Burma sanctions, US State, E Timor,

[cd@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Subject: Burma sanctions, US State, E Timor,Chomsky, Nairn

Whatever happens, Indonesia may be next for US sanctions, or should be,
especially
when we get postings over Burma & China. Currently the far political
right in the America is harking sanctions on China. Why not Indonesia
first? The following quote from the US Ambassador Stapleton Roy to
Indonesia reminds us the nature of current US military presence &
strategy and what it can do to US officials, and why they are scared of
the grass roots democratic Free Burma movement.

It prompts me to send this extract from Professor Norm Chomsky (recently
with Simon Billenness, speaking on Burma) and journalist Allain Nairn,
who spoke at the AU FBC conference in February.

Does anyone have any background files on Roy, I would like to see them.
Who is this man anyway 
and where did he come from, and why is he ambassador in Indonesia now?

Metta, Dawn Star

Norm Chomsky's December address on East Timor along with Allain Nairn's
speech  the same day is available to those who want it, soon up on
Euro-Burmanet. 

The following is extract of what came over the net today:

Corporate America thought that when Clinton cut the link between China's
human rights record and its trading status in 1994, the issue was
buried, at
least for Asia. But human rights organisations' success in lobbying for
Burma sanctions-a measure which Congress passed in September-has
encouraged them to look at other targets. By some counts, more than 30
states, counties and cities have enacted, or plan, sanctions against
Burma
and Indonesia.

The American ambassador to Indonesia, Stapleton Roy, was so worried
about the trend that he sent a cable to Washington on February 12: 

"I urge in the strongest terms that we not pussyfoot around on this
question but
rather mount a strong and concerted effort to oppose such local
initiatives
with all the ammunition we can muster."

--   FEER: THE SANCTIONS GAME (American groups now target Indonesia and
China, ."...self-determination.It's as American as apple pie.")  8/5/97
Nigel Holloway-FEER 

+++++

Now for some background extracts: 

First extract, Allain Nairn (scene describe by Nairn to FBC in DC, of
the killing of 270 men women and children
during a peaceful funeral march turned silent demonstration, cut down by
Indonesian military's US-built  M-16s) :

 ...We were able to get up, escape from the scene, report the massacre
to the outside world. The next day, General Try Sutrisno, National
Commander of the Indonesian armed forces - formal speech to a
military gathering says, "These Timorese are disrupters. Such people
must be shot and we will shoot them." He's since been promoted to
Vice President of Indonesia. The U.S. State Department - they had to
condemn the massacre. It was out. But they said in the next breath
they were going to double military aid to Indonesia. Why? Because it
inculcates democratic ideals and humanitarian values [some groans
from audience] in the Indonesian military.

I'm no defender of the Indonesian military but, in a sense, this is
quite unfair to them. Whose democratic ideals and humanitarian values
are they going to teach? Those of President Ford and Henry Kissinger
who, 16 hours before the December 7, 1975 invasion, gave the green
light to Suharto to go in and begin the slaughter, doubled U.S.
military aid, worked behind the scenes at the UN to prevent the UN
Security Council resolutions from being enforced? Those of Jimmy
Carter who has, as Constancio described - the Timorese were fleeing
through the hills, the Indonesian army couldn't get their hands on
them, Carter sent in the planes and helicopters which they used to
bomb and strafe the Timorese down from the hills, put them in the
prison and resettlement camps, implement the policy of enforced
starvation, Pol Pot-style systematic massacres? Those of Reagan and
Bush and Clinton, who have continued to arm the massacre, year after
year? Those of Clinton's people who, just a couple weeks ago, as
Suharto strolled into the Oval Office to be greeted by open arms by
Clinton, Gore, Mickey Cantor, the trade representative, and others -
after being feted by CARE, the international humanitarian
organization who praised Suharto as the elected president of
Indonesia; by Asia Society, the academic organization which,
likewise, praised Suharto - and then, after that meeting, the Clinton
official told the New York Times, Suharto, "he's our kind of guy"?

Here is a mention of Winston Lord, and Kissenger, supporting Suharto
'out kind of guy'.

