U.S. media and E. Timor

U.S. media and E. Timor

Jeffrey A. Winters, North Western University, Chicago

The birth of East Timor as a new nation was described in
glowing, even triumphant, tones in the U.S. print media. Timor
offers the sort of classic uplift story Americans love to consume
-- of fighting against the odds, of epic human struggles.
President Clinton referred almost Biblically to "blood and
sacrifice" in the pursuit of freedom.

Indonesia's military, the TNI, was an easy target for the role
of "bad guy." The 1975 invasion and subsequent occupation was
described across the U.S. media as "brutal."

But the American reading public would have to search wide and
dig deep to find much accurate reporting of the appalling U.S.
government's role in either the long suffering or the eventual
triumph of the Timorese.

Every article contained the obligatory one-paragraph history
of the Indonesian invasion. But not one bothered to mention how
thoroughly complicit the U.S. was in allowing the tragic events
to occur in the first place.

A May 20 editorial in the New York Times gave the impression
that the U.S. was a distant observer of the events of 1975,
merely making the "mistake" of approving of the invasion. The
uncomfortable fact is that President Ford and Secretary of State
Kissinger met with President Soeharto in Jakarta hours before the
attack and made it clear the U.S. was supportive of the plan to
invade. Soeharto had held his generals back until he could get
this crucial U.S. assurance from the very top.

The fuller piece of the same day in the Times by Jane Perlez
does not even bother to mention the destructive U.S. role. If
anything, the U.S. appears valiant and noble for sending an
international peace-keeping force to Timor after the Indonesian
military oversaw the destruction of everything in sight.

The disquieting fact is that Bill Clinton, President Bush's
delegate to the independence ceremony, hesitated until the last
possible moment to safeguard Timor's referendum -- sending U.S.
troops only for noncombat missions after the Australians led the
call to stop the carnage at the hands of the Indonesians and
their proxy militia.

It was obvious on the eve of the referendum that leaving
security in the hands of the Indonesian armed forces, whose
proven track record of brutality in Timor was not in dispute, was
a formula for disaster. Western intelligence agencies knew the
Indonesians were training militia for intimidation before the
vote and for destruction afterward if it went against the
Indonesians.

And still the Clinton administration refused to play hardball
with the generals in Jakarta by insisting that a U.N. force
handle security. Nearly three thousand innocent Timorese perished
in 1999 as a result of this cowardice, adding to the "blood and
sacrifice" Clinton referred to as the price the Timorese paid for
their freedom.

Buried in the final paragraph of a May 20th piece in the
Washington Post by Rajiv Chandrasekaran is a quote by Clinton at
the ceremony opening the new U.S. embassy in the Timorese capital
of Dili. "I am very honored to be here because we were so
involved in the struggle of the people of East Timor and so
supportive of this day," Clinton remarked.

This is a distortion of shocking proportions even for Bill
Clinton. The U.S. was certainly involved in the struggle, but on
the side of the occupying Indonesians for nearly the whole 24
years from the invasion until the violent withdrawal of TNI
forces.

Had the U.S. been "supportive" of self-determination when the
Timorese really needed it -- before not after the rampages of
1999 -- East Timor would not be in the unenviable position of
trying to rebuild their country from the Afghanistan-like rubble
left behind by the departing Indonesians.

Clinton's statement was apparently too much even for the
servile western media. In response to a question, he allowed that
U.S. support for the TNI "made us not as sensitive to the
suffering of the people of East Timor as we should have been. I
don't think we can defend everything we did."

At a time when Americans are deeply confused about why many
people around the world laugh outloud when U.S. officials claim
America stands for justice, it would have been useful to have
such admissions toward the front of the article rather than
buried in the last paragraph on the inside page.

The U.S. rhetoric of supportiveness rings even more hollow
when one considers that the Bush administration and the UN are
applying no serious pressure on Jakarta to bring the TNI top
brass responsible for the mayhem in Timor to justice for crimes
against humanity.

Mind you, we're only talking about putting on trial those who
killed the last 3,000 Timorese in 1999, not those responsible for
the deaths of the 200,000 from 1975 forward. No one even mentions
the architects of the murderous invasion -- names like Gen. Benny
Murdani or President Soeharto, much less key enablers like Henry
Kissinger or President Ford.

Ad hoc tribunals underway in Jakarta are poised to deliver
weak sentences, if not outright acquittals, to lower ranking
soldiers and officers for the atrocities of 1999 in Timor. And
when they do, the UN will not follow through on empty threats of
international tribunals to go after and hold accountable the real
perpetrators.

On the contrary, hawks in the Bush administration like
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy Paul
Wolfowitz are already touting the kangaroo trials in Jakarta as
solid evidence of TNI reforms. What the administration wants to
do is pour lots of weapons and training into the laps of
Jakarta's generals to entice them to help "fight terrorism."

The problem with this plan is that the lion's share of terror
in Indonesia occurs at the hands of the military. As for fighting
supposed Al Qaeda cells and violent religious extremists,
sympathetic elements of the military, both active and retired
(often a hairsplitting distinction in Indonesia), play cynically
with these "terrorists" in the pursuit of various domestic
political agendas.