East Timor: militias must be stopped The following article was published in "The Guardian", newspaper of the Communist Party of Australia in its issue of Wednesday, May 26th, 1999. Contact address: 65 Campbell Street, Surry Hills. Sydney. 2010 Australia. Phone: (612) 9212 6855 Fax: (612) 9281 5795. Email: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Webpage: http://www.peg.apc.org/~guardian Subscription rates on request. ****************************** By Rohan Gowland Indonesia's support and training of the militia groups terrorising the East Timorese people, as has now been widely reported in the mainstream media as well as the progressive press, makes it totally unacceptable for Indonesia to oversee the referendum on East Timorese independence. Indonesia must immediately be stripped of its "peace-keeping" role and a United Nations peace-keeping force be sent to East Timor. In the May 5 agreement between Indonesia, Portugal and the UN on the referendum, Indonesia agreed not to seek to influence the ballot process and to enforce the law impartially. Those commitments have been shattered, with Indonesia actively orchestrating a campaign of terror: torture, beatings, disappearances, public executions and massacres. Under the agreement, the UN is sending a mere 600 personnel to oversee the ballot. With 17,000 Indonesian troops in East Timor and thousands of pro-Indonesian terrorist militia, this small international team will be utterly incapable of making the referendum free from intimidation and violence. "Almost every day, we hear of another community that has been terrorised due to the activities of these groups and their Indonesian military masters", said the Campaign for an Independent East Timor (CIET-SA). "Their victims have been raped, tortured, disemboweled, shot, hacked or bludgeoned to death. East Timor is suffering a neo-nazi nightmare and the international response to this tragic situation is underwhelming", said CIET. A national Day of Solidarity with the people of East Timor has been organised by the ACTU, unions, solidarity organisations, and community groups for Thursday, May 27. The day is also supported by prominent individuals such as Shirley Shackelton, wife of Greg Shackelton, a television journalist murdered when Indonesia invaded East Timor in 1975. ACTU President Jennie George said, "We must send a signal to the Australian Government and the Indonesian military that the violence and intimidation against the East Timorese people must end." The referendum is set to take place on August 8, but as things stand now the East Timorese people will not be in a position to freely exercise their right of self-determination. The Guardian 65 Campbell Street, Surry Hills. 2010 Australia. Email: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Website: http://www.peg.apc.org/~guardian -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.alexia.net.au/~www/mhutton/index.html Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
