Hosted by the Australian National University’s (ANU) Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, New Mandala provides anecdote, analysis and new perspectives on Southeast Asia.
In an article headlined 'Proxyphobia' in Indonesia - New Mandala 17 November 2016 - Terry Russell analyses the way stoking fear and loathing amongst citizens of the country helps the military march further into civilian affairs in Indonesia. Terry Russell's article is an analysis but also a warning. He says:
Fear. It’s one of the most powerful tools in politics, and the fear of foreigners is one of the most powerful fears. We have seen how masterfully Donald Trump exploited this, but know less about how masterfully the Indonesian military exercises this tool.
The Indonesian military has exploited the fear of foreigners by proclaiming that many of Indonesia’s social ills are due to the influence of foreign proxies. This campaign has provided two distinct political advantages and can be divided into two phases. In the first phase, in 2014 General Gatot Nurmantyo personally commenced a campaign that helped him rise to Chief of the Armed Forces in July 2015. In the second phase, Indonesia’s Defence Minister Ryamizard Ryacudu broadened Nurmantyo’s crusade in order to quieten political resistance while increasing military intervention in civilian life in Indonesia.
Phase one of the proxy war fear campaign During the 2014-2015 campaign Nurmantyo argued that Indonesia was threatened by a Proxy War. As the army’s second-in-command, he travelled from province to province, warning local students that foreign powers were seeking to further their own ends via Indonesian NGOs, mass organisations, and social interest groups. Nurmantyo claimed that foreigners were behind East Timor’s separation from Indonesia, and could be behind the rampant circulation of drugs among Indonesian youth and demonstrations against palm oil companies. He also warned that Indonesian students who took up scholarships in foreign countries could unwittingly become agents for foreign interests and that foreign interests might seek to buy and control Indonesia’s mass media. He even speculated that the media, influenced by foreigners, could be engineering ‘conflict between the military and police or between political parties’.
Nurmantyo’s campaign may have been motivated by ambitions to increase military intervention in civilian life in Indonesia, or by a genuine concern about foreign proxies. However there is some evidence it was also motivated by personal political aspirations.
More of this article is shared below. One of the responses to this analysis found at the bottom of the webpage prompts the title of this page.
A critical analysis, and a commentary upon aspects of contemporary Indonesian politics, invites comment. But, what is significant here is this dismissal of the analysis on the apparently flimsiest of reasons, that amounts to an essentially nativist position;
you're not Indonesian people, criticism and your views unmasked of the actual !
nyahok
Russell and the author of another respondent are not Indonesian people, so nyahok is effectively saying; "go away and shut up".
Why? And, by the way, what defines the grouping "Indonesian people"?
Among Nurmantyo' accusations, as set out in Russell's piece, is the claim that foreigners were behind East Timor’s separation from Indonesia.
In LODE 1992 one of the newspaper pages wrapping the cargo made, and documented, in Glodok on 11 March 1992, contained a story about events that had taken place in Dili, East Timor:
ABRI not to blame for tragedy in East Timor. Minister of Defence and Security L. B. Moerdani says the armed forces (ABRI) was not involved in the developments of East Timor in the run up to the Nov 12 tragedy in Dili.
"The tragedy was not caused by ABRI, my brothers, but after things got out of hand it was ABRI, again, which was asked to settle the matter. "
THE JAKARTA POST, March 11, 1992 What is ABRI? ABRI - Angkatan Bersenjata Republik Indonesia - the Armed Forces of the Republic of Indonesia consists of the three military services - the army, navy, and air force - and the police. The effort to forge a united and coherent nation that could accommodate the natural diversity of peoples in the Indonesian archipelago has always been a central theme in the country's history. ABRI plays a role in national society that is perhaps unique in the world. The military establishment in the early 1990s was involved in many affairs of state that elsewhere were not normally associated with military forces and acknowledged as the dominant political institution in the country. The armed forces establishment, led by the dominant branch, the army, has been the country's premier institution since 1966 when, in its own view, it answered the summons of the people and moved to the center stage of national life. Comprising the three military services and the police, the armed forces operated according to dwifungsi, or dual function, a doctrine of their own evolution, under which they undertook a double role as both defenders of the nation and as a social-political force in national development.
To fully understand the role of the armed forces in contemporary Indonesian society, one must understand the absolute priority the government and the military leadership has placed, from the beginning of the New Order, on the importance of internal security to the achievement of national stability. The New Order government, whose military leaders played an important role in 1965 in crushing what was officially described as a communist coup attempt, believed that threats to internal stability were the greatest threats to national security. Having experienced two attempted coups, supposedly communist-inspired, a number of regional separatist struggles, and instability created by radical religious movements, the government had little tolerance for public disorder.
Since the beginning of Suharto's rise to power in 1965, the armed forces accepted and supported the foundation of his regime, namely, the belief that economic and social development was the nation's first priority and that social and political stability was absolutely essential if that goal were to be achieved. The primary mission of the armed forces has therefore been to maintain internal stability. The maintenance of internal security was considered an integral part of national defense itself. Indonesian doctrine considers national defense within the broader context of "national resilience," a concept that stresses the importance of the ideological, political, economic, social, and military strength of the nation. Like dwifungsi, this concept has also legitimized activities of the armed forces in areas not ordinarily considered belonging to the military sphere, and governed by the so-called philosophy, or ideology, a pan-religious and cultural framework created to underpin the creation of a national identity - Pancasila. What was the Nov 12 tragedy in Dili? If you google "Nov 12 tragedy in Dili" you will find yourself looking at webpages that refer to the Dili massacre or the The Santa Cruz massacre. This tragedy involved the shooting of at least 250 East Timorese pro-independence demonstrators in the Santa Cruz cemetery in the capital, Dili, on 12 November 1991, during the Indonesian occupation of East Timor by ABRI, and is understood as being a significant event in what has been identified internationally as the East Timorese genocide.
This event was one atrocity among many, that took place in the Indonesian occupation of East Timor beginning in December 1975 and lasting until October 1999.
