Background on Paul Wolfowitz, Indonesia and East Timor
Wolfowitz's Indonesia Record Eyed (May 4), 2007
Jubilee
USA and ETAN Challenge Wolfowitz to Address Roots
of Corruption by Canceling Indonesia's (April 11,
2007)
Wolfowitz
visits Timor (April 8, 2006)
Sample Letters to the Editor (2005)
Sample letters on Paul Wolfowitz's nomination to head World Bank. Adapt to your own words. Mix and match and share your letters.
Published letters
Additional background can be found at the links below.
Published letters:
New York Times
Wolfowitz and Indonesia: What the Record Shows
Published:
To the Editor:
Re "Similar Résumé, Different Decade" (Business Day, March 22):
I disagree with the suggestion that Paul D. Wolfowitz championed human rights in illegally occupied East Timor as the Reagan administration's ambassador to Indonesia.
He consistently argued against East Timorese self-determination, a position he maintained through 1999. While he sometimes criticized the Indonesian military's more high-profile atrocities, his opposition to any talk favoring an Indonesian withdrawal - as demanded by the United Nations - lent credibility to Indonesia's presence in East Timor, facilitating the very atrocities he occasionally decried.
During Mr. Wolfowitz's stint as Ronald Reagan's assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs and as ambassador, hundreds of millions of dollars of American weaponry flowed to the Indonesian military, the very force responsible for the crimes against humanity.
Mr. Wolfowitz was and continues to be a strong champion of strong ties with Indonesia's military establishment - despite its very deadly results in East Timor and within Indonesia proper.
Joseph Nevins
Poughkeepsie, N.Y.
March 23, 2005
The writer, an assistant professor of geography at Vassar College, is the author of a book about East Timor.
The Independent (UK)
21 March 2005
Wolfowitz's dubious record in Indonesia
Sir: As ambassador to Indonesia during the Reagan years, Paul Wolfowitz may have paid lip service to democratic reform (profile, 19 March), but on the whole he defended the Suharto dictatorship. That regime was responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths and extensive human rights violations in East Timor and elsewhere. The Suharto family and his cronies became extremely wealthy siphoning funds from the development projects and business deals that Wolfowitz promoted.
In May 1997, Wolfowitz told the US Congress that Suharto provided "strong and remarkable leadership" and dismissed illegally-occupied East Timor's aspirations for independence. A year later, a popular revolt against Suharto's failed economic policies and the brutal killing of student protesters forced the dictator from office. Five years later, East Timor gained independence. Wolfowitz's policy prescriptions on Indonesia, look no better than his later ones on Iraq.
More recently, as number two at the Pentagon, Wolfowitz advocated stepping up military engagement with Indonesia, despite that fact that the main reasons for limiting that US engagement remain largely unresolved. No Indonesian officials have been held accountable for crimes against humanity in East Timor; security forces continue to systematically violate rights in tsunami-stricken Aceh and elsewhere; and the killings of two Americans in West Papua in 2002 remains unresolved, despite evidence of military involvement. The military, whose "reform" Wolfowitz champions, remains the greatest roadblock to democracy in Indonesia. He must not bring similar attitudes and policies to the World Bank.
JOHN M. MILLER
Outreach Coordinator, East Timor Action Network
Brooklyn, NY, USA
2008
ETAN: Remembering A Shared History: Suharto and the United States (March 7)
2005
Joyo Exclusive:
Wolfowitz's Track Record on
Economic Policy and Human Rights Is Poor by
Jeffrey A. Winters (
Village Voice: Who's Afraid of the Big, Bad Wolfowitz: He Bungled Iraq, the Pentagon, and East Timor. Look Out, World Bank—Here He Comes (March 18)
Indonesia Alert!: Beware a Wolfowitz in Sheep's Clothing: Washington Backs Indonesian Military Again
East Timor Action Network Condemns Restoration of IMET for Indonesia (February 27)
Wolfowitz Visited
Indonesia For Closer Military Ties, Not Tsunami Relief
Democracy Now!:
Allan Nairn on Wolfowitz post-Tsunami visit to Jakarta and Aceh (January
2005)
2004
NYT letters -
ETAN &
others on Wolfowitz (Sept. 2004)
AP:
East Timorese
say Reagan responsible for Indonesian massacres (June
6)
Prior to 2004
AFR:
US cuts off funds
to train Indonesia armed forces (August 7, 2003)
Wolfowitz
Defends Indonesian Military (September
6, 2002)
Indonesia Alert!:
Paul “Velociraptor” Wolfowitz
FPIF:
Paul
Wolfowitz, Reagan’s Man in Indonesia, Is Back at the Pentagon
(Feb. 2001)
Progressive:
Suharto Lobby (May 1997)
Wolfowitz's prepared testimony
before House International Relations Committee, (May 7, 1997)
See also
- 50 Years is Enough Network*
- IFI Watch
- No Way Wolfowitz
- World Bank President
[*UPDATE 2010: 50 Years is Enough Network is defunct. Groups doing similar work are Debt Relief Now which organizes a week of global action against global debt and Jubilee USA Network.]
**Letter #1**
To the Editor:
Paul Wolfowitz is especially unqualified to head the World Bank [ARTICLE NAME AND PUB DATE]. While the Bank is supposed to support the downtrodden, Wolfowitz has valued ties to oppressive governments over the aspirations of ordinary people for democracy and freedom.
Nowhere has this been truer than in East Timor and Indonesia, where he served as U.S. ambassador in the 1980s. Rather than denounce the military regime’s horrific human rights record, Wolfowitz preferred to cozy up to the dictator General Suharto, who lead a brutal regime which plundered billions. Wolfowitz was dismissive of East Timor's aspirations for independence, which was then illegally occupied by Indonesia at the cost of 200,000 East Timorese lives.
As the number two man at the Pentagon, Wolfowitz has been the main architect of the Bush administration’s push to step up military engagement with Indonesia, largely cut off because of its crimes against humanity in East Timor, ongoing rights abuses, and, most recently, the failure to bring to justice the killers of two Americans in West Papua in 2002. The Indonesian military’s worst violations took place when the U.S. was most engaged, and it remains its country’s greatest roadblock to democracy. If Wolfowitz brings similar policies to the World Bank, the world's impoverished have much to fear.
YOUR NAME
FULL ADDRESS
DAYTIME PHONE NUMBER
**Letter #2**
"Actions speak louder than words" is a good rule of thumb, especially when it comes to public officials. While President Bush's nominee for World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz has sometimes spoken eloquently about promoting democracy around the world, his actions have done the opposite [ARTICLE NAME AND PUB DATE].
In and out of government, Wolfowitz has been especially influential on U.S. policy toward Indonesia, where he once served as ambassador.
For many years, he backed Indonesia's corrupt and brutal dictator Suharto and urged illegally-occupied East Timor to give up its dream of independence. After popular pressure forced Suharto out and East Timor's dream became reality, Wolfowitz continued to advocate arming and training Indonesia's abusive military: an institution which continues to violate human rights and threaten Indonesia’s fledgling democracy.
YOUR NAME
FULL ADDRESS
DAYTIME PHONE NUMBER