/** reg.easttimor: 3431.0 **/
** Topic: Noam Chomsky: East Timor Retrospective: An overview and lessons **
** Written 10:40 AM Sep 28, 1999 by Joyo@AOL.COM in cdp:reg.easttimor **
Subject: Noam Chomsky: East Timor Retrospective: An overview and lessons
Sept 27, 1999
East Timor Retrospective
An overview and lessons
By Noam Chomsky
It is not easy to write with feigned calm and dispassion about the events
that have been unfolding in East Timor. Horror and shame are compounded by
the fact that the crimes are so familiar and could so easily have been
terminated. That has been true ever since Indonesia invaded in December 1975,
relying on U.S. diplomatic support and arms -- used illegally, but with
secret authorization, even new arms shipments sent under the cover of an
official "embargo." There has been no need to threaten bombing or even
sanctions. It would have sufficed for the U.S. and its allies to withdraw
their active participation, and to inform their close associates in the
Indonesian military command that the atrocities must be terminated and the
territory granted the right of self-determination that has been upheld by the
United Nations and the International Court of Justice. We cannot undo the
past, but should at least be willing to recognize what we have done, and to
face the moral responsibility of saving the remnants and providing ample
reparations, a pathetic gesture of compensation for terrible crimes.
The latest chapter in this painful story of betrayal and complicity opened
right after the referendum of Aug. 30, 1999, when the population voted
overwhelmingly for independence. At once, atrocities mounted sharply,
organized and directed by the Indonesian military (TNI). The UN Mission
(UNAMET) gave its appraisal on September 11:
The evidence for a direct link between the militia and the military is beyond
any dispute and has been overwhelmingly documented by UNAMET over the last
four months. But the scale and thoroughness of the destruction of East Timor
in the past week has demonstrated a new level of open participation of the
military in the implementation of what was previously a more veiled operation.
The Mission warned that "the worst may be yet to come.... It cannot be ruled
out that these are the first stages of a genocidal campaign to stamp out the
East Timorese problem by force."
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
(primarily Australian) 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 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. The Air Force that was able to carry out pin-point destruction of
civilian targets in Novi Sad, Belgrade, and Ponceva lacks the capacity to
drop food to people facing starvation in the mountains to which they have
been driven by the terror of the TNI forces armed and trained by the United
States, and its no less cynical allies.
The recent events will evoke bitter memories among those who do not prefer
"intentional ignorance." We are witnessing a shameful replay of events of 20
years ago. After carrying out a huge slaughter in 1977-78 with the decisive
support of the Carter Administration, Indonesia felt confident enough to
permit a brief visit by members of the Jakarta diplomatic corps, among them
U.S. Ambassador Edward Masters. They recognized that an enormous humanitarian
catastrophe had been created. The aftermath was described by Benedict
Anderson, one of the most distinguished Indonesia scholars. "For nine long
months" of starvation and terror, Anderson testified at the United Nations,
"Ambassador Masters deliberately refrained, even within the walls of the
State Department, from proposing humanitarian aid to East Timor," waiting
"until the generals in Jakarta gave him the green light" -- until they felt
"secure enough to permit foreign visitors," as an internal State Department
document recorded. Only then did Washington consider taking some steps to
deal with the consequences of its actions.
As TNI forces and their paramilitaries were burning down the capital city of
Dili in September 1999, murdering and rampaging with renewed intensity, the
Pentagon announced that "A U.S.-Indonesian training exercise focused on
humanitarian and disaster relief activities concluded Aug. 25," five days
before the referendum. The lessons were applied within days in the standard
way, as all but the voluntarily blind must understand after many years of the
same tales, the same outcomes.
One gruesome illustration was the coup that brought General Suharto to power
in 1965. Army-led massacres slaughtered hundreds of thousands in a few
months, mostly landless peasants, destroying the mass-based political party
of the left, the PKI. The achievement elicited unrestrained euphoria in the
West and fulsome praise for the Indonesian "moderates," Suharto and his
military accomplices, who had cleansed the society and opened it to foreign
plunder. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara informed Congress that U.S.
military aid and training had "paid dividends" -- including half a million
corpses; "enormous dividends," a congressional report concluded. McNamara
informed President Johnson that that U.S. military assistance "encouraged
[the army] to move against the PKI when the opportunity was presented."
Contacts with Indonesian military officers, including university programs,
were "very significant factors in determining the favorable orientation of
the new Indonesian political elite" (the army).
So matters have continued for 35 years of intensive military aid, training,
and communication, up to the humanitarian training exercises of August 1999.
A few months earlier, shortly after the massacre of dozens of refugees who
had taken shelter in a Church in Liquica, Admiral Dennis Blair, U.S. Pacific
Commander, assured TNI commander General Wiranto of U.S. support and
assistance, proposing a new U.S. training mission. In the face of this
record, only briefly sampled, and duplicated repeatedly elsewhere, the
government lauds "the value of the years of training given to Indonesia's
future military leaders in the United States and the millions of dollars in
military aid for Indonesia," urging more of the same for Indonesia and
throughout the world.
The reasons for the disgraceful record have sometimes been honestly
recognized. During the latest phase of atrocities, a senior diplomat in
Jakarta described "the dilemma" faced by the great powers: "Indonesia matters
and East Timor doesn't." It is therefore understandable that Washington
should keep to ineffectual gestures of disapproval while insisting that
internal security in East Timor "is the responsibility of the Government of
Indonesia, and we don't want to take that responsibility away from them" --
the official stance a few days before the August referendum, repeated in full
knowledge of how that "responsibility" had been carried out, and maintained
as the most dire predictions were quickly fulfilled.
