On Fri, 18 Feb 2000, Angela wrote:
> ... The question remains whether or not they [viz., political
> leadership in Washington] were reading their own (or anyone else's)
> intelligence reports...
Chomsky writes,
Indonesia historian John Roosa, an official observer of the vote,
described the situation starkly: "Given that the pogrom was so
predictable, it was easily preventable... But in the weeks before
the ballot, the Clinton Administration refused to discuss with
Australia and other countries the formation of [an international
force]. Even after the violence erupted, the Administration
dithered for days," until compelled by international ...
and domestic pressure to make some timid gestures. Even
these ambiguous messages sufficed to induce the Indonesian generals
to reverse course and to accept an international presence,
illustrating the latent power that has always been at hand.
> The Vatican is certainly not a credible source in this matter...
I think Chomsky doesn't mean the Vatican, but rather the East Timorese diocesan sources, such as those of the well-known Bishop Belo.
> mmm. It was the Australian Government that lobbied the UN against an
> armed presence, against the remonstrations of the US. And it was the
> Australian Govt which delayed an armed UN intervention after the
> ballot and when the violence exploded by refusing to go unless the US
> went as well. The US said it was stretched in Kosovo, and wanted the
> UN to put together a predominantly Asian force, as per various Asian
> govt requests. Portugal was prepared to go it pretty much alone, but
> with a UN mandate. Indonesia threatened to regard a UN intervention as
> an act of war until sovereignty was ceded. Australia used this to
> threaten an impending war between Australia and Indonesia as a means
> to delay until after the APEC meeting.
Chomsky again,
The same power relations ensure that the UN can do nothing without
Washington consent and initiative. While Clinton "dithers," almost
half the population has been expelled from their homes according to
UN estimates, and thousands murdered...
In the rhetoric of official Washington, "We don't have a dog
running in the East Timor race." Accordingly, what happens there is
not our business. But after intensive Australian pressure, the
calculations shifted: "we have a very big dog running down there
called Australia and we have to support it," a senior government
official concluded. The survivors of U.S.-backed crimes in a "tiny
impoverished territory" are not even a "small dog"...
Even before Habibie's surprise call for a referendum, the army
anticipated threats to its rule, including its control over East
Timor's resources, and undertook careful planning with "the aim,
quite simply,...to destroy a nation." The plans were known to
Western intelligence, as has been the case from the outset. TNI
recruited thousands of West Timorese and brought in forces from
Java. More ominously, the military command sent units of its dread
U.S.-trained Kopassus special forces, and as senior military
adviser, General Makarim, a U.S.-trained intelligence specialist
with experience in East Timor and "a reputation for callous
violence."
Terror and destruction began early in the year. The TNI forces
responsible have been described as "rogue elements" in the West, a
questionable judgment. There is good reason to accept Bishop Belo's
assignment of direct responsibility to commanding General Wiranto
in Jakarta. It appears that the militias have been managed by elite
units of Kopassus, the "crack special forces unit" that had "been
training regularly with US and Australian forces until their
behavior became too much of an embarrassment for their foreign
friends," veteran Asia correspondent David Jenkins reports. These
forces are "legendary for their cruelty," Benedict Anderson
observes: in East Timor they "became the pioneer and exemplar for
every kind of atrocity," including systematic rapes, tortures and
executions, and organization of hooded gangsters. They adopted the
tactics of the U.S. Phoenix program in South Vietnam that killed
tens of thousands of peasants and much of the indigenous South
Vietnamese leadership, Jenkins writes, as well as "the tactics
employed by the Contras" in Nicaragua, following lessons taught by
their CIA mentors. The state terrorists were "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," a well-placed source in Jakarta reported: the aim is "to
terrorize everyone" -- the NGOs, the Red Cross, the UN, the
journalists.
Well before the referendum, the commander of the Indonesian
military in Dili, Colonel Tono Suratman, warned of what was to
come: "I would like to convey the following," he said: "if the
pro-independents do win ... all will be destroyed... It will be
worse than 23 years ago." An army document of early May, when
international agreement on the referendum was reached, ordered that
"Massacres should be carried out from village to village after the
announcement of the ballot if the pro-independence supporters win."
The independence movement "should be eliminated from its leadership
down to its roots." Citing diplomatic, church and militia sources,
the Australian press reported "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." It warned that
the army-run militias might be planning a violent takeover of much
of the territory if, despite the terror, the popular will would be
expressed.
All of this was understood by the "foreign friends," who also knew
how to bring the terror to an end, but preferred evasive and
ambiguous reactions that the Indonesian Generals could easily
interpret as a "green light" to carry out their work...
> Butler? Butler is the guy who, as should already be well-known,
> transformed the UN Weapons Inspection Team in Iraq into a bombing
> reconnaissance mission for the US.
Of course, but Chomsky is hardly citing him as a friendly witness, but rather in the sense of ipse dixit: "[Butler's] remarks were not offered in criticism of Washington; rather, of his fellow Australians, who do not comprehend the facts of life: that [US policy is that] others are to shoulder the burdens, and face the costs [of helping the victims of US crimes]."
> I've also said before that Chomsky's narratives on East Timor were
> always designed with one conclusion in mind: US intervention. That's
> why he needs to make the US culpable, because, strangely enough, he
> wants the US to act as a good, rather than bad, global cop -- but
> still the gobal cop.
Certainly not. Chomsky's position on "humanitarian intervention" --especially in regard to the US -- is well-known. He points out the US's (undeniable) culpability in order that his fellow citizens demand that it cease its continuous, culpable actions.
--C. G. Estabrook