Indonesia (was Tibet)

[Peter Kilander]

Anyone catch the Op-ed in today's (7/8/98) New York Times? The second paragraph read: "In the first few years of Indonesia's occupation of East Timor, some 200,000 people were killed, more than a third of the country. Since then, soldiers have imprisoned dissidents and massacred protesters. Timorese are forcibly sterilized and Jakarta has flooded the island with immigrants to dilute its culture and separatist politics." All on Suharto's watch. And Clinton said that "Suharto was our kind of man," back in '94.
In an earlier e-mail I made an error. Britain has become Indonesia's largest arms supplier, not the U.S. New Labour stated that it will not "issue an export license where there is clearly identifiable risk that the arms might be used for internal oppression." However this won't apply if the Government believes the weapons can be used for "protection of members of the security forces." Between May 2 '97 and March 6 '98, Britain delivered 51 batches of arms to Indonesia through this loophole. The weapon sales were covered by two billion pounds worth of outstanding government export credits to Indonesia - taxpayers will pick up the bill when the bankrupt regime defaults.
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