The Portuguese first arrived in Timor in the 16th century, and in 1702 East Timor came under Portuguese colonial administration. Portuguese rule was tenuous until the island was divided with the Dutch Empire in 1860. A significant battleground during the Pacific War, East Timor was occupied by 20,000 Japanese troops. The fighting helped prevent a Japanese occupation of Australia, but resulted in 60,000 East Timorese deaths.
When Indonesia secured its independence after World War II under the leadership of Sukarno, it did not claim control of East Timor, and aside from general anti-colonial rhetoric it did not oppose Portuguese control of the territory. A 1959 revolt in East Timor against the Portuguese was not endorsed by the Indonesian government. A 1962 United Nations document notes: "the government of Indonesia has declared that it maintains friendly relations with Portugal and has no claim to Portuguese Timor...". These assurances continued after Suharto took power in 1965. An Indonesian official declared in December 1974: "Indonesia has no territorial ambition ... Thus there is no question of Indonesia wishing to annex Portuguese Timor."
In 1974, a coup in Lisbon caused significant changes in Portugal's relationship to its colony in Timor. The power shift in Europe invigorated movements for independence in colonies like Mozambique and Angola, and the new Portuguese government began a decolonisation process for East Timor. The first of these was an opening of the political process. When East Timorese political parties were first legalised in April 1974, three groupings emerged as major players in the postcolonial landscape. The União Democrática Timorense (Timorese Democratic Union, or UDT), was formed in May by a group of wealthy landowners. Initially dedicated to preserving East Timor as a protectorate of Portugal, in September UDT announced its support for independence. A week later, the Frente Revolucionária de Timor-Leste Independente (Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor, or Fretilin) appeared. Initially organised as the ASDT (Associacão Social Democrata Timorense), the group endorsed "the universal doctrines of socialism", as well as "the right to independence". As the political process grew more tense, however, the group changed its name and declared itself "the only legitimate representative of the people". The end of May saw the creation of a third party, Associacão Popular Democratica Timorense (Timorese Popular Democratic Association, or APODETI). Advocating East Timor's integration with Indonesia and originally named Associacão Integraciacao de Timor Indonesia (Association for the Integration of Timor into Indonesia), APODETI expressed concerns that an independent East Timor would then be economically weak and vulnerable.
Indonesian nationalist and military hardliners, particularly leaders of the intelligence agency Kopkamtib and special operations unit, Opsus, saw the Portuguese coup as an opportunity for East Timor's integration with Indonesia. The central government and military feared that an East Timor governed by leftists could be used as a base for incursions by unfriendly powers into Indonesia, and also that an independent East Timor within the archipelago could inspire secessionist sentiments within Indonesian provinces. The fear of national disintegration were played upon military leaders close to Suharto and remained as one of Indonesia's strongest justifications for refusing to entertain the prospect of East Timorese independence or even autonomy until the late 1990s. The military intelligence organisations initially sought a non-military annexation strategy, intending to use APODETI as its integration vehicle.
In January 1975, UDT and Fretilin established a tentative coalition dedicated to achieving independence for East Timor. At the same time, the Australian government reported that the Indonesian military had conducted a "pre-invasion" exercise at Lampung.[28] For months, the Indonesian Special Operations command, OPSUS, had been covertly supporting APODETI through Operasi Komodo (Operation Komodo, named after the lizard). By broadcasting accusations of communism among Fretilin leaders and sowing discord in the UDT coalition, the Indonesian government fostered instability in East Timor and, observers said, created a pretext for invading. By May tensions between the two groups caused UDT to withdraw from the coalition.
In an attempt to negotiate a settlement to the dispute over East Timor's future, the Portuguese Decolonization Commission convened a conference in June 1975 in Macau. Fretilin boycotted the meeting in protest of APODETI's presence; representatives of UDT and APODETI complained that this was an effort to obstruct the decolonisation process. In his 1987 memoir Funu: The Unfinished Saga of East Timor, Fretilin leader José Ramos-Horta recalls his "vehement protests" against his party's refusal to attend the meeting. "This", he writes, "was one of our tactical political errors for which I could never find an intelligent explanation."
The tension reached a boiling point in mid-1975, when rumours began circulating of possible power seizures from both independence parties. In August 1975, UDT staged a coup in the capital city Dili and a small-scale civil war broke out. Ramos-Horta describes the fighting as "bloody", and details violence committed by both UDT and Fretilin. He cites the International Committee of the Red Cross, which counted 2,000–3,000 people dead after the war. The fighting forced the Portuguese government onto the nearby island of Atauro. Fretilin defeated UDT's forces after two weeks, much to the surprise of Portugal and Indonesia. UDT leaders fled to Indonesian-controlled West Timor. There they signed a petition on 7 September calling for East Timor's integration with Indonesia; most accounts indicate that UDT's support for this position was forced by Indonesia.
Once they had gained control of East Timor, Fretilin faced attacks from the west, by Indonesian military forces—then known as Angkatan Bersenjata Republik Indonesia (ABRI)—and by a small group of UDT troops. Indonesia captured the border city of Batugadé on 8 October 1975; nearby Balibó and Maliana were taken eight days later. During the Balibó raid, members of an Australian television news crew—later dubbed the "Balibo Five"—were killed by Indonesian soldiers. Indonesian military officials say the deaths were accidental, and East Timorese witnesses say the journalists were deliberately killed. The deaths, and subsequent campaigns and investigations, attracted international attention and rallied support for East Timorese independence.
Balibo is a 2009 Australian war film that follows the story of the Balibo Five, a group of journalists who were captured and killed in October 1975 while reporting on activities, just prior to the Indonesian invasion of East Timor of 1975. While historically accurate, the film is loosely based on the book Cover-Up by Jill Jolliffe, an Australian journalist who met the men before they were killed. The story is seen through the eyes of veteran journalist Roger East. Introduced as a once-fearless foreign correspondent now working in PR in Darwin, East is drawn to East Timor by José Ramos-Horta of Fretilin; then the fledgling republic's charismatic young secretary of foreign affairs. Initially refusing to become involved, East changes his tune after Ramos-Horta shows him photos of five Australian TV reporters missing in the border town of Balibo.
Vignettes then show Greg Shackleton, Gary Cunningham, Malcolm Rennie, Brian Peters and Tony Stewart, all under 30, saying goodbye to loved ones and setting out on their assignments a month earlier.
