<nettime> more East Timor (2 msgs, incl. Noam Chomsky article)

[nettimes_digestive_system <nettime-l@bbs.thing.net>]

Subject: East Timor
Date: Tue, 7 Sep 1999 17:53:39 +1000
From: ARTSPACE Australia <artspace@artspace.org.au>

The situation in East Timor has exacerbated to frightening proportions.
The will of the East Timorese people has been flagrantly and politically
rejected by the Indonesians and their gangster thugs of the militia.
Innocent people's futures and freedom are at stake. No-one with an
understanding of democratic freedom can stand by and watch the
fundamental travesty of human rights as is perpetrated by the continuing
military dictatorship of Indonesia. 

Artspace has received the attached document from Michiel Dolk and has 
endorsed the strategy proposed by Michiel Dolk. All artists have a
direct  responsibility to act for and in support of the victims of the
well-orchestrated Indonesian military campaign of terror repression and
genocide. 

Fax your concern and dissent and anger to the 
Indonesian Embassy: (02)6273 60176 

Email Downer the Minister for Foreign Affairs and tell  him that you are
embarrassed by their lack of commitment  to the East Timorese people who
have now suffered so long on our doorstep: minister.downer@dfat.gov.au 

Email the Art Gallery of Queensland the host of the APT [ed note:
Asia-Pacific Triennale] and tell them that art and art festivals do not
sit outside the horror of what is taking place: (07)3844 8865 

Fax and email the United Nations and tell them they must act
immediately  and decisively in support of the desires of the East
Timorese people and for their 
fledgling democracy: FAX - 0011 1 212 963 4179  EMAIL - ecu@un.org 

As artists we too have a moral responsibility to act. Please support the
strategy proposed by Michiel Dolk. Send it on to as many people as you
know urging them and encouraging them to act. Time is of essence. The
Indonesians and their hoodlum militia are taking full advantage of the
absence of the eyes and ears of the Western journalists who have been
forced to flee for their lives. The potential of the tragedy is beyond
comprehension in today's modern world. 

Draft Resolution (no.1) re: EAST TIMOR Monday, September 6, 1999 
Proposed by Michiel Dolk for circulation, amendment and endorsement by
artists in Australia; to be proposed, amended and passed as a resolution
by artists participating in the Asia Pacific Triennale Conference in
Brisbane on Friday. 

If you have received this by email please endorse with your
name/signature and email address. 

Between now and Friday, events in East Timor and Indonesia will change.
Please amend the text to your satisfaction, forward to your colleagues
and forward to: RhanaDevenport@qcc.qld.gov.au and to:
minister.downer@dfat.gov.au 

+ print, sign and fax to Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia fax no:
(02)62736017 


Deeply horrified by the systematic murder, terror and abuse of human
rights in East Timor and in the Indonesian Provinces of Aceh,
Kalimantan, Ambon and West Irian, artists in the Asia Pacific Region
wish to express their solidarity with the people of East Timor in their
struggle for independence against the continuing military occupation of
East Timor and with Indonesians in their struggle for democracy against
the continuing military dictatorship in
Indonesia. 

As artists we applaud the steps made by the transitional Government in
Indonesia towards freedom of expression, freedom of information and
freedom of political organisation. However as artists we recognise that
freedom of expression and information is without value or purpose, while
respect for other fundamental human rights is denied to the peoples of
East Timor and Indonesia.

We therefore wish to express our solidarity with the artists of Indonesia
in their struggle to democratise their cultural life and institutions, and
in their struggle to resist and expose the conditions of military
repression in East Timor and in Indonesia. 

As artists and citizens of the region we call on the Indonesian Government
and its relevant Ministries:

1. to respect the results of the UN supervised referendum in East Timor. 

2. to respect and assist the UN mandated process towards independence and
   democracy in East Timor. 

3. to disarm the military sponsored militias and to assert civilian
control over the protection of law and order,freedom of movement and
dissemination of information in East Timor and in Indonesia. 

4. to withdraw all Indonesian military forces from East Timor and to
support the entry of a UN supervised peacekeeping force. 


We further call on the Australian Government 

1. to use its diplomatic influence within the international community to
seek a UN Security Council Resolution calling for and Indonesian
acceptance of the establishment of a UN supervised peacekeeping force in
East Timor.

2. to suspend all defense agreements with Indonesia and all cooperation
between the armed forces of Australia and Indonesia until such time as a
democratically elected government in Indonesia is able to assert civilian
control over a reformed Indonesian armed forces.

3. to withold all funds allocated by the Australian Government for IMF and
World Bank assistance to Indonesia and to suspend all bilateral aid to the
Government of Indonesia. 

