Just to set the record straight on the TNI:
In the months leading to, and the months following Suharto's rise to power in 1966, the TNI, directly and using village vigilantes, systematically massacred at least 500,000 people in Indonesia, and these were not even East Timorese, they were in many instances their own people, the majority of them Javanese.
The East Timor episode smacks suspiciously of a campaign orchestrated directly from the top, but perhaps gone horribly awry. The ultimate prize is the presidency, and to these people, a few thousand innocent lives are nothing:
smh.com.au
In the end, sadly, those in power will remain in power, because the prospect of a disintegrated Indonesia is not in the interests of the region, and the world. As I said before, appropriate scapegoats will be found, and the wheels of politics grind on....
Rgds,
Steve Yeo |
