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Timor-Leste Honored President Bill Clinton:/span>

Setting the record straight

East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN)

Clinton toasts Suharto in 1994. Photo from http://togsplace.blogspot.com/2008/01/suharto-model-killer-and-his-friends-in.html

On August 30^th 2019, the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste (East Timor) celebrated the 20^th 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 20^th 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.