Please indicate 1. endorsed without amendment ( ) 

2. amended, as above ( ) 

Signed 



---------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 07 Sep 1999 19:52:15 -0400
From: Mindless Dragon Chewing Gaping Holes In Federal Legislation
     <redscares2@yahoo.com>
Subject: Noam Chomsky, "Why Americans Should Care About East Timor"  

Article from:
http://motherjones.com/east_timor/comment/chomsky.html 

ZNET
http://www.lbbs.org/weluser.htm (news)

East Timor Action Network (contacts, sample letters)
http://www.etan.org/

                    +++++

       "...United States...helped create and 
       sustain the humanitarian disaster in 
       East Timor and could readily end it."

Noam Chomsky
Why Americans should care about East Timor

There are three good reasons why Americans should care about East Timor. 
First, since the Indonesian invasion of December 1975, East Timor has been
the site of some of the worst atrocities of the modern era -- atrocities
which are mounting again right now. Second, the US government has played a
decisive role in escalating these atrocities and can easily act to
mitigate or terminate them. It is not necessary to bomb Jakarta or impose
economic sanctions. Throughout, it would have sufficed for Washington to
withdraw support and to inform its Indonesian client that the game was
over. That remains true as the situation reaches a crucial turning point
-- the third reason. 

President Clinton needs no instructions on how to proceed. In May 1998,
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright called upon Indonesian President
Suharto to resign and provide for "a democratic transition." A few hours
later, Suharto transferred authority to his handpicked vice president. 
Though not simple cause and effect, the events illustrate the relations
that prevail. Ending the torture in East Timor would have been no more
difficult than dismissing Indonesia's dictator in May 1998. 

Not long before, the Clinton administration welcomed Suharto as "our kind
of guy," following the precedent established in 1965 when the general took
power, presiding over army-led massacres that wiped out the country's only
mass-based political party (the PKI, a popularly supported communist
party)  and devastated its popular base in "one of the worst mass murders
of the 20th century." According to a CIA report, these massacres were
comparable to those of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao; hundreds of thousands were
killed, most of them landless peasants. The achievement was greeted with
unrestrained euphoria in the West. The "staggering mass slaughter" was "a
gleam of light in Asia," according to two commentaries in The New York
Times, both typical of the general western media reaction. Corporations
flocked to what many called Suharto's "paradise for investors," impeded
only by the rapacity of the ruling family. For more than 20 years, Suharto
was hailed in the media as a "moderate" who is "at heart benign," even as
he compiled a record of murder, terror, and corruption that has few
counterparts in postwar history. 

Suharto remained a darling of the West until he committed his first
errors:  losing control and hesitating to implement harsh International
Monetary Fund (IMF) prescriptions. Then came the call from Washington for
"a democratic transition" -- but not for allowing the people of East Timor
to enjoy the right of self-determination that has been validated by the UN
Security Council and the World Court. 

In 1975, Suharto invaded East Timor, then being taken over by its own
population after the collapse of the Portuguese empire. The United States
and Australia knew the invasion was coming and effectively authorized it. 
Australian Ambassador Richard Woolcott, in memos later leaked to the
press, recommended the "pragmatic" course of "Kissingerian realism,"
because it might be possible to make a better deal on Timor's oil reserves
with Indonesia than with an independent East Timor. At the time, the
Indonesian army relied on the United States for 90 percent of its arms,
which were restricted by the terms of the agreement for use only in
"self-defense."  Pursuing the same doctrine of "Kissingerian realism,"
Washington simultaneously stepped up the flow of arms while declaring an
arms suspension, and the public was kept in the dark. 

The UN Security Council ordered Indonesia to withdraw, but to no avail. 
Its failure was explained by then-UN Ambassador Daniel Patrick Moynihan.
In his memoirs, he took pride in having rendered the UN "utterly
ineffective in whatever measures it undertook" because "[t]he United
States wished things to turn out as they did" and "worked to bring this
about." As for how "things turned out," Moynihan comments that, within a
few months, 60,000 Timorese had been killed, "almost the proportion of
casualties experienced by the Soviet Union during the Second World War." 

The massacre continued, peaking in 1978 with the help of new arms provided
by the Carter administration. The toll to date is estimated at about
200,000, the worst slaughter relative to population since the Holocaust. 
By 1978, the United States was joined by Britain, France, and others eager
to gain what they could from the slaughter. Protest in the West was
minuscule.  Little was even reported. US press coverage, which had been
high in the context of concerns over the fall of the Portuguese empire,
declined to practically nothing in 1978. 

In 1989, Australia signed a treaty with Indonesia to exploit the oil of
"the Indonesian Province of East Timor" -- a region sober realists tell us
is not economically viable, and therefore cannot be granted the right of
self-determination. The Timor Gap treaty was put into effect immediately
after the army murdered several hundred more Timorese at a graveyard
commemoration of a recent army assassination. Western oil companies joined
in the robbery, eliciting no comment. 