Parallel action follows with the Balibo Five tracked from East Timor's capital to their terrifying end after filming the Indonesian advance, and East and Ramos-Horta retracing their steps through by now extremely dangerous territory. Shackleton's last surviving report is recreated: sitting in a village, he says its inhabitants don't know if they will be alive tomorrow and have asked him why no one in Australia or anywhere else will help. Inaction from Portugal leads to action by Indonesia At the start of November, the foreign ministers from Indonesia and Portugal met in Rome to discuss a resolution of the conflict. Although no Timorese leaders were invited to the talks, Fretilin sent a message expressing their desire to work with Portugal. The meeting ended with both parties agreeing that Portugal would meet with political leaders in East Timor, but the talks never took place. In mid-November, Indonesian forces began shelling the city of Atabae from the sea, and captured it by the end of the month.
Frustrated by Portugal's inaction, Fretilin leaders believed they could ward off Indonesian advances more effectively if they declared an independent East Timor. National Political Commissioner Mari Alkatiri conducted a diplomatic tour of Africa, gathering support from governments there and elsewhere.
According to Fretilin, this effort yielded assurances from twenty-five countries—including the People's Republic of China, the Soviet Union, Mozambique, Sweden, and Cuba—to recognise the new nation. Cuba currently shares close relations with East Timor today. On 28 November 1975, Fretilin unilaterally declared independence for the Democratic Republic of East Timor. Indonesia announced, UDT and APODETI leaders in and around Balibó would respond the next day by declaring that region independent from East Timor and officially part of Indonesia. But this Balibo Declaration was drafted by Indonesian intelligence and signed on Bali. Later this was described as the 'Balibohong Declaration', a pun on the Indonesian word for 'lie'. Portugal rejected both declarations, and the Indonesian government approved military action to begin its annexation of East Timor. On 7 December 1975, Indonesian forces invaded East Timor. Operasi Seroja (Operation Lotus) was the largest military operation ever carried out by that nation. Troops from Fretilin's military organisation Falintil engaged ABRI forces in the streets of Dili.
On 7 December 1975, Indonesian forces invaded East Timor. Operasi Seroja (Operation Lotus) was the largest military operation ever carried out by that nation. Troops from Fretilin's military organisation Falintil engaged ABRI forces in the streets of Dili,
From the start of the invasion onward, TNI forces engaged in the wholesale massacre of Timorese civilians. At the start of the occupation, Fretilin radio sent the following broadcast: "The Indonesian forces are killing indiscriminately. Women and children are being shot in the streets. We are all going to be killed.... This is an appeal for international help. Please do something to stop this invasion." One Timorese refugee told later of "rape [and] cold-blooded assassinations of women and children and Chinese shop owners". Dili's bishop at the time, Martinho da Costa Lopes, said later: "The soldiers who landed started killing everyone they could find. There were many dead bodies in the streets – all we could see were the soldiers killing, killing, killing." In one incident, a group of fifty men, women, and children – including Australian freelance reporter Roger East, the reporter whose story is told in the film Balibo – were lined up on a cliff outside of Dili and shot, their bodies falling into the sea. Many such massacres took place in Dili, where onlookers were ordered to observe and count aloud as each person was executed. It is estimated that at least 2,000 Timorese were massacred in the first two days of the invasion in Dili alone. In addition to Fretilin supporters, Chinese migrants were also singled out for execution; five hundred were killed in the first day alone.
The mass killings continued unabated as Indonesian forces advanced on the Fretilin-held mountain regions of East Timor. A Timorese guide for a senior Indonesian officer told former Australian consul to Portuguese Timor James Dunn that during the early months of the fighting TNI troops "killed most Timorese they encountered." In February 1976 after capturing the village of Aileu - to the south of Dili - and driving out the remaining Fretilin forces, Indonesian troops machine gunned most of the town's population, allegedly shooting everyone over the age of three. The young children who were spared were taken back to Dili in trucks. At the time Aileu fell to Indonesian forces, the population was around 5,000; by the time Indonesian relief workers visited the village in September 1976 only 1,000 remained. In June 1976, TNI troops badly battered by a Fretilin attack exacted retribution against a large refugee camp housing 5-6,000 Timorese at Lamaknan near the West Timor border. After setting several houses on fire, Indonesian soldiers massacred as many as 2,000 men, women and children.
In March 1977 ex-Australian consul James Dunn published a report detailing charges that since December 1975 Indonesian forces had killed between 50,000 and 100,000 civilians in East Timor. This is consistent with a statement made on 13 February 1976 by UDT leader Lopez da Cruz that 60,000 Timorese had been killed during the previous six months of civil war, suggesting a death toll of at least 55,000 in the first two months of the invasion. A delegation of Indonesian relief workers agreed with this statistic. A late 1976 report by the Catholic Church also estimated the death toll at between 60,000 and 100,000. These figures were also corroborated by those in the Indonesian government itself. In an interview on 5 April 1977 with the Sydney Morning Herald, Indonesian Foreign Minister Adam Malik said the number of dead was "50,000 people or perhaps 80,000".
The Indonesian government presented its annexation of East Timor as a matter of anticolonial unity. A 1977 booklet from the Indonesian Department of Foreign Affairs, entitled Decolonization in East Timor, paid tribute to the "sacred right of self-determination" and recognised APODETI as the true representatives of the East Timorese majority. It claimed that Fretilin's popularity was the result of a "policy of threats, blackmail and terror". Later, Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas reiterated this position in his 2006 memoir The Pebble in the Shoe: The Diplomatic Struggle for East Timor. The island's original division into east and west, Indonesia argued after the invasion, was "the result of colonial oppression" enforced by the Portuguese and Dutch imperial powers. Thus, according to the Indonesian government, its annexation of the 27th province was merely another step in the unification of the archipelago which had begun in the 1940s. The East Timorese were about to become the victims of a genocide inflicted upon them by the Indonesian armed forces and police. Were the East Timorese "Indonesian people"? The International global response In 1975, the United States was completing a retreat from Vietnam. A staunchly anti-communist Indonesia was considered by the United States to be an essential counterweight, and friendly relations with the Indonesian government were considered more important than a decolonisation process in East Timor. The United States also wanted to maintain its access to deep water straits running through Indonesia for undetectable submarine passage between the Indian and Pacific oceans.
