To ting, (1) press og (2) 'soft power'
1)
Den 23:27 07.09.99 +0200, skrev Trond Andresen til Karsten Vedel Johansen:
>>>Siden jeg har diskutert Kosovo-krigen flittig med Rognes her på forumet,
vil
>>>jeg bare markere at jeg er helt på linje med ham angående det han
skriver om
>>>Øst-Timor.
>>>
>>>Der vi antagelig er uenige, er når jeg vil hevde at NATOs Jugoslavia-krig,
>>>begrunnet (mer elller mindre hyklersk) med Jugoslavias overgrep i Kosovo,
>>>gjør det vanskeligere for Vesten å ignorere krav om å gripe inn mot
>>>Indonesia i øst-Timor.
>>
>>Som vi allerede har sett gjør "det" det overhodet ikke vanskeligere for USA/
>>"Vesten" å ignorere "krav" om å gripe inn i Øst-Timor. De gjør det bare -
>>ignorerer av hjertens lyst og hele pressekoret hyler på denne slette
melodi. Det kalles
>>"Den fri verden".
>
>Jeg tror at det er vanskeligere for "Vesten" (Australia er i denne sammenheng
>en del av "Vesten") å la være å presse Indonesia, eller t.o.m. delta i en FN-
>sanksjonert aksjon -- enn det har vært tidligere. Australia anerkjente f.eks.
>i sin tid Indonesias anneksjon av Øst-Timor. USA støtta invasjonen, og
aksepterte
>Indonesias folkemord. Slike ting er vanskeligere å slippe unna med idag.
>
>Om verden tross alt har gått noe framover i den forstand at Indonesia idag
>ikke kan ture fram slik de har gjort tidligere, vil vi måtte vente enda
noen dager
>for å oppsummere. Karsten VJ sin oppsummering er for bastant på dette
>tidspunkt. Hvis grusomhetene får pågå uforstyrret tre-fire dager til,
derimot,
>vil jeg tendere til å gi ham rett i denne saka.
(fra http://www.itk.ntnu.no/ansatte/Andresen_Trond/kk-f/fra110699/0290.html)
Nå er det gått 4 dager og det kunne være interessant å høre TAs kommentar i
dag.
2)
" ... The "foreign friends" also understand that direct intervention in the
occupied territory, however justified, might not even be necessary. If the
United States were to take a clear, unambiguous, and public stand,
informing the Indonesian Generals that this game is over, that might very
well suffice...."
Vi kan håpe på at Vollebæk for en gangs skyld sier "hopp" til Clinton, evt
at Janne Haaland Matlary anvender "soft power" samme sted. Verre er det
imidlertid at
" ... a week before the referendum in August, the US was carrying out joint
operations with the Indonesian army..."
Mer om dette i disse ferske artiklene:
NOAM CHOMSKY: East Timor on the Brink
Interviewed by David Barsamian, KGNU, Boulder
September 8, 1999
http://www.zmag.org/CrisesCurEvts/Timor/chomskybar.htm
og
Noam Chomsky: East Timor on the Forthcoming APEC Summit
http://www.zmag.org/CrisesCurEvts/Timor/chomapectimor.htm
Her er et utklipp fra den siste (sitatene er tatt herfra):
*********************'
....
Immediately, the Indonesian occupying forces reacted as had been predicted
by observers on the scene. The weapons that had been stockpiled, and the
forces that had been mobilized, conducted a well-planned operation. They
proceeded to drive out anyone who might bring the terrible story to the
outside world and cut off communications, while massacring, expelling tens
of thousands of people to an unknown fate, burning and destroying,
murdering priests and nuns, and no one knows how many other hapless
victims. The capital city of Dili has been virtually destroyed. In the
countryside, where the army can rampage undetected, one can only guess what
has taken place.
Even before the latest outrages, highly credible Church sources had
reported 3-5000 killed in 1999, well beyond the scale of atrocities in
Kosovo prior to the NATO bombings. The scale might even reach the level of
Rwanda if the "foreign friends" keep to timid expressions of disapproval
while insisting that internal security in East Timor "is the responsibility
of the Government of Indonesia, and we don't want to take that
responsibility away from them" -- the official position of the State
Department a few days before the August 30 referendum.
It would have been far less hypocritical to have said, early this year,
that internal security in Kosovo "is the responsibility of the Government
of Yugoslavia, and we don't want to take that responsibility away from
them." Indonesia's crimes in East Timor have been vastly greater, even just
this year, not to speak of their actions during the years of aggression and
terror; Western-backed, we should never allow ourselves to forget. That
aside, Indonesia has no claim whatsoever to the territory it invaded and
occupied, apart from the claim based on support by the Great Powers.
The "foreign friends" also understand that direct intervention in the
occupied territory, however justified, might not even be necessary. If the
United States were to take a clear, unambiguous, and public stand,
informing the Indonesian Generals that this game is over, that might very
well suffice. The same has been true for the past quarter-century, as the
US provided critical military and diplomatic support for the invasion and
atrocities. These were directed by General Suharto, compiling yet another
chapter in his gruesome record, always with Western support, and often
acclaim. He was once again praised by the Clinton Administration. He is
"our kind of guy," the Administration declared as he visited Washington
shortly before he fell from grace by losing control and dragging his feet
on IMF orders.