After 25 terrible years, steps are finally being taken that might bring
the horrors to an end. Indonesia agreed to permit a referendum in August
1999 in which the Timorese were to be permitted to choose "autonomy"
within Indonesia or independence from it. It is taken for granted that if
the vote is minimally free, pro-independence forces will win. The
occupying Indonesian army (TNI) moved at once to prevent this outcome. The
method was simple: Paramilitary forces were organized to terrorize the
population while TNI adopted a stance of "plausible deniability," which
quickly collapsed in the presence of foreign observers who could see
firsthand that TNI was arming and guiding the killers. 

The militias are credibly reported to be under the direction of Kopassus,
the dreaded Indonesian special forces modeled on the US Green Berets and
"legendary for their cruelty," as the prominent Indonesia scholar Benedict
Anderson observes. He adds that in East Timor, "Kopassus became the
pioneer and exemplar for every kind of atrocity," including systematic
rapes, tortures, and executions, and organization of hooded gangsters. 
Concurring, Australia's veteran Asia correspondent David Jenkins notes
that this "crack special forces unit [had] been training regularly with US
and Australian forces until their behavior became too much of an
embarrassment for their foreign friends." Congress did bar US training of
the killers and torturers under IMET, but the Clinton Administration found
ways to evade the laws, leading to much irritation in Congress but little
broader notice. Now, congressional constraints may be more effective, but
without the kind of inquiry that is rarely undertaken in the case of
US-backed terror, one cannot be confident. 

Jenkins's conclusion that Kopassus remains "as active as ever in East
Timor" is verified by close observers. "Many of these army officers
attended courses in the United States under the now-suspended
International Military Education and Training (IMET) program," he writes.
Their tactics resemble the US Phoenix program in South Vietnam, which
killed tens of thousands of peasants and much of the indigenous South
Vietnamese leadership, as well as "the tactics employed by the Contras" in
Nicaragua, following lessons taught by their CIA mentors that it should be
unnecessary to review. The state terrorists "are not simply going after
the most radical pro-independence people but going after the moderates,
the people who have influence in their community." 

'It's Phoenix' ... notes a well-placed source in Jakarta," Jenkins writes. 
That source adds that the aim is "'to terrorize everyone' -- the NGOs, the
[Red Cross], the UN, the journalists." 

The goal is being pursued with no little success. Since April, the
Indonesian-run militias have been conducting a wave of atrocities and
murder, killing hundreds of people -- many in churches to which they fled
for shelter -- burning down towns, driving tens of thousands into
concentration camps or the mountains, where, it is reported, thousands
have been virtually enslaved to harvest coffee crops. "They call them
'internally displaced persons,'" an Australian nun and aid worker said,
"but they are hostages to the militias. They have been told that if they
vote for independence, they will be killed." The number of the displaced
is estimated at 50,000 or more. 

Health conditions are abysmal. One of the few doctors in the territory,
American volunteer Dan Murphy, reported that 50 to 100 Timorese are dying
daily from curable diseases while Indonesia "has a deliberate policy not
to allow medical supplies into East Timor." In the Australian media, he
has detailed atrocious crimes from his personal experience, and Australian
journalists and aid workers have compiled a shocking record. 

The referendum has been delayed twice by the UN because of the terror,
which has even targeted UN offices and UN convoys carrying sick people for
treatment. Citing diplomatic, church, and militia sources, the Australian
press reports "that hundreds of modern assault rifles, grenades, and
mortars are being stockpiled, ready for use if the autonomy option is
rejected at the ballot box," and warns that the TNI-run militias may be
planning a violent takeover of much of the territory if, despite the
terror, the popular will is expressed. 

Murphy and others report that TNI has been emboldened by the lack of
interest in the West. "A senior US diplomat summarized the issue neatly: 
'East Timor is Australia's Haiti'" -- in other words, it's not a problem
for the United States, which helped create and sustain the humanitarian
disaster in East Timor and could readily end it. (Those who know the truth
about the United States in Haiti will fully appreciate the cynicism.) 

Reporting on the terror from the scene, Nobel Laureate Bishop Carlos
Ximenes Belo called for "an international military force" to protect the
population from Indonesian terror and permit the referendum to proceed. 
Nothing doing. The "international community" -- meaning Western powers --
prefers that the Indonesian army provide "security." A small number of
unarmed UN monitors have been authorized -- but subsequently delayed -- by
the Clinton administration. 

The picture in the past few months is particularly ugly against the
background of the self-righteous posturing in the "enlightened states." 
But it simply illustrates, once again, what should be obvious: Nothing
substantial has changed, either in the actions of the powerful or the
performance of their flatterers. The Timorese are "unworthy victims." No
power interest is served by attending to their suffering or taking even
simple steps to end it. Without a significant popular reaction, the
long-familiar story will continue, in East Timor and throughout the world. 
 
Photo: Reuters/Arthur Tsang/Archive Photos Foundation for National
Progress | All Rights Reserved | All letters to the editor are for
publication and may be edited for length and clarity. 

http://motherjones.com/east_timor/comment/chomsky.html  

http://motherjones.com/global/includes/copyright.reserved.html 

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