Now thousands of Australian-led troops are moving into East Timor, chasing down Indonesian militiamen to make way for democracy. This is what the world wants, what the U-N mission was launched to secure. But it isn't enough for East Timor. When a gang of thugs invades a home, beats its occupants bloody and turns them into the street, it isn't sufficient just to reinstall the rightful owners. Something more is called for.
Civilization insists on a measure of justice.
What has happened in East Timor is far graver, far more deliberate, than random thuggery. This was a shrewdly orchestrated attempt to subvert East Timor's bid for independence . The people who have wrought these outrages must be called to account. The surest mechanism is an international war-crimes tribunal of the sort now probing atrocities in Rwanda and the Balkans. In the Rhode Island capital, however, there is concern on the part of The Providence Journal that the basic premise of the independence vote is faulty.