Distant Voices (40 page)

When I met Philip Liechty in Washington, he reminded me of other former CIA officers I have known, who joined during the early 1960s with a sense of idealism, based on ‘service to my country', and subsequently spent much of their careers disenchanted.
¹³⁰
He told me, ‘Suharto was given the green light [by the US] to do what he did. There was discussion in the Embassy and in traffic with the State Department about the problems that would be created for us if the public and Congress became aware of the level and type of military
assistance that was going to Indonesia at that time. It was covered under the justification that it was “for training purposes”; but there was concern that this might wear thin after a while, so the decision was taken to get the stuff flowing from San Francisco as fast as possible, to get it on the high seas before someone pulled the chain. As long as the Indonesians continued to certify that they were only using the equipment “for training”, then we could get it through the bureaucracy.'
¹³¹

I asked him what kind of equipment was sent. ‘Everything', he replied, ‘that you need to fight a major war against somebody who doesn't have any guns . . . M16 rifles, ammunition, mortars, grenades, food, helicopters. You name it; they got it. And they got it direct. The normal course would have been for the stuff to be distributed through the Indonesian supply system in Java. But most of the equipment was now going straight into Timor.

‘Without continued heavy US logistical military support the Indonesians might not have been able to pull it off. [Instead] they were able to stay there at no real cost to them; it didn't put any pressure on their economy and on their military forces because American taxpayers were footing the bill for the killing of all those people and for the acquisition of that territory to which they had no right whatsoever. It is something that I will be forever ashamed of . . . The only interest that I ever saw expressed, the only justification I ever heard for what we were doing there was concern that East Timor was on the verge of being accepted as a new member of the United Nations and that there was an excellent chance that the country was going to be either leftist or neutralist and not likely to vote [with the United States] at the United Nations.

‘For extinguishing that one vote, maybe 200,000 people, almost all of them non-combatants, died. President Ford was very much aware of what was happening; it was brought to his attention in official reports. He can never make the case that he was misled.'

I asked Liechty how he felt as he saw the evidence of
genocide and its cover-up unfold before him in Jakarta. ‘When the atrocity stories began to appear in the CIA reporting', he said, ‘the way they dealt with these was to cover them up as long as possible; and when they couldn't be covered up any longer, they were reported in a watered down, very generalised way, so that even their own sourcing was sabotaged. In intelligence, sourcing is the most important thing. At that time my disillusion was already low. I continued to do what I was supposed to do on my tour. I certainly didn't feel like being the Lone Ranger. There certainly were others who felt as badly as I did.' I asked him what would have happened had anyone spoken out. ‘Your career would end,' he replied.

With the inauguration of President Clinton, American policy on East Timor seemed to change. During his election campaign, Clinton had referred to the Indonesian occupation as ‘unconscionable'. In March 1993 the United States supported a resolution of the United Nations Human Rights Commission expressing ‘deep concern' over Indonesia's behaviour in East Timor. Under Presidents Reagan and Bush, the United States had helped to block similar resolutions. In July, in Tokyo, Clinton handed Suharto a letter signed by 43 Senators protesting at the Indonesian occupation. (In response, Suharto told Clinton that it was ‘out of respect for the human rights of East Timor's people' that Indonesia had invaded.)
¹³²

Clinton also supported an amendment to the Foreign Aid Bill which, in its original wording, demanded ‘immediate and unrestricted access' for humanitarian groups to East Timor and ‘withdrawal of Indonesian armed forces' and ‘the right of self-determination' for the East Timorese. Unless Indonesia complied, all American arms sales would cease.

