A lot of people are being killed – I repeat – indiscriminately. Red Cross radio transmission during invasion and slaughter
What I saw was that my own government was very much involved in what was going on in East Timor. We were providing most of the weaponry, helicopters, logistical support, food, uniforms, ammunition, all the expendables that the Indonesians needed. C Philip Liechty, Senior CIA Officer, televised interview 1975
Suharto was explicitly given the green light to do what he did. ibid.
Suharto [Indonesian President]: I would like to speak to you, Mr President, about another problem. Timor ... We want your understanding if we deem it necessary to take rapid or drastic action.
Gerald Ford: We will understand and we will not press you on this issue. We understand the problem you have and the intentions you have ...
Kissinger: You appreciate that the use of US-made arms could cause problems?
Kissinger: On the Timor thing, that will leak in three months and it will come out that Kissinger overruled his pristine bureaucrats and violated the law. How many people … know about this?
Staff Member: Three.
Kissinger: Plus everybody in this meeting ... Everything on paper will be used against me.
In East Timor, a small island in the Indonesian Archipelago, Henry Kissinger saw a communist threat to the global balance of power. The Trials of Henry Kissinger, director Eugene Jarecki, 2002
The invasion, executions, destruction of the land and resulting famine cost the lives of over a hundred thousand Timorese. In interviews Kissinger has long denied that he discussed the invasion in the meeting with Suharto. ibid.
‘The US government knew exactly what was happening.’ ibid. Amy Goodman
The Indonesian dictatorship thought it would be better if Indonesia occupied and annexed the people and territory of East Timor. So they evolved a plan whereby they took the land and they subjected the people to a campaign of genocide. Christopher Hitchens
East Timor: The day after Kissinger left Djakarta in 1975, the Armed Forces of Indonesia employed American weapons to invade and subjugate the independent former Portuguese colony of East Timor. Isaacson gives a figure of 100,000 deaths resulting from the occupation, or one-seventh of the population, and there are good judges who put this estimate on the low side. Kissinger was furious when news of his own collusion was leaked, because as well as breaking international law the Indonesians were also violating an agreement with the United States ... Monroe Leigh ... pointed out this awkward latter fact. Kissinger snapped: ‘The Israelis when they go into Lebanon – when was the last time we protested that?’ A good question, even if it did not and does not lie especially well in his mouth. Christopher Hitchens
People were wondering why, if the UN is serious about a New World Order, no-one was doing anything to help East Timor ... And yet Canada and other nations have consistently voted against UN resolutions to end the occupation. Louise Penny, CBC Public Radio, Montreal Canada
We are appealing not only to Australia but to all democratic forces in the world to stop the Indonesian violation of our territory. It is criminally obtained. It is a criminal act. Jose Ramos-Horta, televised interview 1975
What happened on December 7th 1975 is one of the great evil deeds of history. Early in the morning bombs began dropping on Dili; the number of troops that invaded Dili that day almost outnumbered the entire population of the town. And for two or three weeks they just killed people. Elaine Briere, East Timor Alert Network
Why, they ask, are the Indonesians invading us? ... Why, they ask, are the Australians not helping us? ... Why, they ask, are the Portuguese not helping us? We’re still a Portuguese territory. Who, they ask, will pay for the terrible damage to our homes? Greg Shackleton, journalist, murdered day after broadcast
It is in Britain’s interests that Indonesia absorb the territory as soon and as unobtrusively as possible. And when it comes to the crunch, we should keep our heads down. Sir John Archibald Ford, British ambassador, cable
Although we know it’s not true, the formal position of the Indonesian government is that there is no Indonesian military intervention in East Timor. We should act in a way to minimise public impact in Australia and show private understanding to the Indonesians of their problem. Richard Woolcott, Australian ambassador, cable
The Department of State desired that the UN prove utterly ineffective in whatever measures it undertook. This task was given to me, and I carried it forward with no inconsiderable success. Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Australia, ahead of any other nation on Earth, put pressure on the Indonesian government to accept a peace-keeping operation. John W Howard, former Australian prime minister
Dear Mr President, I want to emphasise that Australia’s support for Indonesia’s sovereignty is unchanged. It has been a long-standing Australian position that the interests of Australia, Indonesia and East Timor are best served by East Timor remaining part of Indonesia. John W Howard, letter to Indonesia’s president
By 1978 it [East Timor] was approaching genocidal levels. The Church and other sources estimated about two hundred thousand people killed. The US backed it all the way: the US provided 90% of the arms. Right after the invasion, arm shipments were stepped up. When the Indonesians actually began to run out of arms in 1978, the Carter administration moved in and increased arms sales. And other western countries did the same. Professor Noam Chomsky
Western oil companies moved in [East Timor Gulf] to start exploring and lifting oil … about fifteen of them who were stealing Timorese oil while the atrocities continue and the terror continues and the torture continues and the silence continues. Noam Chomsky, lecture BMFA 18th February 1993
East Timor: there was a [recent] renewal of the terror and violence and massacres that have been going on for twenty-five years … Indonesia has no claim to sovereignty in East Timor. Noam Chomsky, Dorothy lecture September 1999, ‘Sovereignty and World Order’
The invasion was carried out with US arms which by treaty with Indonesia can only be used for self-defence. The United States secretly expressed the hope that the invasion would be carried out quickly … sending new arms under the cover of the embargo. ibid.
Indonesia was supposed to be in this new [post-war] world order granted a kind of nominal independence … In Indonesia there were essentially three forces: one was President Sukarno, the leader of the nationalists’ movement who was an independent nationalist and therefore already unacceptable, then there was a mass-based popular party – the Indonesian communist party – which was needless to say totally unacceptable, and thirdly there was the army which more or less shared US aims. Noam Chomsky, lecture MOMA 16th November 1992
The CIA began to support right-wing parties – that didn’t work. They supported an insurrection in 1957/58 – that was put down. The US then turned to a classic technique for overthrowing civilian government – one that’s used over and over again – namely, cut off any aid or assistance or support to the government but maintain, even increase, military aid. ibid.
1965 and then Suharto took over and then came this huge bloodbath … The biggest bloodbath since the holocaust. ibid.
East Timor: The silence began in December 1975 with the Indonesian invasion: from then on there’s a sharp decline in coverage – it reaches zero, zero literally in the United States and Canada, in 1978 which is the year in which the atrocities peaked, and in which in fact Jimmy Carter took some time off from his sermons about human rights to increase US aid to Indonesia because they were actually running out of arms in the war against this tiny country. ibid.
Britain stepped up its military sales to Indonesia. ibid.
After November 1991 dozens of Western oil companies from all the major countries raced into the Timor Sea to use these new opportunities to steal Timor’s resources, thanks to the Australian/Indonesian treaty. ibid.
The Indonesian government has played a strategy of not allowing people to go into East Timor ... There is a fear. The eyes say it all. You don’t have to talk to the people of East Timor. Even the little children show the fear in their eyes, in their face, they never smile. There is not one family that has not lost a member of their family. Inis Almeida, Timorese exile