US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and President Gerald Ford discussed East Timor with President Suharto one day before the invasion.
On the day before the invasion, US President Gerald R. Ford and US Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger met with Indonesian president Suharto and reportedly gave their approval for the invasion. In response to Suharto saying; "We want your understanding if it was deemed necessary to take rapid or drastic action [in East Timor]." Ford replied: "We will understand and will not press you on the issue. We understand the problem and the intentions you have." Kissinger similarly agreed, though he had fears that the use of U.S.-made arms in the invasion would be exposed to public scrutiny, talking of their desire to "influence the reaction in America" so that "there would be less chance of people talking in an unauthorised way." The US also hoped the invasion would be swift and not involve protracted resistance. "It is important that whatever you do succeeds quickly," Kissinger said to Suharto.
The U.S. supplied weapons to Indonesia during the invasion and the subsequent occupation. A week after the invasion of East Timor, the National Security Council prepared an analysis which found widespread use of US supplied military equipment. Although the US government said they would delay new arms sales from December 1975 to June 1976 pending a review by the State Department to determine whether Indonesia had violated a bilateral agreement stipulating that Indonesia could only use U.S.-supplied arms for defensive purposes, military aid continued to flow, and Kissinger chastised members of his State Department staff for suggesting arms sales be cut. Kissinger was worried about reactions to his policies from the U.S. public, including the Congress, deploring that: "Everything on paper will be used against me". Between 1975 and 1980, when the violence in East Timor was at its climax, the United States furnished approximately $340 million in weaponry to the Indonesian government. US military aid and arms sales to Indonesia increased from 1974 and continued through to the Bush and Clinton years until it was stopped in 1999. US arms provisions to Indonesia between 1975 and 1995 amounted to approximately $1.1 billion. The Clinton administration, under the Pentagon's JCET program, trained the Indonesian Kopassus special forces in urban guerrilla warfare, surveillance, counter-intelligence, sniper tactics and 'psychological operations'.
The UN's Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in East Timor (CAVR) stated in the "Responsibility" chapter of its final report that US; "political and military support were fundamental to the Indonesian invasion and occupation" of East Timor between 1975 and 1999. The report (p. 92) also stated that "U.S. supplied weaponry was crucial to Indonesia's capacity to intensify military operations from 1977 in its massive campaigns to destroy the Resistance in which aircraft supplied by the United States played a crucial role."
Fretilin has claimed that the degree of US support for the Indonesian government's efforts in East Timor may have extended beyond that of diplomatic support and material assistance. A UPI report from Sydney, Australia dated 19 June 1978, quoted a Fretilin press release, which stated: "American military advisers and mercenaries fought alongside Indonesian soldiers against FRETILIN in two battles ... In the meantime, American pilots are flying OV-10 Bronco aircraft for the Indonesian Air Force in bombing raids against the liberated areas under FRETILIN control."
The United States abstained from most of the UN resolutions censuring the Indonesian invasion. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the US Ambassador to the UN at the time, wrote later in his memoirs: "The Department of State desired that the United Nations prove utterly ineffective in whatever measures it undertook. This task was given to me, and I carried it forward with no inconsiderable success." Noam Chomsky explains Why Americans Should Care about East Timor on the Mother Jones webpage, August 26, 1999 There are three good reasons why Americans should care about East Timor. First, since the Indonesian invasion of December 1975, East Timor has been the site of some of the worst atrocities of the modern era — atrocities which are mounting again right now. Second, the US government has played a decisive role in escalating these atrocities and can easily act to mitigate or terminate them. It is not necessary to bomb Jakarta or impose economic sanctions. Throughout, it would have sufficed for Washington to withdraw support and to inform its Indonesian client that the game was over. That remains true as the situation reaches a crucial turning point — the third reason.
President Clinton needs no instructions on how to proceed. In May 1998, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright called upon Indonesian President Suharto to resign and provide for “a democratic transition.” A few hours later, Suharto transferred authority to his handpicked vice president. Though not simple cause and effect, the events illustrate the relations that prevail. Ending the torture in East Timor would have been no more difficult than dismissing Indonesia’s dictator in May 1998.
Not long before, the Clinton administration welcomed Suharto as “our kind of guy,” following the precedent established in 1965 when the general took power, presiding over army-led massacres that wiped out the country’s only mass-based political party (the PKI, a popularly supported communist party) and devastated its popular base in “one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century.” According to a CIA report, these massacres were comparable to those of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao; hundreds of thousands were killed, most of them landless peasants. The achievement was greeted with unrestrained euphoria in the West. The “staggering mass slaughter” was “a gleam of light in Asia,” according to two commentaries in The New York Times, both typical of the general western media reaction. Corporations flocked to what many called Suharto’s “paradise for investors,” impeded only by the rapacity of the ruling family. For more than 20 years, Suharto was hailed in the media as a “moderate” who is “at heart benign,” even as he compiled a record of murder, terror, and corruption that has few counterparts in postwar history.
Suharto remained a darling of the West until he committed his first errors: losing control and hesitating to implement harsh International Monetary Fund (IMF) prescriptions. Then came the call from Washington for “a democratic transition” — but not for allowing the people of East Timor to enjoy the right of self-determination that has been validated by the UN Security Council and the World Court.
In 1975, Suharto invaded East Timor, then being taken over by its own population after the collapse of the Portuguese empire. The United States and Australia knew the invasion was coming and effectively authorized it. Australian Ambassador Richard Woolcott, in memos later leaked to the press, recommended the “pragmatic” course of “Kissingerian realism,” because it might be possible to make a better deal on Timor’s oil reserves with Indonesia than with an independent East Timor. At the time, the Indonesian army relied on the United States for 90 percent of its arms, which were restricted by the terms of the agreement for use only in “self-defense.” Pursuing the same doctrine of “Kissingerian realism,” Washington simultaneously stepped up the flow of arms while declaring an arms suspension, and the public was kept in the dark.