As a result of vigorous lobbying of Congress by the Suharto regime, its American advisers and front organisations, and with the State and Defence departments reportedly ‘working together to neutralise the amendment',
¹³³
the wording was diluted so that the President would be required only to ‘consider' the human rights situation in East Timor before
approving major weapons sales. By the end of 1993 the Foreign Aid Bill still had not reached the floor of Congress. At the time of writing it seems likely to be postponed for up to a year, or indefinitely. The sound and fury of the American system had promised much and delivered little. Even a modest ruling by Congress in the aftermath of the Santa Cruz massacre – that Indonesian military officers were no longer to receive training in the United States – was ignored. ‘Congress's action', said a State Department official, ‘did not ban Indonesia's purchase of training with its own funds . . .'
¹³⁴

It is ironic that one of the obstacles to bringing pressure on a Western-backed tyranny like Indonesia is the very concept of ‘human rights', which has become part of the language of post-Cold War politics. Clinton's expressions of concern for ‘human rights' are reminiscent of those of President Carter, who described ‘human rights' as ‘the soul of [American] foreign policy'
¹³⁵
while increasing American arms supplies to Indonesia at the height of the slaughter in East Timor. Under Clinton a change in policy
seems
possible. But the rhetoric goes on, while American military and economic support for Suharto goes on (as it does, of course, for other acceptable dictatorships).

In other words, while the impression is given that ‘human rights' are integral to American and all of Western policy-making, the opposite is the functional truth; ‘human rights' are a useful cosmetic but otherwise irrelevant. As the historian Mark Curtis has pointed out, ‘The justification for supporting bloodthirsty dictatorships and mass murderers can no longer be made by referring to the evils of the other side [in the Cold War]. The excuse that still worse atrocities would be committed if favoured states fell into the Soviet bloc is no longer available . . . Another formulation is currently popular: that Third World states conducting mass repression and who happen to pursue economic policies favourable to Western business interests are somehow unable, because of cultural reasons, to safeguard human rights. Western attempts to impose our high standards might be viewed as interference in their internal affairs (something which surely
we could not contemplate) and therefore business should continue as normal . . .

‘In the extremely unlikely event that Indonesia adopted economic policies preferential to its poor – thus threatening the right of international capitalism to exploit the nation's resources – the historical record suggests that Western leaders would suddenly discover human rights as a relevant issue in their relations with Jakarta and start condemning Indonesia's brutal aggression as an outrageous act intolerable by any civilised standards.'
¹³⁶

In the meantime, the US Department of Commerce says that Indonesia offers ‘excellent trade and investment opportunities for US companies [that are] too good to be ignored'.
¹³⁷
The British government has been one of the first to seize these ‘opportunities'. A few months before the Indonesian invasion the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) announced that Indonesia presented ‘enormous potential for the foreign investor'.
¹³⁸
Since then British companies have made huge profits in the ‘favourable political climate' offered by General Suharto and by a labour market in which the better paid workers receive some 20 pence an hour.

Shortly before the Santa Cruz massacre Douglas Hurd urged the European Community to ‘cut aid to countries that violate human rights'.
¹³⁹
Shortly after the massacre the British government increased its aid to the Suharto regime by 250 per cent to £81 million, the largest percentage rise of any donor country.
¹⁴⁰
A government minister, Baroness Chalker, claimed in Parliament that this was ‘helping the poor in Indonesia'.
¹⁴¹
In fact, half of British aid to Indonesia is made up of Aid for Trade Provisions (ATP), which ensures concessionary loans and highly favourable credits for British goods and investment. Rio Tinto Zinc, British Petroleum, British Gas, Britoil, Rolls-Royce and British Aerospace are among the British conglomerates helping Indonesia's poor.

The British war industry has provided a vital prop for Suharto since 1978 when Foreign Secretary David Owen dismissed estimates of East Timorese dead as ‘exaggerated' and sold the Indonesian generals eight Hawk ground-attack
aircraft worth £25 million each. By the end of 1994 Britain will have sold, or agreed to sell, a further 40 Hawks, and more are ‘in the pipeline'. These are in addition to Wasp helicopters, Sea Wolf and Rapier SAM missiles, Tribal Class frigates, battlefield communications systems, seabed mine disposal equipment, Saladin, Saracen and Fernet armoured vehicles, a fully-equipped Institute of Technology for the Indonesian army and training for Indonesian officers in Britain.

