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Subject: Timor: Forgotten Genocide
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/** reg.easttimor: 362.0 **/
** Topic: Forgotten Genocide (Progressive) **
** Written  9:52 pm  Dec 13, 1992 by cscheiner in cdp:reg.easttimor **
From "The Progressive" Magazine, December 1992, Volume 56, Number 12.
Original English, full text.

FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE

A little attention, at last, for East Timor

by Matthew Jardine

Francisco, a teenager, approaches me and asks nervously
whether it's true that the U.S. government is cutting off aid to
Indonesia.  Sister Maria, a Catholic nun, grabs my hand as she
pleads with me to tell people in the U.S. to pray for East
Timor.  Joao, a farmer whose twenty-one-year old brother was gunned down
in cold blood by the Indonesian military at the Santa Cruz massacre last
November, asks me to explain why the U.S. has done nothing to help East
Timor.

Such scenes were repeated over and over during my recent visit
to the former Portuguese colony.  Many East Timorese simply could
not understand why the West has not stopped aid to Indonesia in the
aftermath of the massacre.  Given what the West had done in the
case of Kuwait, many asked, how could it ignore the plight of East
Timor  victim of one of the major genocides of the late Twentieth
Century?

For some East Timorese, the reasons for such seemingly
inconsistent behavior posed no mystery:  In George Bush's New
World Order, the human rights of the East Timorese were subordinate
to U.S. geopolitical and corporate interests.  However, U.S.
citizens and some members of Congress have begun to challenge American
complicity in the oppression of East Timor.

On October 2nd, Congress cut $2.3 million in International
Military Education and Training funding for Indonesia from
the Foreign Aid appropriations bill for fiscal 1993.  It was the first
time in seventeen years that Congress has reduced aid to Indonesia
over the issue of East Timor.   The cutback was imposed despite strong
opposition from such major corporations such as AT&T and from the State
and Defense Departments.

East Timor lies 400 miles north of Darwin, Australia.  For
centuries, Portugal and the Netherlands fought over it to gain
control of the global spice trade.  Before World War II, the
Dutch held the western half of the island of Timor; after
decolonization, it became part of the Republic of Indonesia along
with the rest of the Dutch East Indies.  East Timor, a Portuguese
colony, followed a different course:  When the Portuguese military
dictatorship fell in 1974 and its successor government began
divesting itself of its overseas territories, the Revolutionary
Front for an Independent East Timor (FRETILIN) emerged victorious
from a brief civil war (during which the Portuguese administrators
fled the island) and began setting up a national government in East Timor.

A few months later, menaced by threatening rhetoric and military
incursions from West Timor, FRETILIN formally declared
independence.  Indonesia's ruling generals, fearing that an
independent country on its borders would destabilize the ethnically
heterogeneous archipelago, launched a fullscale invasion one week
later on the pretense that they were saving East Timor from leftist
tyranny.  Human rights monitors estimate that since the Indonesian
invasion of December 1975 over 200,000 East Timorese  almost one
third of the 1975 population  have died as a direct result of the
invasion, the ongoing occupation, and politically created famine.

Until 1989, Indonesian authorities kept East Timor off limits
to the outside world.  The few reports that did emerge suggested
massive repression and suffering.  However, the silence of most
Western governments and of mainstream Western news media meant that
most people had never even heard of East Timor.

It took the presence of a handful of Western journalists at last
year's Santa Cruz Massacre to bring the plight of East Timor back
to the world's attention.  On 12 November 1991, during a memorial
march in Dili for a proindependence activist killed by the
Indonesian military, the Indonesian army fired upon thousands of
mourners at Santa Cruz Cemetery  killing more than 200
defenseless East Timorese.  (Recent reports from East Timor suggest
that the death toll might have been considerably higher.)

Two American journalists, Amy Goodman of WBAI radio in New
York City and Allan Nairn of "The New Yorker", witnessed the
massacre and were badly beaten by Indonesian soldiers.  Nairn, who
was struck repeatedly by soldiers wielding the butts of U.S.made
M16 rifles, suffered a fractured skull.

Photos and videos of the massacre smuggled out of Dili brought
swift international reaction.  Resolutions in the European
Parliament and the U.S. Congress quickly condemned Indonesia.  The
Netherlands, Denmark, and Canada announced that they were
suspending aid.  Newspapers throughout the West editorialized in
favor of East Timorese selfdetermination.  Demonstrations in the
United States, Canada, and Western Europe plagued Indonesian
Foreign Minister Ali Alatas wherever he travelled in a tour aimed
at damage control.  The Lusitania Express tried to sail from
Darwin, Australia to Dili to lay flowers at the Santa Cruz
Cemetery (see "A Voice for Timor," On the Line, June issue).

