On the 7th December 1975 the Island of East Timor was invaded by
neighbouring Indonesia. At the time the official line in the USA was that
the then US President - Ford - had just left the Indonesian capital,
Jakarta, having failed to dissuade Suharto from his mission which was
supposedly to prevent the independance movement in East Timor from falling
into communist hands. The reality of the US position was spelt out by Henry
Kissinger at the time who announced at a press conference that the US,
'fully understands Indonesia's position'. Similar signals to those that had
been given to Saddam Hussein prior to his annexation of Kuwait were thus
given - it's generally called 'diplomacy'.
Indeed Suharto had earned his cold war brownie points by eliminating
hundreds of thousands of communists and other unfortunates who were caught
up in the various purges which had preceded the invasion. The whole episode
- including the invasion - was comfortably ignored by the West. Few (with
notable exceptions such as the anarchist Noam Chomsky) were interested in
the plight of a people - bullied by a neighbouring dictator with the most
sophisticated military machine in the region - supplied, of course, by
Western regimes such as the UK. Even after a massacre in the E Timor capital
Dili five years ago - recorded on camera - still the West squirms and wishes
the problem would go away.=20
Indeed despite the fact that one third of the population of East Timor has
'disappeared' over the last 20 years and the many documented and eye witness
reports of human rights abuses the Australian Prime Minister, Paul Keating,
was able to deny asylum to refugees from the Indonesian military regime this
year (The Guardian 11th Oct 1995). Keating made his main concern quite clear
when he said, 'We can't throw it all up the flue and say, 'Well, look
because we don't like all the things that are going on in Timor we will
rupture the reelationship with you across the board'.' As far as Keating was
concerned, 'I've never believed that was in Australia's interest'.
At the time Keating identified Indonesia as the most important country to
Australia. In regional terms the UK could say the same thing. Here Indonesia
has proved a happy customer for British military aircraft for use in
controlling the local population. Indonesia is one of British Aerospace's
biggest customers and its second biggest overseas military export market
after Saudi Arabia. The British State doesn't care about the plight of East
Timor. In the context of the situation in East Timor, Alan Clarke, the
minister for 'defence procurement' under the Thatcher regime, approved the
sale of ground attack aircraft to Indonesia, valued at more than =A3500mn.
When questioned about what they were to be used for he said, 'I don't really
fill my mind much with what one set of foreigners is doing to another'. He
makes Pontius Pilate look angelic.
CURRENT PROTESTS
As we write more than 100 sympathisers with the East Timorese and the
Indonesians are occupying the Russian and Dutch embassies in Jakarta. They
broke into the embassy compounds early on the 7th December. They have used
this tactic before to bring attention to their plight by occupying other
embassies for example French, British and Japanese. Clearly the authorities
didn't know where they were going to be attacked: they had staked out those
embassies previously occupied and indeed 19 people were arrested attempting
to enter the French embassy.
Here in the UK the anniversary of the invasion was marked by protest
meeetings at Westminster calling for an arms eembargo on Indonesia. In
particular the Campaign Against the Arms Trade (caat) has called for the
cancelation of two deals to supply Jakarta with British Aerospace Hawk
Aircraft and Alvis light tanks.
FREEDOM PRESS
http://www.lglobal.com/TAO/Freedom