This is a most opportune time to break the cycle of compromises and accommodation, of what is perceived as realpolitik, and proceed to adopt a no-nonsense attitude in resolving the issue. Just as it crowed to have done so in the Gulf war. Direct immediate United Nations action to ascertain the extent of drought and famine in East Timor to include and provide necessary humanitarian assistance. Suharto-ism's days are numbered. And it may as well be as the winds of freedom are sweeping away the last tyrants from this earth.
Peoples are over and over again asserting their own destinies.
And they are doing these together. It is the fresh spirit that will pulverize the crumbling parapets of despots and tyrants, of avarice and greed, of indifference and irrelevance. This, in the wake of growing cynicism among peoples and even nations especially among the most disenfranchised, about the perceived toothless role of the United Nations in the resolution of conflicts such as that in East Timor. Whatever its shortcomings, whatever the perceptions, the principles and tenets the UN's founders agreed upon are very much pertinent and we are happy to note such consistencies and even delicious initiatives from the Secretary- General's office and even from the General Assembly. We hope we could say the same of the Security Council.