But while the U.S. State Department officially deplored the
"overreaction" of Indonesian troops at Santa Cruz, it rejected any
attempts to cut military assistance such as the funds under the
International Military and Education Training Act.  According to
State Dept. spokesperson Richard Boucher, "These kinds of
programs expose the trainee to democratic ideas and humanitarian
standards."  In support of its argument, the State Department
pointed out that none of the Indonesian military officers present
at Santa Cruz had received U.S. training.

The State Department said the report of Indonesian
President Suharto's handpicked official investigation committee
(which acknowledged only 50 deaths) was "serious and
responsible".  In a January visit to Indonesia, Senators Daniel
Inouye (DHawaii) and Ted Stevens (RAlaska) said they were
"impressed" with Jakarta's handling of the incident.

With the help of Hill & Knowlton, the highpowered Washington
publicrelations firm that had been retained by the Kuwaiti
government to sell the Persian Gulf war to the American people,
the Indonesian government has successfully presented the Santa Cruz
"incident" as a breach of military discipline rather than as part
of an occupation declared illegal by the United Nations.  By
sentencing a few lowranking soldiers to prison terms of not more
than 18 months (while East Timorese who participated in the Santa
Cruz march and a demonstration in Jakarta to protest the massacre
received sentences ranging from 5 years to life imprisonment) and
by relieving a few military commanders of their duties in East
Timor, President Suharto has effectively mollified Western
governments.

The two top military commanders at the time of the massacre
have been "punished" by being sent away for study. Major General
Sintong Panjaitan until recently was pursuing a course of study
at Harvard University.  Brigadier General Rudolf Warouw is reportedly
studying English somewhere in Indonesia and will either go to Harvard
as well or pursue his studies elsewhere in the United States.

The hollowness of Jakarta's "regrets" was exposed by some of
its top military officials.  General Try Sutrisno, the commander
of the Indonesian Armed Forces and one of the leading candidates
for the next VicePresident of Indonesia, said the East Timorese
who had gathered at the cemetery were "disrupters" who "must be
crushed."  He added "delinquents like these agitators have to be
shot and we will shoot them."  And General Mantiri, the new
regional commander for East Timor, declared that the massacre was
"proper," and added: "We don't regret anything."

Many human rights activists have decried the West's acceptance
of Jakarta's moves in reaction to the Santa Cruz massacre. As Liem
Soei Liong of Tapol, the Indonesia Human Rights Campaign, stated
in his recent testimony to the UN Decolonization Committee: "The
massacre in Santa Cruz was not an 'incident', as the Indonesian
authorities claim, but part of a history of mass killings in East
Timor."

In the year that has passed since Santa Cruz, business between
Indonesia and the West has largely returned to normal.  Canada has
resumed its bilateral assistance and most Western governments such
as the US have willingly accepted Jakarta's regrets and subsequent
actions as sufficient.

But critics charge that the human rights of the East Timorese
are being sold for the great profits that multinationals are able
to reap in Indonesia  the 4th most populous country in the world.
CocaCola President Donald R. Keough gushed about Indonesia's
market potential: "When I think of Indonesia  a country on the
equator with 180 million people, a median age of 18, and a Muslim
ban on alcohol  I feel like I know what heaven looks like."

Meeting in Paris in midJuly, the Consultative Group on
Indonesia (CGI), a World Bankchaired consortium of donor
countries to Indonesia refused to attach any human rights
conditions to aid.  The CGI pledged approximately US$5 billion in
aid for FY 199293  a 4% increase over the previous year.  World
Bank Vice President Gautam Kaji, who chaired the Paris meetings,
called Indonesia "a model among developing countries" and reported
that the donor community was "unanimous in their appreciation of
the quality of macroeconomic management" there.

The CGI replaced the InterGovernmental Group on Indonesia,
chaired by the Netherlands and disbanded by Jakarta last March in
reaction to what Indonesia called Dutch interference in Indonesian
internal affairs.  Indonesia now rejects all Dutch aid.  The move
by Jakarta was an effort to detach human rights issues from the
question of aid.

At the CGI meeting the U.S. pledged $94 million (Japan was
the top donor at $1.3 billion).  Santa Cruz eyewitness Amy Goodman
says such assistance is rendered because "the U.S. State Department
and the President want to maintain a stable relationship with
Indonesia. They (Indonesia) buy U.S. weapons and Suharto follows
U.S. interests."  Goodman says the Bush administration's position
on East Timor is virtually the same as Jakarta's; when Indonesian
government officials are invited to speak on East Timor at public
forums in the U.S., she notes, they decline and suggest that the
U.S. State Department be asked to provide a speaker instead.

