AUT: E.Timor, US complicity - Allan Nairn (fwd)

["Harry M. Cleaver" <hmcleave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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Date: Thu, 9 Sep 1999 19:42:39 -0700
From: Anna Hoyle <ahoyle@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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Subject: E.Timor, US complicity - Allan Nairn

The following article can also be found at www.thenation.com.


US COMPLICITY IN TIMOR

Click here for background and related information.

While the Indonesian
military's thugs continue their rampage in East Timor, most foreign reporters
have fled the country. As of September 7, frequent Nation contributor and
award-winning journalist Allan Nairn was believed to be the only US reporter
still there. Nairn left the besieged UN compound and walked the streets
of Dili, where he hid in abandoned houses as he observed troops and militia
burning and looting. Nairn has been writing about the troubles there for
years. In 1991, after being badly beaten by Indonesian troops while witnessing
the massacre of several hundred East Timorese, he was declared a "threat
to national security" and banned from the country. He has entered several
times illegally since then. In his most recent Nation dispatch from East
Timor, on March 30, 1998, Nairn disclosed the continuing US military training
of Indonesian troops implicated in the torture and killing of civilians.
He filed this report by satellite telephone to The Nation through Amy Goodman,
host of Pacifica Radio's Democracy Now!

--The Editors


Dili, East Timor
It is by now clear to most East Timorese and a few Westerners still left
here that the militias are a wing of the TNI/ABRI, the Indonesian armed
forces. Recently, for example, I was picked up by militiamen who turned
out to be working for a uniformed colonel of the National Police. [Editors'
note: The Indonesian government has denied any connection between the militias
and either the police or the military.] But there is another important
political
fact that is not known here or in the international community. Although
the US government has publicly reprimanded the Indonesian Army for the
militias,
the US military has, behind the scenes and contrary to Congressional intent,
been backing the TNI.


US officials say that this past April, as militia
terror escalated, a top US officer was dispatched to give a message to
Jakarta.
Adm. Dennis Blair, the US Commander in Chief of the Pacific, leader of all
US military forces in the Pacific region, was sent to meet with General
Wiranto, the Indonesian armed forces commander, on April 8. Blair's mission,
as one senior US official told me, was to tell Wiranto that the time had
come to shut the militia operation down. The gravity of the meeting was
heightened by the fact that two days before, the militias had committed
a horrific machete massacre at the Catholic church in Liqui&ccedil;a, Timor.
YAYASAN HAK, a Timorese human rights group, estimated that many dozens of
civilians were murdered. Some of the victims' flesh was reportedly stuck
to the walls of the church and a pastor's house. But Admiral Blair, fully
briefed on Liqui&ccedil;a, quickly made clear at the meeting with Wiranto
that he was there to reassure the TNI chief. According to a classified cable
on the meeting, circulating at Pacific Command headquarters in Hawaii, Blair,
rather than telling Wiranto to shut the militias down, instead offered him
a series of promises of new US assistance.


According to the cable, which
was drafted by Col. Joseph Daves, US military attach&eacute; in Jakarta,
Admiral Blair "told the armed forces chief that he looks forward to the
time when [the army will] resume its proper role as a leader in the region.
He invited General Wiranto to come to Hawaii as his guest in conjunction
with the next round of bilateral defense discussions in the July-August
'99 time frame. He said Pacific command is prepared to support a subject
matter expert exchange for doctrinal development. He expects that approval
will be granted to send a small team to provide technical assistance to
police and...selected TNI personnel on crowd control measures."

 Admiral
Blair at no point told Wiranto to stop the militia operation, going the
other way by inviting him to be his personal guest in Hawaii. Blair told
Wiranto that the United States would initiate this new riot-control training
for the Indonesian armed forces. This was quite significant, because it
would be the first new US training program for the Indonesian military since
1992. Although State Department officials had been assured in writing that
only police and no soldiers would be part of this training, Blair told Wiranto
that, yes, soldiers could be included. So although Blair was sent in with
the mission of telling Wiranto to shut the militias down, he did the opposite.
Indonesian officers I spoke to said Wiranto was delighted by the meeting.
They took this as a green light to proceed with the militia operation. The
only reference in the classified cable to the militias was the following:
"Wiranto was emphatic: as long as East Timor is an integral part of the
territory of Indonesia, Armed Forces have responsibility to maintain peace
and stability in the region. Wiranto said the military will take steps to
disarm FALINTIL pro-independence group concurrently with the WANRA militia
force. Admiral Blair reminded Wiranto that fairly or unfairly the
international
community looks at East Timor as a barometer of progress for Indonesian
reform. Most importantly, the process of change in East Timor could proceed
peacefully, he said."


So that was it. No admonition. When Wiranto referred
to disarming the WANRA force, he was talking about another militia force,
different from the one that was staging attacks on Timorese civilians. When
word got back to the State Department that Blair had said these  things
in a meeting, an "eyes only" cable was dispatched from the State Department
to Ambassador Stapleton Roy at the embassy in Jakarta. The thrust of this
cable was that what Blair had done was unacceptable and that it must be
reversed. As a result of that cable from Washington to Roy, a corrective
phone call was arranged between General Wiranto and Admiral Blair. That
call took place on April 18.


I have the official report on that phone
call, which was written by Blair's aide, Lieut. Col. Tom Sidwell. According
to the account of the call and according to US military officials I spoke
to, once again Blair failed to tell Wiranto to shut the militias down. In
fact, Blair instead permitted Wiranto to make, in essence, a political speech
saying the same thing he had said before. Here is one passage from the
account:
"General Wiranto denies that TNI and the police supported any one group
during the incidents"--meaning during the military attacks. "General Wiranto
will go to East Timor tomorrow to emphasize three things:...Timorese,
especially
the two disputing groups, to solve the problem peacefully with dialogue;
2) encourage the militia to disarm; 3) make the situation peaceful and solve
the problem." At no point did Blair demand that the militias be shut down,
and in fact this call was followed by escalating militia violence and
increases
in concrete, new US military assistance to Indonesia, including the sending
in of a US Air Force trainer just weeks ago to train the Indonesian Air Force.



Allan Nairn



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