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funds and we need your help
to get through the next few
months. The end of the
northern summer often means
shortfalls in ETAN's
finances, and this year we
have added expenses for
this 20th anniversary of
Timor's historic
independence vote.
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today?
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Read the full appeal
here. |
Timor-Leste Honored President Bill Clinton:/span>
Setting the record straight
East Timor
and Indonesia Action Network
(ETAN)
On August 30th 2019, the
Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste (East
Timor) celebrated the 20th
anniversary of its historic referendum on
independence, ending 24 years of Indonesian
occupation. International solidarity
activists, including many from the East
Timor and Indonesia
Action Network (ETAN), joined the people
of East Timor in reflecting on the
persistence, courage and unity which led to
their victory over occupation.
As part of the ceremonies, the government of
Timor-Leste presented former U.S. President
Bill Clinton with the Grand Medal of the
Order of Timor-Leste, the highest of four
levels of the honor. The government’s
decision to award the medal to Clinton,
while understandable as realpolitik,
is an insult to the hundreds of thousands of
Timorese who suffered forcible displacement,
violence, and murder at the hands of
Indonesian military forces while President
Clinton failed to use his enormous power to
pressure Indonesia to end the occupation.
The award also insults the many Americans
who campaigned for Timorese
self-determination and were stonewalled by
the Clinton administration.
Clinton
avoided
making
use
of
many
opportunities
to
do
the
right
thing
for
Timor-Leste.
During
Clinton’s
eight
years
in
office,
his
administration
approved
more
than
200
separate
sales
of
weapons
and
military
training
to
Indonesia,
all
while
Indonesia
was
systematically
violating
Timorese
people’s
human
rights.
|
The purpose of the award, as described by
the Timorese government, is “to demonstrate
the recognition by Timor-Leste of those,
national and foreign, who in their
professional or social activity, or also in
a spontaneous act of heroism or altruism,
have contributed significantly to the
benefit of Timor-Leste, the Timorese or
humankind.” Timor-Leste’s President
Francisco Guterres Lu-Olo explained at the
20th anniversary celebration that
the award was presented to “institutions and
individuals who… showed solidarity in the
face of our struggle,” and contributed to
the process of self-determination for the
Timorese people. Seventeen others received
medals on August 30, including the people of
Portugal, the trade union movement of
Australia and former U.N. Secretary-General
Kofi Annan (posthumously). Timor-Leste also
recognized the Seeds of Hope ploughshares,
four activists who in 1996 damaged a UK war
plane
before
it could be shipped to Indonesia for use in
Timor. The support of the people of Vanuatu
was acknowledged. The Pacific nation’s
diplomatic support for the Timorese struggle
began immediately after it gained
independence in 1980. ETAN received the
award in 2012.
Reviewing the historical record
Just a few days before Clinton was awarded
the Order of Timor-Leste, the National
Security Archive
released recently declassified U.S.
documents that illustrate the shameful
reality that Clinton avoided making use of
many opportunities to do the right thing for
Timor-Leste. During Clinton’s eight years in
office, his administration approved more
than 200 separate sales of weapons and
military training to Indonesia, all while
Indonesia was systematically violating
Timorese people’s human rights. When the
Clinton administration did occasionally
criticize Indonesia, it was only after
pressure from Congress and human rights
groups; privately administration officials
always treated the repressive Indonesian
army as a close ally.
Throughout the 1990s, including during the
last six years of the Suharto dictatorship,
the Clinton administration collaborated
closely with the Indonesian armed forces,
despite their horrendous record and ongoing
human rights violations. The Clinton
administration opposed nearly every
congressional effort to condition or to
limit U.S. military training and weapons
sales to Indonesia, and failed to use its
leverage with Indonesia to urge them to
allow genuine self-determination for
Timor-Leste. The highest levels of the
Clinton administration knew about
Indonesia’s campaign of violence and terror
to thwart the 1999 referendum, but sent
mixed messages about ensuring a peaceful
vote. After August 30, it watched silently
for a week while Indonesian military forces
and their militia proxies ravaged
Timor-Leste. Only on September 9 did Bill
Clinton finally fully sever all military
ties and call for international
peacekeepers. Indonesia agreed almost
immediately. Clinton could have acted
earlier, and such action would have spared
more than a thousand lives and prevented the
forced displacement of hundreds of
thousands.
|
|
Prime Minister Charlot Salwai
accepts award on behalf of the
people of Vanuatu from Timor-Leste
President Francisco Guterres Lú Olo
on August 30. President Clinton did
not attend. Photo from President's
Facebook page. |
|
Clinton came into office in January 1993,
just 14 months after the Santa Cruz Massacre
in Dili, in which hundreds of Timorese were
killed during a peaceful demonstration and
its aftermath. Footage smuggled out by
journalists, some of whom were viciously
beaten by Indonesian soldiers, showed the
one-sided violence perpetrated with
U.S.-provided weapons. Responding to
Indonesia’s brutality, the U.S. Congress
voted to terminate International Military
and Educational Training (IMET) for
Indonesia. The Clinton administration
initially did not oppose the IMET ban. In
1993,
the Clinton administration supported a UN
human rights resolution criticizing
Indonesia for abuses in Timor[i]
and
vetoed a sale of U.S.-made F-5 fighters to
Indonesia from Jordan. In 1994, Clinton’s
State Department prohibited U.S. sales of
lethal crowd control equipment to Indonesia,
including small arms and weapons.
Each of these actions resulted from
strong Congressional and public pressure.
