From: lms@rle-vlsi.mit.edu (Luis Miguel Silveira)
Subject: Re: about ET: to indonesians (others also welcome)
Reply-To: lms@rle-vlsi.mit.edu
Organization: Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of
	Technology
	<1992Nov9.181348.44564@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>
	<1992Nov11.104921.2537@inesc.pt>
	<1992Nov12.114752.44677@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1992 22:22:30 GMT



Mr Siahaan, regarding your last article,  

   In article <1992Nov12.114752.44677@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>
   hsiahaan@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes:

   [...]

you start by saying that

   you can see that indonesian government has accepted and treated ETers as
   indonesians. by no way will our government treat them differently from other
   indonesians,

i.e. Claim: as far as the Indonesian government is concerned, the East
Timorese are no different than another citizen

Later you mention that:

   what i am saying is that the tragedy and killings in ETers are not of
   indonesian will.  it is either by necessity or by mistakes.

and you further elaborate that:

   by necessity for example is to take care of the rebellions in the ET
   which can be dengerous to other ETers (who are indonesian citizens)
   and to national integrity.

So concluding, it is necessary to take care of the East Timorese
rebels that are dangerous to the ("other") East Timorese that are of
Indonesian citizenship (your own words).

(aside from the choice of vocabulary as in "take care")

This is quite interesting since:
a) there are now two types of East Timorese: the rebels and the non-rebels

b) the non-rebels (i.e. the "others""), the ones the government wants
   to protect, also happen to be the ones of Indonesian citizenship
   (what a coincidence)
   => this implies that the rebels are not since that is what you chose
      to distinguish them.
   => this contradicts your Claim above since some East Timorese (the
      ones of Indonesian citizenship) are clearly being given preferencial
      treatment.

Furthermore you say:

   by mistakes for example is the one that famous among you portuguese
   which has been handled properly by punishing the wrongdoers.

For all accounts I heard, several East Timorese have been jailed,
prosecuted and sentenced (up to life), for allegedly provoking the
confrontation.  This punishment of the East Timorese is in direct
conflict with the reported Indonesian blaming and punishment of the
responsible military officers (and your own belief).  How can it be
explained?


Extremely notewhorthy is the fact that you arguments are _exactly_
(almost word by word) the ones used by the Portuguese colonial
governments of the 50's, 60's and early 70's in order to
excuse/explain their opression of the populations of the former
colonies.  They too always said that the people in those colonies were
all portuguese, that the rebels had to be crushed to protect the rest
of the population, and the reasons were also those of national
integrity!  Moreover, yes the Portuguese military too had its
unfortunate mistakes...

That the Indonesian government uses the same rhetoric is appalling!


-Miguel


ps - and yes, Portugal did make those things but lived to regret them
and now is working to help those countries under _their_ own terms!
It seems our experience and later recognition of our mistakes would
lead others not to follow us by example but instead to listen.
--
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Luis Miguel Silveira                            e-mail : lms@rle-vlsi.mit.edu
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Research Laboratory for Electronics  -  Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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Cambridge MA 02139                                      Fax:   (617)-258-7864
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Newsgroups: alt.culture.indonesia