From: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu (Rich Winkel)
Subject: Timor: INDONESIA COVERS UP OCCUPATION AT NAM CONFERENCE
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: PACH
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1992 23:41:38 GMT

/** reg.easttimor: 347.0 **/
** Topic: ETAN/US Press Release for NAM Conf **
** Written  1:17 am  Aug 29, 1992 by cscheiner in cdp:reg.easttimor **
Press Release from the East Timor Action Network/US 

To be released at the Non-Aligned Movement Conference in Jakarta, Indonesia.
August 29, 1992

For more information: ETAN/US  tel.(914)428-7299  fax (914)428-7383


INDONESIA COVERS UP OCCUPATION OF EAST TIMOR AT NAM CONFERENCE

As the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) redefines its role in the post cold war 
era, it has reiterated that its basic principles are still relevant. One of 
its original goals was "to eradicate the last vestiges of colonialism, 
foreign occupation, and racial discrimination." (II: B-16) Yet while dozens 
of world leaders deplore all forms of colonialism and foreign occupation at 
the Jakarta conference of NAM, they are conspicuously ignoring one of 
Indonesia's own colonial occupations: namely East Timor.

Indonesia invaded East Timor in 1975 and annexed it in 1976, despite 
repeated calls by the United Nations to withdraw from East Timor without 
delay. The United Nations still maintains the illegality of the occupation 
and calls for self-determination for the East Timorese people. The leaders 
of NAM, meanwhile, reaffirm that the UN is the appropriate forum "for the 
achievement of freedoms and for securing the right to self-determination of 
peoples under alien and colonial domination." (II: C-20)

The absence of mention of East Timor is all the more glaring in the context 
of the positions NAM took on many specific political conflicts in Asia, the 
Pacific, and the Middle East, most notably the subject of Palestine and the 
Arab-Israeli conflict. The lengthy section on Palestine is particularly 
ironic, since almost without exception the word "Indonesia" could be 
substituted for "Israel" and "East Timor" for "Palestine." (III:18-23) For 
example, the leaders of NAM "condemned the occupying power for its 
provocative defiance of the will expressed by the international community, 
its willful flouting of the resolutions adopted by the UN General Assembly 
and the Security Council, as well as the new dimensions of violence and 
terror, which have evoked widespread anger, bitterness and despair among its 
inhabitants in the occupied territories." (III: 23)

Since November 12, 1991, when Indonesian troops opened fire on thousands of 
unarmed East Timorese demonstrators, killing between 100 and 200 civilians, 
new dimensions of violence and terror have also evoked widespread anger, 
bitterness, and despair among the people of East Timor. A protest in support 
of the murdered East Timorese, held one week later in Jakarta, was quashed 
by the army and police, and its leaders have since been sentenced to 
draconian prison terms of up to ten years.

The Indonesian military has taken steps to ensure that no similar protests 
are held for foreign reporters during the NAM conference. The army is under 
orders to shoot, without hesitation, anyone who creates a disturbance, which 
includes "protests or any other trouble that can send the city into chaos." 
According to the Jakarta Military chief, Major-General Kentot Harseno, 
"Those kind of people will only hurt the country's image in the 
international world." (Jakarta Post, August 13) Additionally, the security 
forces have surrounded the offices of two of Indonesia's prominent 
non-governmental organizations which are critical of Indonesia's policies in 
East Timor and elsewhere. The phone and fax lines of these organizations, 
INFIGHT and SKEPHI, have been cut, and photocopying machines in the area are 
under surveillance.

(References from Draft Final Document of the 10th Conference of the Heads of 
State or Government of the Non-Aligned Countries.)

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

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