If changing the former green light to a new red light does not suffice,
Washington and its allies have ample means at their disposal: termination
of arms sales to the killers; initiation of war crimes trials against the
army leadership -- not an insignificant threat; cutting the economic
support funds that are, incidentally, not without their ambiguities;
putting a hold on Western energy corporations and multinationals, along
with other investment and commercial activities. There is also no reason to
shy away from peacekeeping forces to replace the occupying terrorist army,
if that proves necessary. Indonesia has no authority to "invite" foreign
intervention, as President Clinton urged, any more than Saddam Hussein had
authority to invite foreign intervention in Kuwait, or Nazi Germany in
France in 1944 for that matter. If dispatch of peacekeeping forces is
disguised by such prettified terminology, it is of no great importance, as
long as we do not succumb to illusions that prevent us from understanding
what has happened, and what it portends.
What the U.S. and its allies are doing, we scarcely know. The New York
Times reports that the Defense Department is "taking the lead in dealing
with the crisis,...hoping to make use of longstanding ties between the
Pentagon and the Indonesian military." The nature of these ties over many
decades is no secret. Important light on the current stage is provided by
Alan Nairn, who survived the Dili massacre in 1991 and barely escaped with
his life in Dili again a few days ago. In another stunning investigative
achievement, Nairn has just revealed that immediately after the vicious
massacre of dozens of refugees seeking shelter in a church in Liquica, U.S.
Pacific Commander Admiral Dennis Blair assured Indonesian Army chief
General Wiranto of US support and assistance, proposing a new U.S. training
mission.
On September 8, the Pacific Command announced that Admiral Blair is once
again being sent to Indonesia to convey U.S. concerns. On the same day,
Secretary of Defense William Cohen reported that a week before the
referendum in August, the US was carrying out joint operations with the
Indonesian army -- "a U.S.-Indonesian training exercise focused on
humanitarian and disaster relief activities," the wire services reported.
The fact that Cohen could say this without shame leaves one numb with
amazement. The training exercise was put to use within days -- in the
standard way, as all but the voluntarily blind must surely understand after
many years of the same tales, the same outcomes.
Every slight move comes with an implicit retraction. On the eve of the APEC
meeting, on September 9, Clinton announced the termination of military
ties; but without cutting off arms sales, and while declaring East Timor to
be "still a part of Indonesia," which it is not and has never been. The
decision was delivered to General Wiranto by Admiral Blair. It takes no
unusual cynicism to watch the current secret interactions with a skeptical
eye.
Skepticism is only heightened by the historical record: to mention one
recent case, Clinton's evasion of congressional restrictions barring U.S.
training of Indonesian military officers after the Dili massacre. The
earlier record is far worse from the first days of the U.S.-authorized
invasion. While the U.S. publicly condemned the aggression, Washington
secretly supported it with a new flow of arms, which was increased by the
Carter Administration as the slaughter reached near-genocidal levels in
1978. It was then that highly credible Church and other sources in East
Timor attempted to make public the estimates of 200,000 deaths that came to
be accepted years later, after constantly denial.
Every student in the West, every citizen with even a minimal concern for
international affairs, should know by heart the frank and honest
description of the opening days of the invasion by Senator Daniel Patrick
Moynihan, then America's U.N. Ambassador. The Security Council ordered the
invaders to withdraw at once, but without effect. In his memoirs, published
as the terror peaked 20 years ago, Moynihan explained the reasons: "The
United States wished things to turn out as they did," and he dutifully
"worked to bring this about," rendering the UN "utterly ineffective in
whatever measures it undertook." As for how "things turned out," Moynihan
comments that within a few months 60,000 Timorese had been killed, "almost
the proportion of casualties experienced by the Soviet Union during the
Second World War." End of story, though not in the real world.
So matters have continued since, not just in the United States. England has
a particularly ugly record, as do Australia, France, and all too many
others. That fact alone confers on them enormous responsibility to act, not
only to end the atrocities, but to provide reparations as at least some
miserable gesture of compensation for their crimes.
The reasons for the Western stance are very clear. They are currently
stated with brutal frankness. "The dilemma is that Indonesia matters and
East Timor doesn't," a Western diplomat in Jakarta bluntly observed a few
days ago. It is no "dilemma," he might have added, but rather standard
operating procedure. Explaining why the U.S. refuses to take a stand, New
York Times Asia specialists Elizabeth Becker and Philip Shenon report that
the Clinton Administration "has made the calculation that the United States
must put its relationship with Indonesia, a mineral-rich nation of more
than 200 million people, ahead of its concern over the political fate of
East Timor, a tiny impoverished territory of 800,000 people that is seeking
independence." Their fate as human beings apparently does not even reach
the radar screen, for these calculations. The Washington Post quotes
Douglas Paal, president of the Asia Pacific Policy Center, reporting the
facts of life: "Timor is a speed bump on the road to dealing with Jakarta,
and we've got to get over it safely. Indonesia is such a big place and so
central to the stability of the region."
Even without secret Pentagon assurances, Indonesian Generals can surely
read these statements and draw the conclusion that they will be granted
leeway to work their will.
The analogy to Kosovo has repeatedly been drawn in the past days. It is
singularly inappropriate, in many crucial respects. A closer analogy would
be to Iraq-Kuwait, though this radically understates the scale of the
atrocities and the culpability of the United States and its allies. There
is still time, though very little time, to prevent a hideous consummation
of one of the most appalling tragedies of the terrible century that is
winding to a horrifying, wrenching close.
**************
Knut Rognes