December 7, 1991, was the anniversary of another tragedy besides the bombing of Pearl Harbor: the beginning of East Timor's crucifixion in 1975. East Timor, which lies at the eastern end of Indonesia's archipelago, north of Australia, had received U.N.-recognized sovereignty the year before as its Portuguese colonizers prepared to leave the country. Indonesia invaded and began the massacre that has since killed up to one-third of Timor's 700,000 inhabitants.
Then-President Gerald Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had left Indonesia just before the invasion. They were informed of it, but had more "weighty" matters on their minds. Kissinger at the time said, "The United States is involved in enough problems of greater importance overseas at present."
Of course, Indonesia had let our nuclear submarines pass through its waters during the long Cold War years. No matter that Timorese had fought with the Allies during World War II, losing 40,000 lives in that conflict. No matter that weapons our country provided Indonesia were used in the incendiary bombing that killed civilians wholesale, destroyed crops, and engendered subsequent starvation. For years, people in the United States and most of the world simply lacked interest in Timor. Indeed, even the 1991 New World Almanac has no reference whatsoever to this island nation.
A nationalist movement, Fretilin, began and continued the fight for Timorese independence, but the scorched-earth offensive against this group by the powerful Indonesian military led to Timor's annexation in July 1976. In a 1984 interview, the former acting bishop of East Timor, Martinho da Costa Lopes, called the Fretilin the symbol of national resistance against Indonesia.
Throughout these 16 years, some voices have called attention to this "other" Cambodia, Afghanistan, Kuwait. Among others in the United States, Rep. Tony P. Hall (D-Ohio) and a young free-lance writer, Arnold S. Kohen, kept vigil for the victims of Indonesia's expansionist designs on Timor. In a Los Angeles Times article on January 7, 1982, Kohen wrote, "At a time when America is preoccupied with the suppression of the people of Poland, the people suffering on a little island thousands of miles across the Pacific wish they could receive even one-tenth the attention."
Then-Secretary of State George Shultz visited Jakarta, Indonesia's capital, in 1984 and, spurred by 123 members of Congress, raised the issue with the Indonesians. Even this high-level notice, however, was couched by Shultz's aides in terms of a matter they claimed had already received "quiet attention" through back-channel diplomacy. Pope John Paul II went to Indonesia in 1989, and he, too, decried the awful situation in East Timor.
IT TOOK THE presence in November of foreign journalists at the funeral of yet another Timorese victim in Dili, the capital city, and the brutality of the Indonesian military against the mourners to focus world attention on this long-neglected people. On November 12, Allan Nairn of The New Yorker and Amy Goodman of Pacifica Network News barely escaped death in the military action against the funeral cortege. A human rights activist from New Zealand, Kamal Bamadhaj, died of gunshot wounds--as did an estimated 100 Timorese who were participating in the procession.
The journalists who survived have told their story to the world, complete with taped video of the massacre. And for the moment, international outrage is directed against the Indonesian military.
The Jakarta government claims to have begun an investigation of its version of "Tiananmen Square," while accusing the peaceful demonstrators at the funeral of provocation. This stonewalling ought not be permitted. Observers should be sent to prevent further retaliation against Timor's independence people. Australians, with whom Timorese fought and died in World War II, could help their former allies by renegotiating with Jakarta oil rights in the sea.
Most important, we have to ask if the current spotlight on East Timor will sweep past all too quickly, together with the present outrage. Will the world's short attention span, constantly on the lookout for new, exciting, and "interesting" issues, move on now to the next trouble spot? East Timor should serve as a much-needed examination of conscience for all who feel outrage at blatant violations of human rights wherever they occur.
Joe Nangle, OFM, was outreach director of Sojourners when this article appeared.
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