Noam Chomsky

According

to recent reports, the UN mission in East Timor has been able to account for

just over 150,000 people out of an estimated population of 850,000. It reports

that 260,000 "are now languishing in squalid refugee camps in West Timor

under the effective control of the militias after either fleeing or being

forcibly removed from their homes," and that another 100,000 have been

relocated to other parts of Indonesia. The rest are presumed to be hiding in the

mountains. The Australian commander expressed the natural concern that displaced

people lack food and medical supplies. Touring camps in East and West Timor, US

Assistant Secretary of State Harold Koh reported that the refugees are

"starving and terrorized," and that disappearances "without

explanation" are a daily occurrence.

To

appreciate the scale of this disaster, one has to bear in mind the virtual

demolition of the physical basis for survival by the departing Indonesian army

and its paramilitary associates ("militias"), and the reign of terror

to which the territory has been subjected for a quarter-century, including the

slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people when the Carter Administration was

providing the required diplomatic and military support.

How

have its successors reacted during the current "noble phase" of

foreign policy, with its "saintly glow," to quote some of the awed

rhetoric of respected commentators in the national press through the 1990s? One

way was to increase the support for the killers — for "our kind of

guy," as General Suharto was described by the Clinton Administration before

he fell from grace by losing control and failing to implement harsh IMF orders

with sufficient ardor. After the 1991 Dili massacre, Congress restricted arms

sales and banned US training of the Indonesian military, but Clinton found

devious ways to evade the ban. Congress expressed its "outrage,"

reiterating that "it was and is the intent of Congress to prohibit US

military training for Indonesia," as readers of the Far Eastern Economic

Review and dissident publications here could learn. But to no avail.

Inquiries

about Clinton’s programs received the routine response from the State

Department: US military training "serves a very positive function in terms

of exposing foreign militaries to US values." These values were exhibited

as military aid to Indonesia flowed and government-licensed sales of armaments

increased five-fold from fiscal 1997 to last year. A month ago (Sept. 19), the

London Observer international news service and the London Guardian Weekly

published a story headlined "US Trained Butchers of East Timor." The

report, by two respected correspondents, described Clinton’s "Iron

Balance" program, which trained Indonesian military in violation of

congressional bans as late as 1998. Included were Kopassus units, the murderous

forces that organized and directed the "militias" and participated

directly in their atrocities, as Washington was well aware — just as it knew

that these long-time beneficiaries of US training were "legendary for their

cruelty" and in East Timor "became the pioneer and exemplar for every

kind of atrocity" (Ben Anderson, one of the world’s leading Indonesia

specialists).

Clinton’s

"Iron Balance" program provided these forces with more training in

counterinsurgency and "psychological operations," expertise that they

put to use effectively at once. As they and their minions were burning down the

capital city of Dili in September, murdering and rampaging, the Pentagon

announced that "A US-Indonesian training exercise focused on humanitarian

and disaster relief activities concluded Aug. 25," five days before the

referendum that elicited the sharp escalation in crimes — precisely as the

political leadership in Washington expected, at least if they were reading their

own intelligence reports.

All

of this found its way to the memory hole that contains the past record of the

crucial US support for the atrocities, granted the same (null) coverage as many

other events of the past year; for example, the unanimous Senate vote on June

30th calling on the Clinton administration to link Indonesian military actions

in East Timor to "any loan or financial assistance to Indonesia," as

readers could learn from the Irish Times.

For

much of 1999, Western intellectuals have been engaged in one of history’s most

audacious displays of self-adulation over their magnificent performance in

Kosovo. Among the many facets of this grand achievement dispatched to the proper

place was the fact that the huge flow of brutalized refugees expelled after the

bombing could receive little care, thanks to Washington’s defunding of the

responsible UN agency. Its staff was reduced 15% in 1998, and another 20% in

January 1999; and it now endures the denunciations of the (also saintly) Tony

Blair for its "problematic performance" in the wake of the atrocities

that were the anticipated consequence of US/UK bombing. While the mutual

admiration society was performing as required, atrocities mounted in East Timor.

Even prior to the August referendum, some 3-5000 had been killed according to

credible Church sources, about twice the number killed prior to the bombing in

Kosovo (with more than twice the population), according to NATO. As atrocities

skyrocketed in September, Clinton watched silently, until compelled by domestic

and international (mostly Australian) pressure to make at least some gestures.

These were enough for the Indonesian Generals to reverse course at once, an

indication of the latent power that has always been in reserve. A rational

person can readily draw some conclusions about criminal culpability.

At

last report, the US has provided no funds for the Australian-led UN intervention

force (in contrast, Japan, long a fervent supporter of Indonesia, offered $100

million). But that is perhaps not surprising, in the light of its refusal to pay

any of the costs of the UN civilian operations even in Kosovo. Washington has

also asked the UN to reduce the scale of subsequent operations, because it might

be called upon to pay some of the costs. Hundreds of thousands of missing people

may be starving in the mountains, but the Air Force that excels in pinpoint

destruction of civilian targets apparently lacks the capacity to airdrop food —

and no call has been heard for even such an elementary humanitarian measure.

Hundreds of thousands more are facing a grim fate within Indonesia. A word from

Washington would suffice to end their torment, but there is no word, and no

comment.

In

Kosovo, preparation for war crimes trials has been underway since May, expedited

at US-UK initiative, including unprecedented access to intelligence information.

In East Timor, investigations are being discussed at leisure, with Indonesian

participation and a tight deadline (Dec. 31). It is "an absolute joke, a

complete whitewash," according to UN officials quoted in the British press.

A spokesperson for Amnesty International added that the inquiry as planned

"will cause East Timorese even more trauma than they have suffered already.

It would be really insulting at this stage." Indonesian Generals "do

not seem to be quaking in their boots," the Australian press reports. One

reason is that "some of the most damning evidence is likely to be…

material plucked from the air waves by sophisticated US and Australian

electronic intercept equipment," and the Generals feel confident that their

old friends will not let them down — if only because the chain of

responsibility might be hard to snap at just the right point.

There

is also little effort to unearth evidence of atrocities in East Timor. In

striking contrast, Kosovo has been swarming with police and medical forensic

teams from the US and other countries in the hope of discovering large-scale

atrocities that can be transmuted into justification for the NATO bombing of

which they were the anticipated consequence — as Milosevic had planned all

along, it is now claimed, though NATO Commander General Wesley Clark reported a

month after the bombing that the alleged plans "have never been shared with

me" and that the NATO operation "was not designed [by the political

leadership] as a means of blocking Serb ethnic cleansing…. There was never any

intent to do that. That was not the idea."

Commenting

on Washington’s refusal to lift a finger to help the victims of its crimes, the

veteran Australian diplomat Richard Butler observed that "it has been made

very clear to me by senior American analysts that the facts of the alliance

essentially are that: the US will respond proportionally, defined largely in

terms of its own interests and threat assessment…" The remarks were not

offered in criticism of Washington; rather, of his fellow Australians, who do

not comprehend the facts of life: that others are to shoulder the burdens, and

face the costs — which for Australia, may not be slight. It will hardly come as

a great shock if a few years hence US corporations are cheerfully picking up the

pieces in an Indonesia that resents Australian actions, but has few complaints

about the overlord.

The

chorus of self-adulation has subsided a bit, though not much. Far more important

than these shameful performances is the failure to act — at once, and

decisively — to save the remnants of one of the most terrible tragedies of this

awful century.