罗宾逊先生追溯[印尼]暴力，直至苏哈托政权的原罪上——1965年至1966年苏掌权时期对数十万人的大屠杀。

The strategies of violence, he notes, were “implicitly legitimised”,not just because of the state’s involvement, but because the criminals were never punished. Ten years on not a single Indonesian official has been convicted of any crime in East Timor, and the idea of an international tribunal has been, in effect, ditched.

罗宾逊指出：那一次暴力所采取的策略已经被“暗暗地合法化了”，——不仅是因为插手是以国家的名义，还因为罪犯从未受到惩罚。 在长达10多年时间里，在东帝汶没有一个印尼裔官员因任一犯罪行为被判决有罪，而关于建立国际法庭的想法在事实上已束之高阁。

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