Gerald Ford : Invasion of East Timor

Re: Gerald Ford : Invasion of East Timor


Isn't interesting how the powers-that-be can decide that some countries (& their people) are expendible. Just like that?

It appears that the Australian government did the same, blueflame.
Though to this day, Gough Whitlam, Oz PM at the time, denies it. He most definitely should have known better!
Shame!

msolga, it does appear that way for sure. "EAST TIMOR: THE INCONVENIENT SLAUGHTER"
Paul Beres

In 1975, Indonesian troops entered a small Timorese village, looking for two Australian television crews. Some of the television crew members were shot dead on site, most were strung up by their feet and forced to choke on their severed genitalia before being stabbed to death. Their bodies there then dragged into a house, dressed in Timorese military uniform, propped up against a machine gun and photographed.

Eye witness accounts of the murders were eventually smuggled out of occupied East Timor by two Australian reporters (one of whom met a similar fate two months later). The Australian Government's response was to accuse the film crews of misadventure and participate in a farcical Indonesian enquiry, in which Indonesian soldiers and informants, dressed in civilian clothing, unconvincingly replaced the population of the village where the murders took place.

Why were the television crews murdered, and why was this atrocity ignored by their own country?

The television crews, like the people of East Timor themselves, were an obstacle to the strategically and economically beneficial relationship between the Suharto regime and western governments, especially those of Australia, Britain and the US.

The television crews had filmed an amphibious assault by Indonesian's special forces on the north-east coast of East Timor; an invasion that was officially not supposed to exist because of its illegality under international law. If footage of this invasion had reached the world's press, the western governments which actively supported it, like America, or simply tolerated it, like Australia, would have to officially ostracise Indonesia, and thereby put highly lucrative economic and political ties at risk.
http://www.converge.org.nz/pirm/timor.htm

Ah yes, the missing Oz reporters in Timor, blueflame.
That has remained a controversial issue to this day. One of the reporter's widows has made sure of that! She (& many other Australians) have maintained that they were killed by invading Indonesian forces. Who were not supposed to be there at the time. As your linked article points out. The Australian government was/is still seen as complicit in the cover-up. For one of the most progressive (& controversial) governments we've seen in Oz, Whitlam really blotted his copybook over East Timor. Sad.

But the whole issue of US/CIA involvement in the destabilisation & violent over-throw of the Sukarno government (& instillation of Suharto) in Indonesia is a fascinating issue. Incredible times! Bali (part of Indonesia & very pro-Sukarno) has been described as "a river of blood" as the purges took place. At the time these events were seen (by sympathizers) as the US/CIA protecting this part of Asia from "the Communist scourge", but, of course, economic interests were at work, too. And, as we've seen, Suharto's period of rule was an extremely corrupt one. His legacy of corruption lingers to this day. So there you go! <sigh>