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                      Why Americans should care about East Timor
                        by Noam Chomsky

                      There are three good reasons why Americans should
care about East Timor. First, since the Indonesian
invasion of December 1975, East Timor has been the site of some
of the worst atrocities of the modern era -- atrocities
which are mounting again right now. Second, the US government
has played a decisive role in escalating these
atrocities and can easily act to mitigate or terminate them. It is not
necessary to bomb Jakarta or impose economic sanctions.
Throughout, it would have sufficed for Washington to withdraw
support and to inform its Indonesian client that the game was
over. That remains true as the situation reaches a crucial
turning point -- the third reason. 

                      President Clinton needs no instructions on how to
proceed. In May 1998, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
called upon Indonesian President Suharto to resign and
provide for "a democratic transition." A few hours later,
Suharto transferred authority to his handpicked vice
president. Though not simple cause and effect, the events illustrate
the relations that prevail. Ending the torture in East Timor would
have been no more difficult than dismissing Indonesia's
dictator in May 1998. 

                       Not long before, the Clinton administration
welcomed Suharto as "our kind of guy," following the
precedent established in 1965 when the general took power,
presiding over army-led massacres that wiped out the country's
only mass-based political party (the PKI, a popularly
supported communist party) and devastated its popular base in
"one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century."
According to a CIA report, these massacres were comparable to those
of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao; hundreds of thousands were
killed, most of them landless peasants. The achievement
was greeted with unrestrained euphoria in the West. The
"staggering mass slaughter" was "a gleam of light in Asia," according
to two commentaries in The New York Times, both typical of
the general western media reaction. Corporations flocked
to what many called Suharto's "paradise for investors,"
impeded only by the rapacity of the ruling family. For more than
20 years, Vietnamese leadership, as well as "the tactics employed
by the Contras" in Nicaragua, following lessons taught
by their CIA mentors that it should be unnecessary to review.
The state terrorists "are 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' ... notes a well-placed source in
Jakarta," Jenkins writes. That source adds that the aim is
"'to terrorize everyone' -- the NGOs, the [Red Cross], the UN, the
journalists." 

                      The goal is being pursued with no little success.
Since April, the Indonesian-run militias have been conducting a
wave of atrocities and murder, killing hundreds of people --
many in churches to which they fled for shelter -- burning
down towns, driving tens of thousands into concentration
camps or the mountains, where, it is reported, thousands have
been virtually enslaved to harvest coffee crops. "They
call them 'internally displaced persons,'" an Australian nun
and aid worker said, "but they are hostages to the militias.
They have been told that if they vote for independence, they
will be killed." The number of the displaced is estimated at
50,000 or more. 

                      Health conditions are abysmal. One of the few
doctors in the territory, American volunteer Dan Murphy, reported
that 50 to 100 Timorese are dying daily from curable
diseases while Indonesia "has a deliberate policy not to allow
medical supplies into East Timor." In the Australian media,
he has detailed atrocious crimes from his personal
experience, and Australian journalists and aid workers have compiled
a shocking record. 
               The referendum has been delayed twice by the UN
because of the terror, which has even targeted UN offices
and UN convoys carrying sick people for treatment. Citing
diplomatic, church, and militia sources, the Australian press
reports "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," and warns that the
TNI-run militias may be planning a violent takeover of much of the
territory if, despite the terror, the popular will is expressed. 

                      Murphy and others report that TNI has been
emboldened by the lack of interest in the West. "A senior US
diplomat summarized the issue neatly: 'East Timor is
Australia's Haiti'" -- in other words, it's not a problem for the United
States, which helped create and sustain the humanitarian
disaster in East Timor and could readily end it. (Those who know
the truth about the United States in Haiti will fully
appreciate the cynicism.) 

                      Reporting on the terror from the scene, Nobel
Laureate Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo called for "an
international military force" to protect the population from
Indonesian terror and permit the referendum to proceed. Nothing
doing. The "international community" -- meaning Western
powers -- prefers that the Indonesian army provide "security."
A small number of unarmed UN monitors have been authorized
-- but subsequently delayed -- by the Clinton administration. 

                      The picture in the past few months is particularly
ugly against the background of the self-righteous posturing in
the "enlightened states." But it simply illustrates,
once again, what should be obvious: Nothing substantial has changed,
either in the actions of the powerful or the performance of
their flatterers. The Timorese are "unworthy victims." No
power interest is served by attending to their suffering
or taking even simple steps to end it. Without a significant
popular reaction, the long-familiar story will continue, in East Timor
and throughout the world.