The UN Security Council ordered Indonesia to withdraw, but to no avail. Its failure was explained by then-UN Ambassador Daniel Patrick Moynihan. In his memoirs, he took pride in having rendered the UN “utterly ineffective in whatever measures it undertook” because “[t]he United States wished things to turn out as they did” and “worked to bring this about.” As for how “things turned out,” Moynihan comments that, within a few months, 60,000 Timorese had been killed, “almost the proportion of casualties experienced by the Soviet Union during the Second World War.”
The massacre continued, peaking in 1978 with the help of new arms provided by the Carter administration. The toll to date is estimated at about 200,000, the worst slaughter relative to population since the Holocaust. By 1978, the United States was joined by Britain, France, and others eager to gain what they could from the slaughter. Protest in the West was minuscule. Little was even reported. US press coverage, which had been high in the context of concerns over the fall of the Portuguese empire, declined to practically nothing in 1978.
In 1989, Australia signed a treaty with Indonesia to exploit the oil of “the Indonesian Province of East Timor” — a region sober realists tell us is not economically viable, and therefore cannot be granted the right of self-determination. The Timor Gap treaty was put into effect immediately after the army murdered several hundred more Timorese at a graveyard commemoration of a recent army assassination. Western oil companies joined in the robbery, eliciting no comment.
After 25 terrible years, steps are finally being taken that might bring the horrors to an end. Indonesia agreed to permit a referendum in August 1999 in which the Timorese were to be permitted to choose “autonomy” within Indonesia or independence from it. It is taken for granted that if the vote is minimally free, pro-independence forces will win. The occupying Indonesian army (TNI) moved at once to prevent this outcome. The method was simple: Paramilitary forces were organized to terrorize the population while TNI adopted a stance of “plausible deniability,” which quickly collapsed in the presence of foreign observers who could see firsthand that TNI was arming and guiding the killers.
The militias are credibly reported to be under the direction of Kopassus, the dreaded Indonesian special forces modeled on the US Green Berets and “legendary for their cruelty,” as the prominent Indonesia scholar Benedict Anderson observes. He adds that in East Timor, “Kopassus became the pioneer and exemplar for every kind of atrocity,” including systematic rapes, tortures, and executions, and organization of hooded gangsters. Concurring, Australia’s veteran Asia correspondent David Jenkins notes that this “crack special forces unit [had] been training regularly with US and Australian forces until their behavior became too much of an embarrassment for their foreign friends.” Congress did bar US training of the killers and torturers under IMET, but the Clinton Administration found ways to evade the laws, leading to much irritation in Congress but little broader notice. Now, congressional constraints may be more effective, but without the kind of inquiry that is rarely undertaken in the case of US-backed terror, one cannot be confident.
Jenkins’s conclusion that Kopassus remains “as active as ever in East Timor” is verified by close observers. “Many of these army officers attended courses in the United States under the now-suspended International Military Education and Training (IMET) program,” he writes. Their tactics resemble the US Phoenix program in South Vietnam, which killed tens of thousands of peasants and much of the indigenous South Vietnamese leadership, as well as “the tactics employed by the Contras” in Nicaragua, following lessons taught by their CIA mentors that it should be unnecessary to review. The state terrorists “are not simply going after the most radical pro-independence people but going after the moderates, the people who have influence in their community.”
‘It’s Phoenix’ … notes a well-placed source in Jakarta,” Jenkins writes. That source adds that the aim is “‘to terrorize everyone’ — the NGOs, the [Red Cross], the UN, the journalists.”
The goal is being pursued with no little success. Since April, the Indonesian-run militias have been conducting a wave of atrocities and murder, killing hundreds of people — many in churches to which they fled for shelter — burning down towns, driving tens of thousands into concentration camps or the mountains, where, it is reported, thousands have been virtually enslaved to harvest coffee crops. “They call them ‘internally displaced persons,'” an Australian nun and aid worker said, “but they are hostages to the militias. They have been told that if they vote for independence, they will be killed.” The number of the displaced is estimated at 50,000 or more.
Health conditions are abysmal. One of the few doctors in the territory, American volunteer Dan Murphy, reported that 50 to 100 Timorese are dying daily from curable diseases while Indonesia “has a deliberate policy not to allow medical supplies into East Timor.” In the Australian media, he has detailed atrocious crimes from his personal experience, and Australian journalists and aid workers have compiled a shocking record.
The referendum has been delayed twice by the UN because of the terror, which has even targeted UN offices and UN convoys carrying sick people for treatment. Citing diplomatic, church, and militia sources, the Australian press reports “that hundreds of modern assault rifles, grenades, and mortars are being stockpiled, ready for use if the autonomy option is rejected at the ballot box,” and warns that the TNI-run militias may be planning a violent takeover of much of the territory if, despite the terror, the popular will is expressed.
Murphy and others report that TNI has been emboldened by the lack of interest in the West. “A senior US diplomat summarized the issue neatly: ‘East Timor is Australia’s Haiti'” — in other words, it’s not a problem for the United States, which helped create and sustain the humanitarian disaster in East Timor and could readily end it. (Those who know the truth about the United States in Haiti will fully appreciate the cynicism.)
Reporting on the terror from the scene, Nobel Laureate Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo called for “an international military force” to protect the population from Indonesian terror and permit the referendum to proceed. Nothing doing. The “international community” — meaning Western powers — prefers that the Indonesian army provide “security.” A small number of unarmed UN monitors have been authorized — but subsequently delayed — by the Clinton administration.
The picture in the past few months is particularly ugly against the background of the self-righteous posturing in the “enlightened states.” But it simply illustrates, once again, what should be obvious: Nothing substantial has changed, either in the actions of the powerful or the performance of their flatterers. The Timorese are “unworthy victims.” No power interest is served by attending to their suffering or taking even simple steps to end it. Without a significant popular reaction, the long-familiar story will continue, in East Timor and throughout the world. The Dili massacre In October 1991 a delegation to East Timor consisting of members from the Portuguese Parliament and twelve journalists was planned during a visit from UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights on Torture, Pieter Kooijmans. The Indonesian Government objected to the inclusion in the delegation ofJill Jolliffe, an Australian journalist (and author of the book Cover Up, on which the film Balibo was based) who was regarded as supportive of the Fretilin independence movement, and so Portugal subsequently cancelled the delegation. The cancellation demoralised independence activists in East Timor, who had hoped to use the visit to raise the international profile of their cause. Tension between Indonesian authorities and East Timorese youths rose in the days after Portugal's cancellation. On 28 October, Indonesian troops had located a group of resistance members in Dili's Motael Church. A confrontation ensued between pro-integration activists and those in the church; when it was over, one man on each side was dead. Sebastião Gomes, a supporter of independence for East Timor, was taken out of the church and shot by Indonesian troops, and integration activist Afonso Henriques was stabbed and killed during the fight.