The reasoning of the senior diplomat was spelled out more fully by two Asia
specialists of the _New York Times_: the Clinton Administration, they write,
"has made the calculation that the United States must put its relationship
with Indonesia, a mineral-rich nation of more than 200 million people, ahead
of its concern over the political fate of East Timor, a tiny impoverished
territory of 800,000 people that is seeking independence." The second
national journal quotes Douglas Paal, president of the Asia Pacific Policy
Center, stating the facts of life: "Timor is a speed bump on the road to
dealing with Jakarta, and we've got to get over it safely. Indonesia is such
a big place and so central to the stability of the region."
The term "stability" has long served as a code word, referring to a
"favorable orientation of the political elite" -- favorable not to their
populations, but to foreign investors and global managers.
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."
The guiding principles were well understood by those responsible for
Indonesia's 1975 invasion. They were articulated by UN Ambassador Daniel
Patrick Moynihan, in words that should be committed to memory by anyone with
a serious interest in international affairs, human rights, and the rule of
law. The Security Council condemned the invasion and ordered Indonesia to
withdraw, but to no avail. In his 1978 memoirs, Moynihan explains why:
The United States wished things to turn out as they did, and worked to bring
this about. The Department of State desired that the United Nations prove
utterly ineffective in whatever measures it undertook. This task was given to
me, and I carried it forward with no inconsiderable success.
Success was indeed considerable. Moynihan cites reports that within two
months some 60,000 people had been killed, "10 percent of the population,
almost the proportion of casualties experienced by the Soviet Union during
the Second World War." A sign of the success, he adds, is that within a year
"the subject disappeared from the press." So it did, as the invaders
intensified their assault. Atrocities peaked as Moynihan was writing in
1977-78. Relying on a new flow of advanced military equipment from the Human
Rights Administration, the Indonesian military carried out a devastating
attack against the hundreds of thousands who had fled to the mountains,
driving the survivors to Indonesian control. It was then that highly credible
Church sources in East Timor sought to make public the estimates of 200,000
deaths that came to be accepted years later, after constant denial. The U.S.
reaction to the carnage has already been described.
As the slaughter reached near-genocidal levels, Britain and France joined in,
providing arms and diplomatic support. Other powers too sought to participate
in the lucrative aggression and massacre, always following the principles
that have been lucidly enunciated.
The story does not begin in 1975. East Timor had not been overlooked by the
planners of the postwar world. The territory should be granted independence,
Roosevelt's senior adviser Sumner Welles mused, but "it would certainly take
a thousand years." With an awe-inspiring display of courage and fortitude,
the people of East Timor have struggled to confound that cynical prediction,
enduring monstrous disasters. Perhaps 50,000 lost their lives protecting a
small contingent of Australian commandoes fighting the Japanese; their
heroism may have saved Australia from Japanese invasion. A third of the
population were victims of the first years of the 1975 Indonesian invasion,
many more since.
The current year opened with a moment of hope. Indonesia's interim president
Habibie called for a referendum with a choice between incorporation within
Indonesia ("autonomy") or independence. The army moved at once to prevent
this outcome by terror and intimidation. In the months leading to the August
referendum, 3-5000 were killed according to highly credible Church sources --
twice the number of deaths prior to the NATO bombing in Kosovo, more than
four times the number relative to population. The terror was widespread and
sadistic, intended as a warning of the fate awaiting those foolhardy enough
to disregard the orders of the occupying army.
Braving violence and threats, almost the entire population voted, many
emerging from hiding to do so. Close to 80% chose independence. Then followed
the latest phase of TNI atrocities in an effort to reverse the outcome by
slaughter and expulsion, while reducing much of the country to ashes. Within
two weeks more than 10,000 might have been killed, according to Bishop Carlos
Filipe Belo, the Nobel Peace laureate who was driven from his country under a
hail of bullets, his house burned down and the refugees sheltering there
dispatched to an uncertain fate.
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 behaviour 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 terrorise 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.
The sordid history must be viewed against the background of U.S.-Indonesia
relations in the postwar era. The rich resources of the archipelago, and its
critical strategic location, guaranteed it the central role in U.S. global
planning. These factors lie behind U.S. efforts 40 years ago to dismantle
Indonesia, perceived as too independent and too democratic, even permitting
participation of the leftist peasant-based PKI. The same factors account for
Western support for the regime of killers and torturers who brought about a
"favorable orientation" in 1965. Their achievements were, furthermore,
understood to be a vindication of Washington's wars in Indochina, motivated
in large part by concerns that the "virus" of independent nationalism might
"infect" Indonesia, to borrow Kissingerian rhetoric. Support for the invasion
of East Timor and subsequent atrocities was reflexive, though a broader
analysis should attend to the fact that the collapse of the Portuguese empire
had much the same consequences in Africa, where South Africa was the agent of
Western-backed terror. Throughout, Cold War pretexts were routinely invoked,
serving as a convenient disguise for ugly motives and actions, particularly
so in Southeast Asia.
Surely we should by now be willing to cast aside mythology and face the
causes and consequences of our actions, not only in East Timor. In that
tortured corner of the world there is still time, though very little time, to
prevent a hideous consummation of one of the most appalling tragedies of the
terrible century that is winding to a horrifying, wrenching close.
** End of text from cdp:reg.easttimor **
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