From: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu (Rich Winkel)
Subject: NAIRN QUESTIONS REEBOK PRACTICES IN INDONESIA
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: PACH
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1993 22:01:25 GMT

/** reg.easttimor: 274.1 **/
** Written  3:10 pm  Jan  1, 1993 by cscheiner in cdp:reg.easttimor **
ALLAN NAIRN QUESTIONS REEBOK PRACTICES IN INDONESIA

Reebok International Ltd., a multinational shoe company, gives out annual
$25,000 human rights awards. One of the four young 1992 recipients was
Fernando de Araujo, an East Timorese student activist. Fernando, who chairs
RENETIL, is serving nine years in prison for organizing a nonviolent protest
in Jakarta on November 19, 1991, a week after Indonesian troops killed at
least 273 Timorese demonstrators at the Santa Cruz cemetery in Dili.

Indonesian authorities did not allow Fernando to attend the ceremony, which
was held in Boston on December 9, 1992. Amy Goodman and Allan Nairn, the two
American journalists who witnessed and were beaten at the Santa Cruz
massacre on November 12, 1991, were asked to speak to the assembled
thousands of human rights activists, media stars, and Reebok officials about
East Timor. Amy gave some historical background and told of her and Allan's
experience there, as well as that of the East Timorese. Allan's talk is
excerpted below. Although many of the attendees and media were interested in
what he said, Reebok officials, including CEO Paul Fireman who chaired the
event, had no comment.

---------

Indonesia's slaughter or one-third of the Timorese ranks as one of the
greatest genocides of this century.

Though few Americans know it, that crime has been  carried out in direct
collaboration with the US government.

President Ford and Henry Kissinger approved the 1975 invasion, and then
prevented the United Nations from taking effective action even though the
Security Council has twice called on Indonesia to withdraw its troops
without delay. The Carter, Reagan, and Bush administrations continued to arm
Indonesia through every year of the Timorese genocide.

But now, in Congress there is a serious, bipartisan move to reverse the
course of US policy ...

And Americans who sincerely care about standing up for human rights have to
be honest about another fact.

The US has for years supported such repressive regimes in large part on
behalf of US corporations.

Inside Indonesia, the government suppresses independent unions, which allows
companies to pay near-starvation wages.

That helps Reebok, Nike, and others who make huge profits in Indonesia,
paying the workers who make their shoes -- many of them young women from the
countryside -- wages of about a dollar a day.

Such companies have an obligation to -- at the very least -- call on
Washington to stop shipping arms to the brutal Indonesian regime.

Right now in occupied Timor, on the other side of the world, it is about 11
o'clock at night. Chances are that at this moment a Timorese is in
excruciating pain, being sliced with razor blades or ravaged by electric
shock at the hands of a soldier armed by our own government.

The latest  report, last week, from Timor is of a young taxi driver who had
all his toenails and fingernails pulled out because the army suspected he
was a friend of Xanana Gusmao, the recently captured Timorese resistance
leader. The East Timorese are doing all they can. Like Fernando de Araujo,
they have shown inexpressible courage in standing up; for their right to
self-determination and a free and decent life.

But Timorese cannot vote in American elections, they cannot demonstrate on
American streets. They cannot lobby the US Congress.

Only we Americans can bring an end to US support for the running slaughter
in East Timor.

** End of text from cdp:reg.easttimor **

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