Foreigners who had come to East Timor to observe the Portuguese delegation included independent US journalists Amy Goodman and Allan Nairn, and British cameraman Max Stahl. They attended a memorial service for Gomes on 12 November, during which several thousand men, women, and children walked from the Motael Church to the nearby Santa Cruz cemetery. Along the way, members of the group pulled out banners and East Timorese flags. Organizers of the protest maintained order during the protest; although it was loud, the crowd was peaceful and orderly, by most accounts. It was the largest and most visible demonstration against the Indonesian occupation since 1975. During a brief confrontation between Indonesian troops and protesters, some protesters and a major, Geerhan Lantara were stabbed. Stahl claimed Lantara had attacked a group of protesters including a girl carrying the flag of East Timor, and FRETILIN activist Constâncio Pinto reported witness accounts of beatings from Indonesian soldiers and police. When the procession entered the cemetery some continued their protests before the cemetery wall. Around 200 more Indonesian soldiers arrived and advanced on the gathering, weapons drawn. Indonesian troops advanced on the gathering enclosed in the graveyard, and opened fire on hundreds of unarmed civilians.
The massacre was witnessed by the two American journalists—Amy Goodman and Allan Nairn—and caught on videotape by Max Stahl, who was filming undercover for Yorkshire Television. As Stahl filmed the massacre, Goodman and Nairn tried to "serve as a shield for the Timorese" by standing between them and the Indonesian soldiers. The soldiers began beating Goodman, and when Nairn moved to protect her, they beat him with their weapons, fracturing his skull. The camera crew managed to smuggle the video footage to Australia. They gave it to Saskia Kouwenberg, a Dutch journalist, to prevent it being seized and confiscated by Australian authorities, who subjected the camera crew to a strip-search when they arrived in Darwin, having been tipped off by Indonesia. The video footage was used in the First Tuesday documentary In Cold Blood: The Massacre of East Timor, shown on ITV in the UK in January 1992, as well as numerous other, more recent documentaries. Stahl's footage, combined with the testimony of Nairn and Goodman and others, caused outrage around the world. The program In Cold Blood: The Massacre of East Timor was the overall winner at the inaugural Amnesty International UK Media Awards in 1992.
At least 250 East Timorese were killed in the massacre. One of the dead was a New Zealander, Kamal Bamadhaj, a political science student and human rights activist based in Australia. Indonesian authorities described the incident as a spontaneous reaction to violence from the protesters or a "misunderstanding". Objectors cited two factors: the documented history of mass violence committed by Indonesian troops in places such as Quelicai, Lacluta, and Kraras, and a series of statements from politicians and officers in Indonesia, justifying the military's violence. Try Sutrisno, Commander-in-Chief of the Indonesian forces, said two days after the massacre: "The army cannot be underestimated. Finally we had to shoot them. Delinquents like these agitators must be shot, and they will be." In response to the massacre, activists around the world organised in solidarity with the East Timorese. Although a small network of individuals and groups had been working for human rights and self-determination in East Timor since the occupation began, their activity took on a new urgency after the 1991 massacre. The television pictures of the massacre were shown worldwide, causing the Indonesian government considerable embarrassment. The coverage was a vivid example of how growth of new media in Indonesia was making it increasingly difficult for the "New Order" to control information flow in and out of Indonesia, and that in the post-Cold War 1990s, the government was coming under increasing international scrutiny. Copies of the Santa Cruz footage were distributed back into Indonesia allowing more Indonesians to see the actions of their government uncensored. A number of pro-democracy student groups and their magazines began to openly and critically discuss not just East Timor, but also the "New Order" and the broader history and future of Indonesia. The US Congress voted to cut off funding for IMET training of Indonesian military personnel although arms sales continued from the US to the Indonesian National Armed Forces. President Clinton cut off all US military ties with the Indonesian military in 1999.
The massacre prompted the Portuguese government to increase its diplomatic campaign. Portugal unsuccessfully tried to apply pressure by raising the issue with its fellow European Union members in their dealings with Indonesia. However, other EU countries such as the UK had close economic relations with Indonesia, including arms sales, and were reluctant to jeopardise these. The 1991 Dili Massacre was a turning point for the independence cause and an East Timor solidarity movement grew in Portugal, the Philippines, Australia, and other Western countries.
Chomsky on the media treatment of the Indonesian invasion of East Timor and Pol Pot's atrocities in Cambodia. Excerpt from the documentary "Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media".
In the 1990s, Chomsky embraced political activism to a greater degree than before. Retaining his commitment to the cause of East Timorese independence, in 1995 he visited Australia to talk on the issue at the behest of the East Timorese Relief Association and the National Council for East Timorese Resistance. The lectures that he gave on the subject would be published as Powers and Prospects in 1996. As a result of the international publicity generated by Chomsky, his biographer Wolfgang Sperlich opined that he did more to aid the cause of East Timorese independence than anyone but the investigative journalist John Pilger. After East Timor's independence from Indonesia was achieved in 1999, the Australian-led International Force for East Timor arrived as a peacekeeping force; Chomsky was critical of this, believing that it was designed to secure Australian access to East Timor's oil and gas reserves under the Timor Gap Treaty. Chomsky's book Profit Over People: Neoliberalism and Global Order was a Boston Globe and Voice Literary Supplement bestseller in 1999. The resignation of Suharto and independence for East Timor The invasion by Indonesia of East Timor was not simply an act of aggressive foreign policy, it was about Indonesian politics, identity and the exploitation and manipulation of Indonesia's people and their resources. Suharto was the Indonesian military leader and politician at the heart of this political culture and who served as the second President of Indonesia, holding the office for 31 years, from the ousting of Sukarno in 1967 until his resignation in 1998. During the Japanese occupation of Indonesia, Suharto served in Japanese-organised Indonesian security forces. Indonesia's independence struggle saw his joining the newly formed Indonesian army. Suharto rose to the rank of major general following Indonesian independence. An attempted coup on 30 September 1965 allegedly backed by the Communist Party of Indonesia was countered by Suharto-led troops. The army subsequently led an anti-communist purge which the CIA described as "one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century" and Suharto wrested power from Indonesia's founding president, Sukarno. He was appointed acting president in 1967, replacing Sukarno, and elected President the following year. He then mounted a social campaign known as De-Soekarnoization in an effort to reduce the former President's influence. Support for Suharto's presidency was strong throughout the 1970s and 1980s. By the 1990s, the New Order's authoritarianism and widespread corruption were a source of discontent and, following a severe financial crisis, led to widespread unrest and his resignation in May 1998.