A battle: On
the one side, the Indonesian army, their paid lobbyists in
Washington, ATT, General Electric specifically called in for the deal
by Suharto, the U.S. State Department led by Winston Lord - Suharto -
one of Suharto's key men in Washington, the Pentagon, etc. On the
other side, a few church groups, human rights groups, the nascent -
then nascent East Timor Action Network, a grassroots mobilization
across the country. A big battle in Congress. Fall of 1992. Well,
what happened? Well, the Indonesian military, the Pentagon, the
lobbyists, the State Department lost. And the grassroots groups, the
human rights groups won. Congress voted to cut off the IMET military
training aid to Indonesia. Sent shock waves - shock waves - through
Jakarta. They'd never seen anything like it throughout the decades of
U.S. support for the Suharto regime - a regime - the author of two of
the greatest mass murders of this century.

It was the beginning of a string of grass roots victories. 

The IMETcutoff, stopping a shipment of F-5 fighter planes, reversing the
U.S.
position at the human rights commission, winning a ban on small arms
sales to Indonesia. The corporations who fought back, outfits like
Freeport-McMoRan, which is destroying the forests and the rivers and
the indigenous peoples of Irian Jaya, whose head, Jim-Bob Moffett,
introduced Suharto personally at the CARE session at the Asia Society
session - a corporation which is now, by the way, politically on the
run, thanks to the work of grassroots activists in Indonesia, in
Texas, in Louisiana; people like Eyal Press, who may be here today,
who recently did an excellent piece in the Nation describing the
predations of this company around the world. They had to place - they
felt compelled to place two full-page ads in the New York Times
business section the other day. There was a demonstration outside the
house by students in Louisiana, the house of Jim-Bob Moffett, the
chairman. They were chanting, "Jim-Bob Moffett kills for profit."
Moffett was so outraged by this lack of respect, he stormed into the
University Loyola, where he had tried to endow a chair of corporate
communications; yanked the money. This massive company, with Henry
Kissinger sitting on its board of directors, by the way, [some
audience hissing] now on the run. Just had their OPIC insurance
yanked by Washington as a result of grassroots mobilization.


Prof Chomsky:

 .... McNamara explains with admirable frankness what he means by the
"independent, non-Communist South Vietnam" that he offered to the South
Vietnamese whale after it surrendered to U.S. power -- which, under the
U.S. negotiating offers, would continue to rule South Vietnam, by
violence
if necessary, after external support for the resistance ends. He refers
virtually in the same breath to Indonesia, which had "reversed course"
after the killing of "300,000 or more PKI members...and now lay in the
hands of independent nationalists led by Suharto," who had orchestrated
the
slaughter.

Note that Suharto's victims become members of the PKI (the Communist
Party)
by virtue of having been killed. The term does, however, have some merit
in
the light of the conclusion of mainstream scholarship that "the PKI had
won
widespread support not as a revolutionary party but as an organization
defending the interests of the poor within the existing system" (Harold
Crouch). If so, there must have been plenty of "Communists," and their
extermination is certainly to be welcomed -- as it was, without
restraint.23

The case of Indonesia is an important one. Indonesia was the biggest
domino, a country of rich resources and potential, which, it was feared,
might be influenced by Communist success on the mainland, a particular
danger because of the domestic appeal of the party of the poor.
Washington's strong support for the 1957-8 military revolt against the
independent nationalist Sukarno government was motivated by fear that
the
PKI would win the next election, and the cancellation of all elections
after the U.S. subversive activities had undermined the parliamentary
system was considered a substantial victory. Washington then looked
forward
to the "elimination" of the PKI, which was achieved with the Suharto
coup
and the huge slaughter organized and instigated by the army he commanded
in
late 1965, an operation ranked by the CIA as among "the worst mass
murders
of the 20th century." This "staggering mass slaughter" as the New York
Times described it, was backed enthusiastically by the U.S. government
(if
not instigated by it), and welcomed with unconcealed delight by the
media
and political analysts in the United States. The U.S. responded eagerly
to
the army's request for weapons "to arm Moslem and nationalist youth in
Central Java for use against the PKI" in the context of the proclaimed
policy "to eliminate the PKI." The General in charge of the slaughter
was
an "independent nationalist" in the sense that he subordinated himself
to
U.S. power and opened his country at once to foreign investors. He was a
"pro-Western neutralist," in the Orwellian terminology of U.S. political
discourse, though far more murderous even than the norm.

