Australia shows a double standard

It is now clear that proindependence guerrillas operating in East Timor for the past 24 years are well armed. While the peacekeeping forces have not hesitated to point their weapons at suspected prointegration militias, they have not followed the same rule with the proindependence guerrillas. This double standard must be questioned.

First of all, who has been responsible for supporting, financing and providing arms to this group of terrorists for 24 years? Australia recognized the integration of East Timor with Indonesia but, for humanitarian reasons, it gave sanctuary to East Timorese refugees. But has Australia, like Britain and Portugal, been a safe haven, a base, supporting terrorism in East Timor? What we do know is that in those countries, pressure groups have been active in encouraging anti-Indonesian sentiment. That pressure has led to calls for banning arms sales to Indonesia.

Yet it is now clear that arms have been getting through the "international community" and that terrorism sponsored by foreign pressure groups is a provocation toward the country's integrity and to its armed forces.

Pictures of Australian troops shaking hands with proindependence forces but pointing guns at members of the prointegration militias is evidence of double standards and bias. Furthermore, the U.S. secretary of defense needs to be reminded that when Indonesian forces moved into East Timor in 1974, American bombers destroyed and obliterated whole towns and villages in southern Laos -- a country they were not even at war with. If there are to be war crime investigations concerning East Timor, the crimes committed in Laos, where people are still being injured by unexploded ordinances, should not be forgotten.

That might not be necessary. After all, only recently the Australian prime minister was searching for words to apologize for the genocide suffered by his own country's indigenous people.

H.M. MCMICHAEL

Selangor, Malaysia