The legacy of Suharto's 31-year rule is debated both in Indonesia and abroad. Under his "New Order" administration, Suharto constructed a strong, centralised and military-dominated government. An ability to maintain stability over a sprawling and diverse Indonesia and an avowedly anti-Communist stance won him the economic and diplomatic support of the West during the Cold War. For most of his presidency, Indonesia experienced significant economic growth and industrialisation, dramatically improving health, education and living standards.
Plans to award National Hero status to Suharto are being considered by the Indonesian government and have been debated vigorously in Indonesia. According to Transparency International, Suharto is the most corrupt leader in modern history, having embezzled an alleged $15–35 billion during his rule. Suharto's resignation was a key moment in the struggle for independence by the East Timorese people, who were at the time Indonesian people, but at the same time clearly NOT Indonesian people. The resignation of Suharto was preceded by riots and demonstations During 1997 and 1998 there were riots in various parts of Indonesia. Sometimes these riots were aimed against the Chinese-Indonesians. Some riots looked spontaneous and some looked as if they had been planned. One theory was that pro-Suharto generals were trying to weaken the forces of democracy by increasing the divisions between the orthodox and the non-orthodox Muslims, between the Muslims and the Christians and between the Chinese and the non-Chinese. Another theory was that certain generals were trying to topple Suharto.
Human Rights Watch Asia reported that in the first five weeks of 1998 there were over two dozen demonstrations, price riots, bomb threats, and bombings on Java and that unrest was spreading to other islands.
An Islamic school and four Mosques were apparently set ablaze by Christians in retaliations for Church fires started by Muslims. At the start of May 1998, students were holding peaceful demonstrations on university campuses across the country. They were protesting against massive price rises for fuel and energy, and they were demanding that President Suharto should step down.
On 12 May, students at Jakarta's Trisakti University, many of them the children of the elite, planned to march to Parliament to present their demands for reform. The police prevented the students from marching, and a little after 5 pm, uniformed men on motorcycles appeared on the flyover overlooking Trisakti. Shots rang out, killing four students. On 13 and 14 May rioting across Jakarta destroyed many commercial centres and over 1,000 died. Ethnic Chinese were targeted. The riots were allegedly instigated by Indonesian military members who were out of uniform. Homes were attacked and women were raped by gangs of men. The US State Department and many human rights groups have argued that the Indonesian military and police participated and incited the rioting and violence against Sino-Indonesians. However, most of the deaths occurred when Chinese owned supermarkets in Jakarta were targeted for looting from 13–15 May and were not the Chinese targets of this violence, but the Javanese Indonesian looters themselves, who were burnt to death by the hundreds when fire broke out. Over 1,000 and as many as 5,000 people died during these riots in Jakarta and other cities such as Surakarta. Many victims died in burning malls and supermarkets but some were shot or beaten to death. A government minister reported the damage or destruction of 2,479 shop-houses, 1,026 ordinary houses, 1,604 shops, 383 private offices, 65 bank offices, 45 workshops, 40 shopping malls, 13 markets, and 12 hotels. Father Sandyawan Sumardi, a 40-year-old Jesuit priest and son of a police chief, led an independent investigation into the events of May 1998. As a member of the Team of Volunteers for Humanitarian Causes he interviewed people who had witnessed the alleged involvement of the military in organizing the riots and rapes.
A security officer alleged that Kopassus (special forces) officers had ordered the burning down of a bank; a taxi driver reported hearing a man in a military helicopter encouraging people on the ground to carry out looting; shop-owners at a Plaza claimed that, before the riots, military officers tried to extract protection money; a teenager claimed he and thousands of others had been trained as protesters; a street child alleged that Kopassus officers ordered him and his friends to become rioters; there was a report of soldiers being dressed up as students and then taking part in rioting; eyewitnesses spoke of muscular men with short haircuts arriving in military-style trucks and directing attacks on Chinese homes and businesses.
In May 1998, thousands of Indonesian citizens were murdered and raped... The Joint Fact Finding Team established to inquire into the 1998 massacres found that there were serious and systematic human rights violations throughout Jakarta. The Team also found that rioters were encouraged by the absence of security forces, and that the military had played a role in the violence. The Team identified particular officials who should be held to account. The Special Rapporteur on violence against women... also pointed to evidence suggesting that the riots had been organized.
Asian Human Rights Commission - Statement Were these Indonesians of Chinese heritage and ethnic origin regarded as Indonesian people? One result of the May riots was that the military appeared to remain the power behind the throne. During a time of widespread fear, the military could claim to offer stability, though it was they who had perhaps helped to orchestrate the disorder. In 2004, General Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was elected president. Each of the three presidential tickets in 2009 included a general as candidate for either president or vice president. A Referendum followed by violence followed by independence Following the resignation of Indonesian President Suharto, a UN-sponsored agreement between Indonesia and Portugal allowed for a UN-supervised popular referendum in August 1999. A clear vote for independence was met with a punitive campaign of violence by East Timorese pro-integration militia with the support of elements of the Indonesian military. With Indonesian permission, an Australian-led multi-national peacekeeping force was deployed until order was restored. On 25 October 1999, the administration of East Timor was taken over by the UN through the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET). The INTERFET deployment ended in February 2000 with the transfer of military command to the UN. On 30 August 2001, the East Timorese voted in their first election organised by the UN to elect members of the Constituent Assembly. On 22 March 2002, the Constituent Assembly approved the Constitution. By May 2002, over 205,000 refugees had returned. On 20 May 2002, the Constitution of the Democratic Republic of East Timor came into force and East Timor was recognised as independent by the UN and the people of East Timor were no longer "Indonesian people"! The Constituent Assembly was renamed the National Parliament and Xanana Gusmão was sworn in as the country's first President. On 27 September 2002, East Timor was renamed to Timor-Leste, using the Portuguese language, and was admitted as a member state by the UN.