That is the model of "independent nationalism" that McNamara offers to
the
only mass-based political party in South Vietnam, without shame or
probably
much comprehension,

McNamara in fact knows -- or once knew -- more than he lets on here.
Immediately after the gratifying mass slaughter, he took credit for the
achievement, telling a Senate Committee that U.S. military aid to
Indonesia
had "paid dividends" and was therefore justified, and informing
President
Johnson, in a private communication, that U.S. military assistance to
the
Indonesian army had "encouraged it to move against the PKI when the
opportunity was presented." He stressed particularly the value of the
programs that brought Indonesian military personnel for training in
American universities, where they learned the lessons they put to use so
well and acquired "the favorable orientation of the new Indonesian
political elite" (the army). A few years ago, McGeorge Bundy observed
that
it might have made sense for the U.S. to wind down its operations in
Vietnam after the major domino had been secured by a gratifying mass
murder
that the CIA compares to the Nazis and Stalin, and McNamara expresses
some
sympathy with that view as well.24

++++

Both Lord (assisting Sec of STate Albright today)  and Kissenger among
others endorsed and condoned the 1965
masscre:  Here is some extracts from Prof Chomsky:

The CIA concurred with the Times judgment. It described this as, in its
words, as "one of the
worst mass murders of the 20th century." Went on to compare it to
Hitler and Stalin and it described Suharto's coup as certainly one of
the most significant events of the 20th century. That's the 1965 coup
that led instantly to the massacre.


And, for historical perspective, here is Prof Chomsky on the
pro-sanctions, pro-Free Burma, patrician 
Senator Moynihan:

The reason for the UN's failure was explained in his memoirs by
your Senator - Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan - who was, at that
time, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. In his memoirs, he
says, the U.S. "wished things to turn out as they did and worked to
bring this about. The Department of State desired that the" UN "prove
utterly ineffective in whatever measures it" might undertake. "This
task was given to me, and I carried it" out "with no inconsiderable
success." He also knew how things turned out. He goes on to say that,
in the next couple of weeks, about 60,000 people were killed - the
same proportion, he says, as the number of people killed by the Nazis
on the eastern front. And - having proudly compared himself to the
Nazis - he then goes on to some other topic. Ever since then,
Moynihan has been lauded as one of the great champions of inter-
national law and morality; kind of a lone voice in the wilderness;
another tribute to the humanity and high ideals of the educated
classes among whom we live, here and elsewhere, and the leadership
class.

Well, in 1977 and 1978, despite its huge military force, which we
had provided to it, Indonesia was actually running out of arms in its
attack on East Timor, and President Carter kind of took off a little
time from his speeches about the soul of our -human rights being the
soul of our foreign policy to authorize new shipments of arms. And
that enabled the attack to reach really near-genocidal levels in 1978
and the atrocities are going on until today - always with
enthusiastic Western support, though, as you heard - and this is
critically important - popular protest here, in which ETAN [East
Timor Action Network] has played a central role, has, indeed, been
quite effective. Congress has limit - legislated various limits on
arms and training that's compelled the Clinton administration to
resort to considerable trickery and subterfuge to evade the limits;
denounced by Congress, but continued. Britain and Australia have
eagerly stepped in to fill the gap, realizing that there's plenty of
money to be made by participating in another "staggering mass
slaughter."

ALLAN NAIRN

In terms of Moynihan, starting a few years ago, very quietly,
Moynihan started responding to constituency letters with this - it's
like a two-page single-spaced little essay which is extremely
tortured and convoluted. But - and it's  impossible to summarize! But
what it basically says is, "Yes, the U.S. policy on Timor was
mistaken and that the U.S. should now change the policy." And, in
recent years, Moynihan always signs the letters to change the policy.
He always votes for those who are advocating, you know, an end to the
slaughter in Timor. But he has never stood up and apologized and
acknowledged his own role.

Specifically, two years ago, I was in Moynihan's office and sat
down with his foreign policy people and was basically asking them to
say, "Look" - and the issue at the time there was a measure being
pushed by Senator Feingold, Senator Leahy and others that would have
prohibited the use of U.S.-supplied arms to Indonesia in East Timor.
And it came up on the floor; it was shot down at the last minute by
Senator Bennett Johnston of Louisiana, who is in the pocket of
Freeport-McMoRan. But I said to Moynihan's people, "Look, if a
Senator stood up on the floor of the Senate, renounced his past on
East Timor and explained, `I was there. I'm the one who stopped the
UN from enforcing the Security Council Resolutions. I know - I now,
therefore, urge you to lead the United States in reversing course and
getting out of East Timor.' It would have tremendous impact." They
basically said, "no way"; he didn't do that. He did vote; he does
vote the right way; he does sign the letters. But he won't come out
and say it, and he will not apologize to those hundreds of thousands
dead.

