Howdy,
Bagaimana nih ... apa sudah pada cooling down tentang beat around the
bush mengenai kancil dan kanguru yang dancing with the wolves:-).
Ini ada surat dari Allan Nairn yang saya peroleh dari milis tetangga
sebelah:-) Saya tidak dapat check kebenarannya langsung kepada
Mas Allan Nairn, namun dari isi suratnya (hanya itu saja yang bisa
saya probe:-) kelihatannya sangat masuk akal. Enjoy!
PS: Kalau saya diminta membuktikan kebenaran substansi surat Mas Allan,
jelas saya tidak mampu ... apa lagi sudah menyangkut powerplay
tingkat tinggi. Jadi yang percaya seperti saya ... silakan, yang
tidak ... silakan.
Side effects:
Buat Mas David G., saya menikmati komentar anda terutama
mengenai "ketersinggungan" anda atas komentar seorang Ina
terhadap masalah Aborigin. Ternyata Mas David juga bisa
tersinggung tho ... manusiawi sekali ... ternyata Mas David
seperti orang Indonesia juga ya:-) Mungkin memang orang Ina
kadang sering usil mengurusi masalah dalam negeri Oz tentang
Aborigin ... 'kan seharusnya orang-orang Oz sendirilah yang
harus menyelesaikan masalahnya sendiri dengan caranya sendiri,
dalam tempo mereka sendiri dan dengan standard mereka sendiri.
Mohon maaf kalau saya, dan beberapa teman wartawan maupun
pemerhati masalah Oz-Ina terlalu mencampuri urusan Oz dengan
"standard kami" yang jelas bukan standard ISO 910101010:-)
Mungkin kalau ada waktu kita dapat mendiskusikan "standard"
apa yang harus digunakan dalam menilai kejadian di negeri
orang ... pareng ... semanten rumiyin:-) Salam manis.
Mengenai Timtim pendapat saya adalah karena jajak pendapat
menghasilkan kemenangan 90% bagi prokemerdekaan, maka kita
hormati pendapat rakyat Timtim dengan melepaskan propinsi
jajahan:-) Timtim dengan tulus.
Mengenai argumentasi bahwa Unamet ... oops oknum Unamet main
curang, saya pribadi berpendapat bahwa itu masih dalam batas
kewajaran ... memang ada orang-orang yang curang. Andaikan
dalam jajak-pendapat itu terlaksana tanpa ada kecuranganpun,
saya masih yakin akan dimenangkan prokemerdekaan, hanya
prosentasenya mungkin berubah. Jadi biarkan Timtim merdeka
sesuai kehendak mereka.
Yang prointegrasi ... ya silakan diskusi dengan teman-
teman mereka yang prokemerdekaan ... mau bagi-bagi kapling
atau hidup berdampingan silakan saja dicari jalan keluarnya
.. 'kan mereka sudah akan menjadi negara merdeka jadi dapat
menentukan masa depan mereka sendiri ... siapa tahu
mereka ingin membentuk dua (tidak hanya satu) negara merdeka.
Howgh!
-- Djoko Luknanto-Jack la Motta
The Nation, September 27, 1999
Selected Editorial
US Complicity in Timor
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 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 Liquiça, 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 Liquiça, 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 attaché 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