The following year, Gusmão declined another presidential term, and in the build-up to the April 2007 presidential elections there were renewed outbreaks of violence. José Ramos-Horta was elected President in the May 2007 election, while Gusmão ran in the parliamentary elections and became Prime Minister. Ramos-Horta was critically injured in an attempted assassination in February 2008. Prime Minister Gusmão also faced gunfire separately but escaped unharmed. Australian reinforcements were immediately sent to help keep order. In 2006, the United Nations sent in security forces to restore order when unrest and factional fighting forced 15 percent of the population (155,000 people) to flee their homes. In March 2011, the UN handed over operational control of the police force to the East Timor authorities. The United Nations ended its peacekeeping mission on 31 December 2012. A message from Noam Chomsky about ETAN
This page ends by returning to the article 'Proxyphobia' in Indonesia
- New Mandala 17 November 2016 - and the analysis Terry Russell makes of how the Indonesian military is stoking
fear and loathing amongst citizens of the country, and that helps the military increasingly shape the political agenda and civilian affairs.
Is the military’s fear mongering really that bad? It could be argued that by being vigilant the Indonesian military is just doing its job. But are the threats really so enormous that Indonesian society needs to be whipped into paranoia? Since 2014, the Indonesian military has urged Indonesians to be suspicious of foreign subterfuge through NGOs, mass organisations, social interest groups, drug traffickers, demonstrators opposing palm oil companies, scholarship winners, gays and lesbians, provocative news media, student brawls, conflicts between groups, promiscuity, the spread of pornography, a communist revival, and terrorists serving foreign interests. That’s a pretty wide-ranging list of proxies. And they could be infiltrating areas as diverse as ideology, politics, the economy, social issues, culture, law and security. It’s hard to think of any other military in the world that is interpreting its role in such a loud, wide-ranging, paranoia-spreading way as the Indonesian armed forces. It’s true that sometimes, in Indonesia and elsewhere around the globe, foreigners are indeed trying to assert influence via proxies. Indeed, Indonesians have good reason to fear foreign intervention due to their experience of the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997 (which was a significant factor, along with military excesses and foreign pressure, in the separation of East Timor). Absent from the above list of threats are the two powerful groups who collaborated in the major undermining of Indonesia’s economy in the 1990s –Suharto-era cronies (many of whom still exercise great influence in Indonesia) and the World Bank/IMF. Former World Bank Chief Economist Joseph Stiglitz noted that many American firms at the 1994 APEC meeting in Jakarta gained agreements “at highly favourable terms (with suggestions of corruption greasing the wheels – to the disadvantage of the people of Indonesia)”. He argued that Indonesia’s economy ultimately collapsed in 1997-98 because Suharto’s government had collaborated with the World Bank to rapidly ‘liberalise’ Indonesia’s banking sector, creating easy access to loans but making Indonesia highly vulnerable to foreign currency speculators. Yet instead of urging vigilance against military excesses and back-room deals between international financiers and local cronies, the Indonesian military’s fear campaign targets NGOs and social interest groups – both of which are a key cog in any nation’s defence against military excesses — and non-transparent deals. Nurmantyo seems to be taking aim at small fish while ignoring the bigger. Of course the Indonesian military is not alone in exploiting a weakness universal in all human beings. It’s the same weakness that is being exploited by Donald Trump, persuading millions of Americans that foreigners are to blame for economic problems in the United States. Earlier this year, Pauline Hansen in Australia and Nigel Farage in Britain gained political mileage out of stoking fear of foreigners. Going back further, Australian Prime Minister John Howard seized on unsubstantiated claims of children being thrown overboard by illegal immigrants to sow fear of foreigners and gain last-minute political mileage in the 2001 Australian election. And Pentagon insiders like former US Secretary of State Colin Powell and former head of the US Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan have all but admitted that US President George W Bush used fabricated claims of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to sow fear of Iraq’s dictator president and gain political support for his oil-driven invasion of Iraq. The Indonesian military’s fear mongering will probably not be as globally disruptive as Bush’s manoeuvring over Iraq, nor as globally televised as Trump’s election campaign. However not even Bush or Trump could match the breadth of fear that has been whipped up in Indonesia. The Indonesian military faces a tough task maintaining peace in a vast, ethnically diverse archipelago of over 250 million people, where roughly half the population still lives on less than US$ 2 per day. It should be appreciated for its role in maintaining relative peace in Indonesia since conflict in Aceh was resolved in 2005. The military should also be appreciated for its calm role on 4 November 2016, when demonstrators took to the streets of Jakarta, calling for the execution of the city’s Governor, ‘Ahok’. Instead of seeking political mileage by blaming the demonstrations on foreign proxies, Ryacudu called upon Ahok’s critics to allow tensions to be resolved through the country’s law courts. Some of the demonstrators, possibly emboldened by the military’s fear mongering, screamed messages of hate against local Chinese (Ahok is of Chinese descent), but the military was not blaming any particular group for the tensions. The military’s noisy proxy war campaign is marketed as a strategy to defend the nation but its astounding breadth and omnipresence make it look more like a strategy to increase the military’s role in civilian affairs. In 2017, will the military revert back to their own calm steadfastness in the 2005-2013 period? Will they acknowledge that most of Indonesia’s tensions are home-grown; that very few actually require the involvement of the military? Or will Nurmantyo and Ryacudu, following the success of Donald Trump’s xenophobia campaign and their own xenophobia campaign in 2016, subject Indonesians to another year of proxyphobia?
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