Why don't you read something - almost anything - about Indonesia and East Timor?
The intervention process in Timor has been very similar to that in Kosovo, though more difficult. In both cases, unilateral intervention was ruled out from the beginning. In Kosovo, NATO provided an available and pre-coordinated multilateral aegis for intervention, with abundant military forces close at hand. There is no such grouping anywhere near Indonesia. The only available multilateral partners, Australia and the ASEAN states, refused to deploy forces without Indonesian acceptance of a peacekeeping force. This acceptance was only obtained after constant, unrelenting, and well-documented diplomatic pressure, mostly from the US.
The US has no naval or air force bases close enough to provide effective logistic support for intervention, and the only available forward platform, Australia, would only cooperate on the terms described above.
Air and missile bombardment on the Kosovo pattern was also ruled out as a viable alternative, for obvious reasons. First, bombardment would automatically mean Indonesian refusal to accept the peacekeeping force, which would mean there would be no peacekeeping force. It would almost certainly result in wholesale slaughter in East Timor. Indonesia's military is dispersed, infantry-based, and not dependent on centralized facilities, no critical military targets present themselves for bombing.
As another minor issue, Indonesia happens to be the 4th most populous country in the world, a major oil producer which controls the sea lanes through which all of Asia's oil passes. If there is a full-scale war in Indonesia, the fragile Asian recovery would vanish in a puff of smoke. Why don't we bomb the Russians over Chechnya, or the Chinese over Tibet? High-tech drive-by shootings of the Kosovo/Iraq variety can only be used against small and unimportant countries or total diplomatic pariahs. The imposition of morality is constrained by reality, always has been, always will be.
Part of the reluctance to intervene in East Timor has been the very real possibility that independence will inspire other ethnic regions of Indonesia to secede. A balkanized Indonesia, broken up into a dozen unstable, conflict-ridden and economically marginal states would be a regional security nightmare and a major burden on multilateral assistance resources. Very few in the military/strategic sphere really want to see East Timor go independent; this was the case long before Clinton took office.
As for human rights violations, surely you know that they have been going on all along, with the full knowledge (and quiet consent) of numerous US administrations? In 1975, when Indonesia invaded East Timor, the Republican administration in power turned its back on human rights violations worse than those going on now; the independence movement was regarded as left-leaning, and we privately encouraged the Indonesians to take over Timor to prevent the emergence of a nonaligned state in the area. We didn't give a damn about the dead Catholics then, why should we now?
Where were you when US-sponsored death squads were killing Catholic clergy in El Salvador and elsewhere in Latin America? Did we look the other way because the Salvadoran government was tight with the powers in DC, or because it suited our perception of our regional interest?
US administrations will never want to make a huge issue of East Timor, because the history is embarrassing to the US.
Perhaps the most ridiculous part of your ridiculous position is the notion that the Lippo Group has some financial interest in keeping intervention forces out of Timor. If you've paid any attention at all to Indonesia since the fall of Suharto, you will know that there has been a major power struggle between the military and the business community. Not as simple as that, of course, but to save space let's leave it there. The businessmen want better ties to the west, an economy structured for their purposes, and more money flowing. The army wants to keep control, and is much afraid of liberalization or better ties to the west. Habibie has been the main man for business. Habibie wanted - probably still wants - to let Timor go, and it is safe to say that most of the big business community agrees. The army does not agree, and has used the issue to regain effective power over the country. In many ways, the best thing Clinton could do for the Lippo group would be to step in and give the Indonesian army an embarrassing bloody nose, which might shift the balance of power back to the businessmen. It might also start a regional war, and leave a lot of Americans in body bags, so I don't think he's going to do it. I hope not.
In any event, the Lippo group and the Rialy family have nothing to gain and a great deal to lose from the continued atrocities in East Timor.
And why do you keep talking about "the Chinese and the Indonesians" as if the Rialy family were "the Indonesians", as if China and Indonesia represented some sort of common bloc with common interests. Do you know anything at all about actual and historical relations between China and Indonesia?
Before you assume a causative relationship, you have to look at and assess other potentially causative factors. Jumping on the one possible cause that suits your ideological disposition, without any attempt at critical inquiry, is the act of an idiot.
As far as being bought by foreign powers, surely you know that this is old hat? Right-wing dictators around he world, human-rights violators all, have long slipped carefully laundered money to the campaigns of their preferred US candidates, and been rewarded with preferential aid and loan packages. Is that ok? Is it only bad when someone you don't like does it? |
