Oct 23, 1999
East Timor Is Not Yesterday's Story
By Noam Chomsky
According to recent reports, the UN mission in East Timor has been
able to account for just over 150,000 people out of an estimated
population of 850,000. It reports that 260,000 "are now languishing in
squalid refugee camps in West Timor under the effective control of the
militias after either fleeing or being forcibly removed from their
homes," and that another 100,000 have been relocated to other parts of
Indonesia. The rest are presumed to be hiding in the mountains. The
Australian commander expressed the natural concern that displaced
people lack food and medical supplies. Touring camps in East and West
Timor, US Assistant Secretary of State Harold Koh reported that the
refugees are "starving and terrorized," and that disappearances
"without explanation" are a daily occurrence.
To appreciate the scale of this disaster, one has to bear in mind the
virtual demolition of the physical basis for survival by the departing
Indonesian army and its paramilitary associates ("militias"), and the
reign of terror to which the territory has been subjected for a
quarter-century, including the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of
people when the Carter Administration was providing the required
diplomatic and military support.
How have its successors reacted during the current "noble phase" of
foreign policy, with its "saintly glow," to quote some of the awed
rhetoric of respected commentators in the national press through the
1990s? One way was to increase the support for the killers -- for "our
kind of guy," as General Suharto was described by the Clinton
Administration before he fell from grace by losing control and failing
to implement harsh IMF orders with sufficient ardor. After the 1991
Dili massacre, Congress restricted arms sales and banned US training
of the Indonesian military, but Clinton found devious ways to evade
the ban. Congress expressed its "outrage," reiterating that "it was
and is the intent of Congress to prohibit US military training for
Indonesia," as readers of the Far Eastern Economic Review and
dissident publications here could learn. But to no avail.
Inquiries about Clinton's programs received the routine response from
the State Department: US military training "serves a very positive
function in terms of exposing foreign militaries to US values." These
values were exhibited as military aid to Indonesia flowed and
government-licensed sales of armaments increased five-fold from fiscal
1997 to last year. A month ago (Sept. 19), the London Observer
international news service and the London Guardian Weekly published a
story headlined "US Trained Butchers of East Timor." The report, by
two respected correspondents, described Clinton's "Iron Balance"
program, which trained Indonesian military in violation of
congressional bans as late as 1998. Included were Kopassus units, the
murderous forces that organized and directed the "militias" and
participated directly in their atrocities, as Washington was well
aware -- just as it knew that these long-time beneficiaries of US
training were "legendary for their cruelty" and in East Timor "became
the pioneer and exemplar for every kind of atrocity" (Ben Anderson,
one of the world's leading Indonesia specialists).
Clinton's "Iron Balance" program provided these forces with more
training in counterinsurgency and "psychological operations,"
expertise that they put to use effectively at once. As they and their
minions were burning down the capital city of Dili in September,
murdering and rampaging, the Pentagon announced that "A US-Indonesian
training exercise focused on humanitarian and disaster relief
activities concluded Aug. 25," five days before the referendum that
elicited the sharp escalation in crimes -- precisely as the political
leadership in Washington expected, at least if they were reading their
own intelligence reports.
All of this found its way to the memory hole that contains the past
record of the crucial US support for the atrocities, granted the same
(null) coverage as many other events of the past year; for example,
the unanimous Senate vote on June 30th calling on the Clinton
administration to link Indonesian military actions in East Timor to
"any loan or financial assistance to Indonesia," as readers could
learn from the Irish Times.
For much of 1999, Western intellectuals have been engaged in one of
history's most audacious displays of self-adulation over their
magnificent performance in Kosovo. Among the many facets of this grand
achievement dispatched to the proper place was the fact that the huge
flow of brutalized refugees expelled after the bombing could receive
little care, thanks to Washington's defunding of the responsible UN
agency. Its staff was reduced 15% in 1998, and another 20% in January
1999; and it now endures the denunciations of the (also saintly) Tony
Blair for its "problematic performance" in the wake of the atrocities
that were the anticipated consequence of US/UK bombing. While the
mutual admiration society was performing as required, atrocities
mounted in East Timor. Even prior to the August referendum, some
3-5000 had been killed according to credible Church sources, about
twice the number killed prior to the bombing in Kosovo (with more than
twice the population), according to NATO. As atrocities skyrocketed in
September, Clinton watched silently, until compelled by domestic and
international (mostly Australian) pressure to make at least some
gestures. These were enough for the Indonesian Generals to reverse
course at once, an indication of the latent power that has always been
in reserve. A rational person can readily draw some conclusions about
criminal culpability.
At last report, the US has provided no funds for the Australian-led UN
intervention force (in contrast, Japan, long a fervent supporter of
Indonesia, offered $100 million). But that is perhaps not surprising,
in the light of its refusal to pay any of the costs of the UN civilian
operations even in Kosovo. Washington has also asked the UN to reduce
the scale of subsequent operations, because it might be called upon to
pay some of the costs. Hundreds of thousands of missing people may be
starving in the mountains, but the Air Force that excels in pinpoint
destruction of civilian targets apparently lacks the capacity to
airdrop food -- and no call has been heard for even such an elementary
humanitarian measure. Hundreds of thousands more are facing a grim
fate within Indonesia. A word from Washington would suffice to end
their torment, but there is no word, and no comment.
In Kosovo, preparation for war crimes trials has been underway since
May, expedited at US-UK initiative, including unprecedented access to
intelligence information. In East Timor, investigations are being
discussed at leisure, with Indonesian participation and a tight
deadline (Dec. 31). It is "an absolute joke, a complete whitewash,"
according to UN officials quoted in the British press. A spokesperson
for Amnesty International added that the inquiry as planned "will
cause East Timorese even more trauma than they have suffered already.
It would be really insulting at this stage." Indonesian Generals "do
not seem to be quaking in their boots," the Australian press reports.
One reason is that "some of the most damning evidence is likely to
be... material plucked from the air waves by sophisticated US and
Australian electronic intercept equipment," and the Generals feel
confident that their old friends will not let them down -- if only
because the chain of responsibility might be hard to snap at just the
right point.
There is also little effort to unearth evidence of atrocities in East
Timor. In striking contrast, Kosovo has been swarming with police and
medical forensic teams from the US and other countries in the hope of
discovering large-scale atrocities that can be transmuted into
justification for the NATO bombing of which they were the anticipated
consequence -- as Milosevic had planned all along, it is now claimed,
though NATO Commander General Wesley Clark reported a month after the
bombing that the alleged plans "have never been shared with me" and
that the NATO operation "was not designed [by the political
leadership] as a means of blocking Serb ethnic cleansing.... There was
never any intent to do that. That was not the idea."
Commenting on Washington's refusal to lift a finger to help the
victims of its crimes, the veteran Australian diplomat Richard Butler
observed that "it has been made very clear to me by senior American
analysts that the facts of the alliance essentially are that: the US
will respond proportionally, defined largely in terms of its own
interests and threat assessment..." The remarks were not offered in
criticism of Washington; rather, of his fellow Australians, who do not
comprehend the facts of life: that others are to shoulder the burdens,
and face the costs -- which for Australia, may not be slight. It will
hardly come as a great shock if a few years hence US corporations are
cheerfully picking up the pieces in an Indonesia that resents
Australian actions, but has few complaints about the overlord.
The chorus of self-adulation has subsided a bit, though not much. Far
more important than these shameful performances is the failure to act
-- at once, and decisively -- to save the remnants of one of the most
terrible tragedies of this awful century.
--30--