US Complicity in Timor

The Editors, The Nation Dili, East Timor

While the Indonesian military's thugs continue their rampage in East Timor, 
most foreign reporters have fled the country. As of September 7, frequent 
Nation contributor and award-winning journalist Allan Nairn was 
believed to be the only US reporter still there. Nairn left the besieged UN 
compound and walked the streets of Dili, where he hid in abandoned houses 
as he observed troops and militia burning and looting. Nairn has been 
writing about the troubles there for years. In 1991, after being badly 
beaten by Indonesian troops while witnessing the massacre of several 
hundred East Timorese, he was declared a "threat to national security" and 
banned from the country. He has entered several times illegally since then. 
In his most recent Nation dispatch from East Timor, on March 30, 1998, 
Nairn disclosed the continuing US military training of Indonesian troops 
implicated in the torture and killing of civilians. He filed this report by 
satellite telephone to The Nation through Amy Goodman, host of 
Pacifica Radio's Democracy Now!.

It is by now clear to most East Timorese and a few Westerners still left 
here that the militias are a wing of the TNI/ABRI, the Indonesian armed 
forces. Recently, for example, I was picked up by militiamen who turned out 
to be working for a uniformed colonel of the National Police. [Editors' 
note: The Indonesian government has denied any connection between the 
militias and either the police or the military.] 

But there is another important political fact that is not known here or in 
the international community. Although the US government has publicly 
reprimanded the Indonesian Army for the militias, the US military has, 
behind the scenes and contrary to Congressional intent, been backing the 
TNI.

US officials say that this past April, as militia terror escalated, a top 
US officer was dispatched to give a message to Jakarta. Admiral Dennis 
Blair, the US Commander in Chief of the Pacific, leader of all US military 
forces in the Pacific region, was sent to meet with General Wiranto, the 
Indonesian armed forces commander, on April 8. 

Blair's mission, as one senior US official told me, was to tell Wiranto 
that the time had come to shut the militia operation down. The gravity of 
the meeting was heightened by the fact that two days before, the militias 
had committed a horrific machete massacre at the Catholic church in 
Liquiga, East Timor. 

YAYASAN HAK, a Timorese human rights group, estimated that many dozens of 
civilians were murdered. Some of the victims' flesh was reportedly stuck to 
the walls of the church and a pastor's house. 

But Admiral Blair, fully briefed on Liquiga, quickly made clear at the 
meeting with Wiranto that he was there to reassure the TNI chief. According 
to a classified cable on the meeting, circulating at Pacific Command 
headquarters in Hawaii, Blair, rather than telling Wiranto to shut the 
militias down, instead offered him a series of promises of new US 
assistance.

According to the cable, which was drafted by Colonel Joseph Daves, US 
military attache in Jakarta, Admiral Blair "told the armed forces chief 
that he looks forward to the time when [the army will] resume its proper 
role as a leader in the region. He invited General Wiranto to come to 
Hawaii as his guest in conjunction with the next round of bilateral defense 
discussions in the July-August '99 time frame. 

"He said Pacific command is prepared to support a subject matter expert 
exchange for doctrinal development. He expects that approval will be 
granted to send a small team to provide technical assistance to police and 

Admiral Blair at no point told Wiranto to stop the militia operation, going 
the other way by inviting him to be his personal guest in Hawaii. Blair 
told Wiranto that the United States would initiate this new riot-control 
training for the Indonesian armed forces. This was quite significant, 
because it would be the first new US training program for the Indonesian 
military since 1992. 

Although State Department officials had been assured in writing that only 
police and no soldiers would be part of this training, Blair told Wiranto 
that, yes, soldiers could be included. So although Blair was sent in with 
the mission of telling Wiranto to shut the militias down, he did the 
opposite.

Indonesian officers I spoke to said Wiranto was delighted by the meeting. 
They took this as a green light to proceed with the militia operation. 

The only reference in the classified cable to the militias was the 
following: "Wiranto was emphatic: as long as East Timor is an integral part 
of the territory of Indonesia, Armed Forces have responsibility to maintain 
peace and stability in the region. Wiranto said the military will take 
steps to disarm FALINTIL pro-independence group concurrently with the WANRA 
militia force. 

"Admiral Blair reminded Wiranto that fairly or unfairly the international 
community looks at East Timor as a barometer of progress for Indonesian 
reform. Most importantly, the process of change in East Timor could proceed 
peacefully, he said."

So that was it. No admonition. When Wiranto referred to disarming the WANRA 
force, he was talking about another militia force, different from the one 
that was staging attacks on Timorese civilians. When word got back to the 
State Department that Blair had said these things in a meeting, an "eyes 
only" cable was dispatched from the State Department to Ambassador 
Stapleton Roy at the embassy in Jakarta. 

The thrust of this cable was that what Blair had done was unacceptable and 
that it must be reversed. As a result of that cable from Washington to Roy, 
a corrective phone call was arranged between General Wiranto and Admiral 
Blair. That call took place on April 18.

I have the official report on that phone call, which was written by Blair's 
aide, Lieutenant Colonel Tom Sidwell. According to the account of the call 
and according to US military officials I spoke to, once again Blair failed 
to tell Wiranto to shut the militias down. 

In fact, Blair instead permitted Wiranto to make, in essence, a political 
speech saying the same thing he had said before. Here is one passage from 
the account: "General Wiranto denies that TNI and the police supported any 
one group during the incidents" — meaning during the military attacks. 

"General Wiranto will go to East Timor tomorrow to emphasise three things: 
1) Timorese, especially the two disputing groups, to solve the problem 
peacefully with dialogue; 2) encourage the militia to disarm; 3) make the 
situation peaceful and solve the problem." 

At no point did Blair demand that the militias be shut down, and in fact 
this call was followed by escalating militia violence and increases in 
concrete, new US military assistance to Indonesia, including the sending in 
of a US Air Force trainer just weeks ago to train the Indonesian Air Force.