Quake3World

THE US knew well in advance of and explicitly approved Indonesia's invasion of East Timor in 1975, newly declassified documents say.

Released this week by the independent Washington-based National Security Archive (NSA), the documents showed US officials were aware of the invasion plans nearly a year in advance.

They adopted a "policy of silence" and even sought to suppress news and discussions on East Timor, including credible reports of Indonesia's massacres of Timorese civilians, according to the documents.

East Timor is today an independent nation.

The people of East Timor voted in favour of breaking away from Indonesia in a UN-sponsored ballot in August 1999 before gaining full independence in May 2002 after more than two years of UN stewardship.

But the path to independence was bloody. Militia gangs reportedly directed by Indonesia's military went on a killing spree before and after the East Timorese referendum, killing about 1400 independence supporters.

Thirty years after the Indonesian invasion, the formerly secret US documents showed how multiple US administrations tried to conceal information on East Timor to avoid a controversy that would prompt a Congressional ban on weapons sales to Indonesia.

"I'm assuming you're really going to keep your mouth shut on the subject," then National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger told his staff in October 1975 in response to reports that Indonesia had begun its attack on East Timor.

The administration of President Gerald Ford knew that Indonesia had invaded East Timor using almost entirely US equipment, and that the use of that equipment for that purpose was illegal, the documents showed.

In 1977, officials of the administration of Ford's successor, Jimmy Carter, blocked declassification of an explosive cable transcribing President Ford and Secretary of State Kissinger's meeting with Indonesian President Suharto.

At the meeting in December 1975, they explicitly approved of the East Timor invasion, according to the documents.

Through the 1980s, US officials continued to receive -- and deny or dismiss -- credible reports of Indonesia's massacres of Timorese civilians.

The National Security Archive had provided more than 1000 formerly classified US documents to help an East Timorese commission of inquiry into human rights abuses that occurred between 1975 and 1999.

East Timor president Xanana Gusmao handed the commission's 2500-page report to the Timorese Parliament last Monday but wanted it withheld from the public, amid an outcry from opposition politicians and rights activists.

Brad Simpson, Director of the National Security Archive's Indonesia and East Timor documentation project, said he expected the commission's final report to show that Indonesia's invasion of East Timor and resulting crimes there "occurred in an international context in which the support of powerful nations, especially the US, was indispensable."

"These documents also point to the need for genuine international accountability for East Timor's suffering," he said.

Mr. Habib: I think what we are doing is like Jack -- keeping our mouth shut about the thing.

Kissinger: Is that conceivable?

Mr. Habib: We've been doing it, so I think it's quite conceivable.

Kissinger: No moral --

Mr. Habib: There's not that much interest. I think they'll probably be --

Kissinger: There are no moral lessons to be learned from this?

Mr. Habib: Yes. The moral lesson is that we have the guns to go in. (laughter.)

Dave wrote:that's all well and good, everyone knows the US has a lot of Vietnam War era skeletons in it's closet, but what's the whole historical context? Why did the US support Indonesia? What about the people of East Timor did the US fear? These things don't happen spontaneously. Sure we (and a lot of nations... the US isn't the only country possessing 'agency') turned a blind eye to some bad shit, but whining about a bunch dead people without visiting the whole story is misleading.

Dave wrote:that's all well and good, everyone knows the US has a lot of Vietnam War era skeletons in it's closet, but what's the whole historical context? Why did the US support Indonesia? What about the people of East Timor did the US fear? These things don't happen spontaneously. Sure we (and a lot of nations... the US isn't the only country possessing 'agency') turned a blind eye to some bad shit, but whining about a bunch dead people without visiting the whole story is misleading.

Dave wrote:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/025321 ... s&v=glance

Canidae wrote:I'm saying you can paint many countries in this light and it seems like more America bashing, hence the need for counter balancing.
If you didn't think the americans way doesn't include massacres and turning a blind eye to shit like that , contrary to their rosy prose about freedom and democracy then you forgot what they did to the indians....

The General Assembly continued to adopt similar resolutions on East Timor each year until 1982, but support for them declined. Both Dunn and Horta explain how the votes reflect the perceptions of different nations of their relations with Indonesia. India, they say, has drawn a false parallel with its own control of the former Portuguese colony of Goa and has supported Indonesia in part for this reason. The US, Japan, and Australia evidently believe that supporting Indonesia serves their own strategic and economic interests. Arab countries (except for Algeria) support Indonesia for reasons of Islamic solidarity. France, West Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden value their commercial interests with Indonesia. Yugoslavia prefers not to act against a fellow member of the Nonaligned Movement. The USSR supports resolutions on East Timor but avoids doing anything else so as not to disrupt its own relations with Indonesia. Several Eastern European governments abstain or do not vote at all in what Horta claims to be a private deal between Moscow and Jakarta.

Canidae wrote:THe US should have invaded and saved those Timorian! Must have been a Clark Kent moment, not a Superman one or perhaps the cape was in the cleaners...

WTF I'll bet representatives of the US and definitely the UK met Hitler before he invaded countries in Europe...does that make it their fault?

This topics smells...

[xeno]Julios wrote:http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,17 ... 98,00.html

yet only a handful of news sources reporting it:

http://news.google.com/news?sourceid=mo ... 9252&hl=en

THE US knew well in advance of and explicitly approved Indonesia's invasion of East Timor in 1975, newly declassified documents say.

Released this week by the independent Washington-based National Security Archive (NSA), the documents showed US officials were aware of the invasion plans nearly a year in advance.

They adopted a "policy of silence" and even sought to suppress news and discussions on East Timor, including credible reports of Indonesia's massacres of Timorese civilians, according to the documents.

East Timor is today an independent nation.

The people of East Timor voted in favour of breaking away from Indonesia in a UN-sponsored ballot in August 1999 before gaining full independence in May 2002 after more than two years of UN stewardship.

But the path to independence was bloody. Militia gangs reportedly directed by Indonesia's military went on a killing spree before and after the East Timorese referendum, killing about 1400 independence supporters.

Thirty years after the Indonesian invasion, the formerly secret US documents showed how multiple US administrations tried to conceal information on East Timor to avoid a controversy that would prompt a Congressional ban on weapons sales to Indonesia.

"I'm assuming you're really going to keep your mouth shut on the subject," then National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger told his staff in October 1975 in response to reports that Indonesia had begun its attack on East Timor.

The administration of President Gerald Ford knew that Indonesia had invaded East Timor using almost entirely US equipment, and that the use of that equipment for that purpose was illegal, the documents showed.

In 1977, officials of the administration of Ford's successor, Jimmy Carter, blocked declassification of an explosive cable transcribing President Ford and Secretary of State Kissinger's meeting with Indonesian President Suharto.

At the meeting in December 1975, they explicitly approved of the East Timor invasion, according to the documents.

Through the 1980s, US officials continued to receive -- and deny or dismiss -- credible reports of Indonesia's massacres of Timorese civilians.

The National Security Archive had provided more than 1000 formerly classified US documents to help an East Timorese commission of inquiry into human rights abuses that occurred between 1975 and 1999.

East Timor president Xanana Gusmao handed the commission's 2500-page report to the Timorese Parliament last Monday but wanted it withheld from the public, amid an outcry from opposition politicians and rights activists.

Brad Simpson, Director of the National Security Archive's Indonesia and East Timor documentation project, said he expected the commission's final report to show that Indonesia's invasion of East Timor and resulting crimes there "occurred in an international context in which the support of powerful nations, especially the US, was indispensable."

"These documents also point to the need for genuine international accountability for East Timor's suffering," he said.