Western and, more importantly, U.S. support for Indonesia has
deep roots.  American elites have long assigned high geopolitical
and economic importance to the nation.  In 1967, Richard Nixon
called it "the greatest prize in the SouthEast Asian area". In
1978, Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter's National Security Advisor,
named Indonesia as one of seven 3rd world countries with which the
U.S. should "develop new and wider relationships".

President Ford and Secretary of State Kissinger were in
Jakarta visiting Suharto the day before Indonesia launched its
invasion of Dili, and it is widely thought that Ford and Kissinger
gave Indonesia the green light to annex East Timor.  While in
Jakarta, Kissinger told reporters at a press conference that, in
regards to East Timor, "the United States understands Indonesia's
position on the question".

In 1976, for example, a U.S. State Department official
explained why the U.S. condoned the Indonesian invasion of East
Timor: "(T)he United States wants to keep its relations with
Indonesia close and friendly.  We regard Indonesia as a friendly,
nonaligned nation  a nation we do a lot of business with."  Despite
Indonesia's long history of gross human rights abuses such as in
such places as Irian Jaya (the former West Papua) and the 196567
slaughter of 500,000 to 1,000,000 alleged members of the Indonesian
Communist Party, U.S. economic interests have translated into
strong military ties between the United States and Indonesia.
According to the State Department, approximately 90 per cent of
the weapons used by Indonesia during the 1975 invasion of East Timor
were U.S.supplied.

But despite the best efforts of Jakarta and its allies, the
Santa Cruz massacre has focused media and governmental attention
on Indonesia's occupation, and it has revitalized a once strong
international solidarity movement for East Timor.

Last April, Senators Claiborne Pell, chair of the Senate
Foreign Affairs Committee, and David Boren, chair of the Senate
Select Committee on Intelligence, visited Indonesia.  Pell and
Borne attempted to visit East Timor, but President Suharto denied
their request.  Pell's call for a plebiscite on selfdetermination
to take place in East Timor embarrassed Jakarta.

In May, Representative Tony Hall, Ohio Democrat, introduced
a bill to terminate all U.S. economic and military assistance to
Indonesia until Jakarta complies with United Nations resolutions
calling on it to withdraw from East Timor and permit a U.N.supervised
referendum on selfdetermination.  The bill is likely to be voted on next
year.

In a letter to its members last July, the American Indonesian
Chamber of Commerce (AICC) urged opposition to any attempt
to cut off aid to Indonesia.  The AICC, according to Executive
Director Wayne Forrest, sees the United States in "a global
dogfight" in which "Indonesia is a battleground."  At stake are US
jobs and, of course, huge profits.  To eliminate aid could not only
damage American economic interests but would also greatly reduce
the US government's capacity to bring about positive change in
Indonesia.

Forrest asserts that it is "a little naive" to think that the
U.S., by taking unilateral action, can influence Indonesian
behavior in regards to East Timor, but many East Timor observers
challenge this view.

While the actions taken up until this point are far from what is
required to get Jakarta to pull out of East Timor, Indonesia is
clearly bothered by all the attention and pressure.  As Indonesian
Foreign Minister Ali Alatas was quoted as saying in March, "Timor
is like a sharp piece of gravel in our shoes."  And that is unlikely to
change soon.

Last September, 150 members of the US Congress and a contigent of the
Japanese Diet sent a joint appeal to U.N. Secretary General Boutros
Boutros-Ghali calling for concrete measures by the United Nations to
achieve a referendum on selfdetermination for East Timor.

Also in September, Indonesian General Panjaitan was sued in
a U.S. Federal district court in Boston by Helen Todd, the mother of Kamal
Bamadhaj, a New Zealand citizen killed at the Santa Cruz massacre.
The suit, filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights, charges
Panjaitan with responsibility for Kamal's death.  According to a
recent report, Panjaitan has returned to Indonesia.

Portugal and Indonesia recently opened the first negotiations in many
years on the status of East Timor, and this is seen as a positive
development.  But Indonesia will not permit any East Timorese
nationalists to take part in the talks, and repression in East Timor has
intensified.

The East Timorese look to the West for help with their quest
for selfdetermination.  One leader of the resistance observed,
"Politically, we have won.  However, it is a question of force
something we do not have."  Given the massive Indonesian presence
and investment in East Timor, the recent cutback in U.S. military aid
is but a small, though important, step in what is bound to be a long
process.

--------
Matthew Jardine is the pseudonym of a writer who works with the East Timor
Action Network of Los Angeles.  He recently returned from a one month
trip to East Timor.
** End of text from cdp:reg.easttimor **