E. Timor Atrocities Detailed: At Least 100,000 Died, Report to U.N. Say

[struggle4progress]

By Colum Lynch and Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, January 21, 2006; Page A12

UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 20 -- Indonesian security forces and militias they supported killed at least 100,000 East Timorese people -- and perhaps as many as 180,000 -- over 24 years through torture, starvation, arbitrary execution and massacres, according to a report presented to the United Nations by Timorese President Xanana Gusmao on Friday.

The 2,005-page report, which Gusmao delivered to Secretary General Kofi Annan, provided the most detailed account to date of Indonesia's brutal 24-year occupation of the island nation, a former Portuguese colony. It also charged the country's armed resistance movement with committing "serious human rights violations" after Indonesia's 1975 invasion of East Timor, including the torture and execution of pro-Indonesian prisoners, the convening of mock trials and the violent purging of dissenters within its own ranks.

East Timor's government said that it would not seek to prosecute those responsible for atrocities, citing fears that attempts to hold powerful Indonesian generals accountable for crimes could undermine fragile democratic transitions underway in East Timor and Indonesia. Gusmao told reporters here Friday that East Timor's hard-fought independence from Indonesia in 2002 would have to stand as the country's chief symbol of justice for victims' families.

"We have consciously rejected the notion of pushing for an international tribunal for East Timor because, A, it is not practical, B, it would wreck our relationship with Indonesia, and, C, we are serious about supporting Indonesia's own transition towards democracy," East Timor's Foreign Minister Jose Ramos-Horta told a small group of reporters in New York. "In today's Indonesia or in the foreseeable future, there will be no leader strong enough who can bring to court and prison senior military officers who were involved in violence in the past. . . . They are still too powerful." ...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/20/AR2006012001811.html

[Tom Joad]

1. One could count on one hand the Democratic leaders that called for an

end to aid to Indonesia during this time. This was no secret, this was as well known as Chile's atrocities under Pinochet. Israel's atrocities under Sharon.
The Silence & often the complicity of the Dems. A tragedy beyond words.

[struggle4progress]

2. Chomsky, on the other hand, raised the issue constantly. eom

[rman]

3. On a population of ~700,000 people

That's one massive genocide supported by the oh so self-righteous West.

Which is why we don't here more of it then literally a small article on page 26, once in every few years or so.