When a Foreign Office minister, Baroness Trumpington, was asked about the military potential of Land Rovers sold to the Indonesian army, she said, derisively, ‘My farmer friends would laugh . . . to think that they were offensive weapons!' British Aerospace manufactures the Land Rover, which it describes as one of ‘the world's most successful pieces of defence hardware'.
¹⁴²
I saw Land Rovers used widely in East Timor by the occupying forces. It is very likely that the bodies of the young people murdered or wounded in the Santa Cruz massacre were thrown into the back of British Land Rovers.

In Washington a line often heard is that it doesn't matter what the US does to withhold arms from Indonesia, because Jakarta will simply get what it needs from Britain. A great deal of British mendacity has been deployed in justifying its underpinning of one of the world's most barbarous regimes. This has concentrated on the Hawk aircraft, an especially efficient weapon. ‘The point of selling Hawk aircraft to Indonesia', the armed services minister, Archie Hamilton, told Parliament in 1993, ‘is to give jobs to people in this country. There is no doubt in my mind that a Hawk aircraft can do nothing to suppress the people of East Timor. The aircraft is not suitable for that purpose and we have guarantees from the Indonesians that the aircraft would not be used for internal suppression.'
¹⁴³

This was an extraordinary statement even by modern parliamentary standards. Since Hamilton uttered it, British Aerospace have sacked more than 4,000 workers. It is, however, constantly echoed. ‘There is no evidence', said Baroness Chalker, ‘that aircraft sold in the past to Indonesia have been
used for internal security purposes.'
¹⁴⁴
When the defence minister, Jonathan Aitken, was asked in Parliament ‘how many dead or tortured East Timorese are acceptable to the government in exchange for a defence contract with Indonesia', he replied, ‘That is a ridiculous question.'
¹⁴⁵
But of course it was not.

The government has promoted the Hawk as a mere ‘trainer'. British Aerospace, however, say that it ‘has been designed from the outset with a significant ground attack capability'.
¹⁴⁶
The Indonesians appear to be in no doubt. According to the Research and Technology minister, B. J. Habibie, the Hawks ‘will be used not only to train pilots but for ground attack'.
¹⁴⁷

The independent Center for Defense Information in Washington is even more explicit. Its director, retired US Rear Admiral Eugene J. Carroll, told me, ‘These British aircraft are ideal counter-insurgency aircraft, designed to be used against guerrillas who come from and move among civilian populations and have no adequate means of response to air attack. In other words, they are there to shoot high velocity cannon and deliver ordnance at low levels against unprotected human beings.'
¹⁴⁸

As for there being ‘no evidence' that the Hawks are used in East Timor, there are plenty of eye-witnesses. In interviews with myself and Max Stahl, Timorese have described in detail Hawks attacking civilian areas.

José Gusmao, a Timorese now exiled in Australia, said, ‘I watched a Hawk attack on a village in the mountains. It used its machine-guns and dropped incendiary bombs. The Hawk is quite different from the American planes; it has a particular nose. You can tell it anywhere.' Another Timorese eye-witness, José Amorin, told me, ‘I first saw the Hawks in action in 1984. They were standing at the airport at Baucau, where they are based. They are a small aircraft, not at all like the OV-10 Bronco and the Skyhawk from the US. They are perfect for moving in and out of the mountains. They have a terrible sound when they are coming in to bomb, like a voice wailing. We immediately go to the caves, into the deepest ones, because their bombs are so powerful. They fly
in low . . . and attack civilians, because the people hiding in the mountains are civilians. Four of my cousins were killed in Hawk attacks near Los Palos. They were hiding in caves as the Hawks bombed every day for almost a week. On the sixth day they bombed the mountain so that stones covered the cave entrance, and my cousins were trapped. They died in the cave. Most people in East Timor know about the British Hawks. Why doesn't the British government send a fact-finding mission and ask the people?'

José Amorin came to London in November 1993 and presented his evidence at the Foreign Office. He told me, ‘I met a senior official and gave him a lot of information. I told him where the Hawks were based in East Java and East Timor. He said they were only trainers. I replied that if they were used for training, it was on live targets in East Timor. I described to him everything. He said he would take seriously my points and pass them to the Minister. He could give me no categorical assurance that the Hawks were not being used in East Timor.' (Later, this official denied that he had been given any such evidence.)