Jose Ramos-Horta: Use of force is often the necessary price of liberty

I often find myself counting how many of us are left in this world. One recent morning my two surviving brothers and I had coffee together. And I found myself counting again. We were seven brothers and five sisters, another large family in this tiny Catholic country.

One brother died when he was a baby. Antonio, our oldest brother, died in 1992 of lack of medical care. Three other siblings were murdered in our country's long conflict with Indonesia. One, a younger sister, Maria Ortencia, died on December 19, 1978, killed by a rocket fired from a OV-10 Bronco aircraft, which the United States had sold to Indonesia.

She was buried on a majestic mountaintop and her grave was tended by the humble people of the area for 20 years.

Early in September of last year I went through the heart-wrenching process of unearthing the improvised grave of our sister, whom I last saw when she was 18.

As her body was exhumed, I noticed that the back of her head and one side of her face had been blown off. She must have died instantly. We reburied our sister in the cemetery in the capital, Dili.

Two other siblings who were killed, our brothers Nuno and Guilherme, were executed by Indonesian soldiers in 1977. With little information on the area where they were killed and disposed of, we have no hope of recovering their bodies for a dignified burial.

There is hardly a family in my country that has not lost a loved one. Many families were entirely wiped out during the decades of occupation by Indonesia and the war of resistance against it.

The US and other Western nations contributed to this tragedy. Some bear a direct responsibility because they helped Indonesia by providing military aid. Others were accomplices through indifference and silence.

But all redeemed themselves. In 1999, a global peacekeeping force helped East Timor to secure its independence and protect its people. It is now a free nation.

But I still acutely remember the suffering and misery brought about by war.

It would certainly be a better world if war were not necessary.

Yet I also remember the desperation and anger I felt when the rest of the world chose to ignore the tragedy that was drowning my people.

We begged a foreign power to free us from oppression, by force if necessary.

So I follow with some consternation the debate on Iraq in the United Nations Security Council and in Nato. I am unimpressed by the grandstanding of certain European leaders. Their actions undermine the only truly effective means of pressure on the Iraqi dictator - the threat of the use of force.

Critics of the US give no credit to the Bush Administration's aggressive strategy, even though it is the real reason that Iraq has allowed weapons inspectors to return and why Baghdad is co-operating a bit more, if it indeed is at all.

The anti-war demonstrations are truly noble. I know that differences of opinion and public debate over issues such as war and peace are vital. We enjoy the right to demonstrate and to express opinions today because East Timor is an independent democracy - something we didn't have during a 25-year reign of terror.

Fortunately for all of us, the age of globalisation has meant that citizens have a greater say in almost every major issue. But if the anti-war movement dissuades the US and its allies from going to war with Iraq, it will have contributed to the peace of the dead.

Saddam Hussein will emerge victorious and ever more defiant. What has been accomplished so far will unravel. Containment is doomed to fail. We cannot forget that despots protected by their own elaborate security apparatus are still able to make decisions.

Saddam has dragged his people into at least two wars. He has used chemical weapons on them. He has killed hundreds of thousands of people and tortured and oppressed countless others.

So why, in all of these demonstrations, did I not see one single banner or hear one speech calling for the end of human rights abuses in Iraq, the removal of the dictator and freedom for the Iraqis and the Kurdish people?

If we are going to demonstrate and exert pressure, shouldn't it be focused on the real villain, with the goal of getting him to surrender his weapons of mass destruction and resign from power?

To neglect this reality in favour of simplistic and irrational anti-Americanism is obfuscating the true debate on war and peace. I agree that the Bush Administration must give more time to the weapons inspectors to fulfil their mandate. The US is an unchallenged world power and will survive its enemies. It can afford to be a little more patient.

Kofi Annan, the Secretary-General of the UN, has proved himself to be a strong mediator and no friend of dictators. He and a group of world leaders should use this time to persuade Saddam to resign and go into exile. In turn, Saddam could be credited with preventing another war and sparing his people.

But even this approach will not work without the continued threat of force. Abandoning such a threat would be perilous. Yes, the anti-war movement would be able to claim its own victory in preventing a war.

But it would have to accept that it also helped keep a ruthless dictator in power and explain itself to the tens of thousands of his victims.

History has shown that the use of force is often the necessary price of liberation. A respected Kosovar intellectual once told me how he felt when the world finally interceded in his country: "I am a pacifist. But I was happy, I felt liberated when I saw Nato bombs falling."