Despite these actions, the State Department
allowed Indonesia to purchase “Expanded
International Military Education and
Training” (E-IMET) beginning in 1995,
essentially continuing the same training
that had failed to “democratize” the
Indonesian military previously. Moreover,
during 1992-97 the Pentagon quietly resumed
military training for Indonesia under the
Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET)
program, including for the Kopassus
special forces, which was responsible for
some of the worst atrocities in Timor-Leste.
This training continued, an end run around
Congress, until a U.S. journalist obtained
Pentagon documents. The Clinton
administration continued to engage with
Kopassus, claiming that it would help rein
in abuses, but decades of military training
provided no evidence that it did so. And in
the aftermath of the 1999 violence, when
experts claimed that the connections forged
by this training would allow the U.S. to put
pressure on Indonesia to stop the
post-referendum violence, it was revealed
that Indonesian officers routinely lied to
their American counterparts; rather than
curtailing the violence, they were in fact
commanding it.
The
record
shows
that
the
Clinton
administration
only
acted
in
“solidarity¨
with
the
Timorese
people
when
pressured.
Frequently
it
acted
in
bad
faith
to
maintain
military
connections
to a
regime
that
was
murdering
and
committing
acts
of
terror
against
the
people
of
Timor-Leste,
West
Papua
and
elsewhere.
|
In November 1997, the U.S. Congress
voted to block the use of U.S.-supplied
weapons in occupied Timor-Leste,
a bill which Clinton signed.
In early
1998, after reports emerged that
U.S.-trained Kopassus special forces had
been involved in the kidnapping, torture,
and murder of activists in Indonesia,
Congress barred all forms of military
training. In the wake of Suharto’s May 1998
resignation, the UN intensified its efforts
for a vote by the Timorese on their
political status. The Clinton administration
sought to maintain close military ties with
Indonesia.
1999 – Referendum Year
Early in 1999, U.S. State Department and
intelligence agencies reported that, in
response to increasing political
mobilization in Timor-Leste, Indonesian
military and intelligence forces were
creating, arming, and training para-military
groups with the goal of terrorizing
pro-independence forces. This campaign of
terror accelerated and expanded after
January 1999, when the late Indonesian
President B.J. Habibie signaled his
willingness to allow the Timorese to vote on
their political future, and after Indonesia
agreed to a UN-organized referendum.
The
recently released U.S. documents
reveal that Clinton administration officials
closely monitored this ongoing campaign of
terror and were aware of the direct control
Indonesian military and intelligence forces
exercised over the militias, but did little
to pressure Indonesia to allow a fair vote
in East Timor or halt militia violence and
intimidation. From June 28 to August 25,
1999 – just five days before the vote – the
U.S. military participated in Cooperation
Afloat Readiness and Training (CARAT)
exercises with their Indonesian counterparts
while the latter was fomenting violence and
human rights abuses in Timor-Leste.
The Timorese voted overwhelmingly for
independence on August 30. Indonesia and its
militia proxies responded by burning most of
the territory to the ground, killing
hundreds, and driving hundreds of thousands
from their homes. The Clinton administration
did nothing for more than a week. Bowing to
global condemnation and enormous
congressional pressure, Washington finally
severed all military ties with Jakarta on
September 9 and called on Indonesia to admit
a UN-sponsored peacekeeping force. Jakarta
accepted shortly after.
In 2004
[1],
Noam Chomsky wrote about this moment:
“Again
we have a very clear lesson about where
power lies, and what would have been
required to terminate the quarter-century of
horrors, at any point, without any invention
at all -- just withdrawing crucial
participation.”
And
as the recently-released documents show, on
September 30, 1999, US Secretary of Defense
William
Cohen met with Indonesian General Wiranto,
the commander of the Indonesian armed
forces, in an effort to preserve the
military relationship as Timor-Leste
continued to smolder.
To
countries
that
provided
Indonesia
with
military
hardware
and
training,
as
did
the
U.S.,
the report recommends
that
they
should
apologize,
condition
future
military
assistance
to
Indonesia
on
human
rights
and
democracy
benchmarks,
and
assist
in
securing
reparations
for
the
victims
in
Timor-Leste.
Justice
is
hollow
without
truthe.
|
The record shows that the Clinton
administration only acted in “solidarity¨
with the Timorese people when pressured.
Frequently it acted in bad faith to maintain
military connections to a regime that was
murdering and committing acts of terror
against the people of Timor-Leste, West
Papua and elsewhere. The old rationale of
Cold War loyalties, where the U.S. supported
anti-communist dictators such as Indonesia’s
Suharto, was defunct by the time Clinton
took office. While the
Grand Medal of the Order of Timor-Leste
can be seen as an attempt to curry favor
with powerful interests in the U.S., it is
clearly misguided. In fact, it devalues the
other awards given last month to courageous
journalists, dedicated activists, and
individuals and nations that were far more
consistent in their support for Timor-Leste.
Although the U.S. and Timor-Leste should
strive for close relations and cooperation,
these should be grounded in accurate
representations of the past, including
Timor-Leste’s struggle. The role of the
U.S., including the Clinton administration,
was addressed in the 2005 Commission for
Reception, Truth and Reconciliation report
entitled
Chega!. To countries that provided
Indonesia with military hardware and
training, as did the U.S.,
the report recommends that they should
apologize, condition future military
assistance to Indonesia on human rights and
democracy benchmarks, and assist in securing
reparations for the victims in Timor-Leste.
Justice is hollow without truth.