++++
Prof Chomsky on East Timor resources, OIL, etc...

Washington's support for the invasion was, in a certain sense, just a
reflex; part of the natural
reward for our Indonesian allies. Although, in fact, more was
involved, including even Timorese resources - nowhere near the scale
of Indonesia, of course, but still rich enough; rich enough to merit
plunder.

If internal planning documents are ever released, which I'm not
confident about - given the record - but if they ever are, we will
very likely discover that the basic reason for Western support of the
invasion was one that was expressed by the Australian Ambassador to
Jakarta, Indonesia, Richard Woolcott, in August 1975 - that's a
couple of months before the official invasion. But the invasion was
already underway. Indonesia was, at that time, initiating the early
steps of the planned invasion, which were perfectly well known to
Western intelligence and everyone else, and reported; all completely
known. He sent a secret cable from Jakarta to Australia which leaked
a couple years later in Australia, and he advised support for the
invasion that was being planned and was just about to come off
because, he said, favorable arrangements to exploit East Timor's
considerable oil resources "could be much more readily negotiated
with Indonesia...than with Portugal or" than an independent East
Timor. So we can make a little more money - I mean obviously they're
going to sell the oil anyway - they're not going to drink it - but we
can make a little more money if we would support the Indonesian
invasion and not have to make a deal about this with an independent
East Timor. And, in fact, Australia officially recognized the
Indonesian invasion of East Timor shortly after the annexation -
officially recognized it de jure shortly after, and later signed a
treaty with Indonesia to share the oil of what the treaty calls "the
Indonesian Province of East Timor." If you read the treaty, there is
a phrase in it about anything that might go to the indigenous
population, whose oil is being robbed.

Well, the big feeding frenzy of the oil companies didn't really
begin until immediately after the Dili massacre, which you've just
heard about, graphically. Immediately after the massacre - while the
official protests were being made - the oil companies initiated their
large-scale operations, including Phillips Petroleum in Oklahoma,
which announced a big find shortly after. You'll search in vain for
any discussion of these matters in the mainstream press - although it
should be mentioned that one reporter in Oklahoma did write an
excellent story about it, focusing on Phillips, which is based in
Oklahoma. It was approved by the editors, but it was killed by the
owners. That's another tribute to the "free press." The national
media have kept a discrete silence about the whole matter.

Well, as for the invasion itself, the bare facts I think you know.
As I just briefly review, the invasion had been in progress actually
for several months, prior to the December 7th final invasion that, as
you heard, was delayed a few hours to avoid embarrassing President
Ford and Henry Kissinger, who were then visiting Indonesia. Ninety
percent of Indonesia's arms at the time had come from the United
States under a treaty requiring that they be used for self-defense.
The United States did impose a six-month arms embargo, but in secret.
In fact, it was so secret that the Indonesians never heard about it.
They read about it later.


Again Prof Chomsky:

Decolonization was then carried out, but in ways that pretty much
main - essentially maintained the relations of exploitation. However,
the collapse of fascist Portugal was ominous and it was watched with
great concern because of possible consequences in Africa. And - as in
East Timor - the attack was brutal and very destructive. The UN
Commission - Economic Commission on Africa - estimated that more than
a million and a half people were killed and more than sixty billion
dollars of damage was caused in the Reagan years alone. That's when
we were following the policy of what was called "constructive
engagement" in support of South Africa - and that's pretty
impressive, too

And finally, Allain Nairn, on what to do: 

And just to add one thing, for people in this country, in terms of
U.S. policy: The actions that are demanded to end the illegal
occupation of East Timor and, also, to support people within
Indonesia itself, who are fighting for their lives and fighting for
democracy - they're the same actions. It's the exact same set of
actions. And that is to cut off the U.S. support for the Suharto
dictatorship. Specifically, right now, stop that transfer of F-16
fighter planes to Indonesia.

For more information, contact:

East Timor Action Network / U.S.
P.O. Box 1182, White Plains, New York 10602
Tel: (914) 428-7299, Fax: (914) 428-7383
E-mail: etan-us@xxxxxxxxxxx


Charles Scheiner
P.O. Box 1182, White Plains, New York 10602 USA
Telephone:1-914-428-7299     fax:1-914-428-7383
Internet:  cscheiner@xxxxxxxxxxx 
For information on East Timor write timor-info@xxxxxxxxxxx




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