Western-backed state terrorism blame for Bali blasts
Western-backed state terrorism blame for Bali blasts
Agence France-Presse, London
Indonesian state terrorism, backed by Britain, America and Australia, is to blame for the deadly Bali bombings, prominent Australian journalist John Pilger argued in an essay published Wednesday.
"State terrorism, backed by America, Britain and Australia, has scarred Indonesia for the past 40 years," Pilger wrote in Britain's left-of-center Daily Mirror newspaper.
He added: "It is hardly surprising there are resentments and tensions, and support for extreme religious groups."
Pilger said Britain, America and Australia were guilty of secretly backing "Indonesian tyrant" General Soeharto's rise to power in the 1960s and of actively encouraging his government's slaughter of more than half a million 'communists'.
He said the source of Indonesia's worst violence was its army "which the West has supported and armed".
"Today, troops continue to terrorize the provinces of Aceh and West Papua, where they are 'protecting' the American Exxon oil company's holdings and the Freeport mine," added the award- winning journalist and documentary filmmaker.
Pilger said Australia's "long complicity with state terrorism in Indonesia... makes a mockery of the self-deluding declarations last week that the nation had 'lost its innocence' in Bali."
He hinted that Indonesia's generals could have been behind the Bali bombings, saying they have "plenty of motives to destabilize the elected government".
"Democracy has ended important army privileges, including a block of guaranteed seats in the parliament," Pilger wrote.
More than 190 people, including an estimated 94 Australians, were killed in the Oct. 12 bombing of two tourist bars on the paradise island of Bali.
Many bodies were burned or mangled beyond recognition and are undergoing examination by forensic experts in Bali morgues.
Pilger was among the first reporters to expose the horrors of the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia -- and point the finger at Pol Pot's western backers.