CHAPTER 14. BENEVOLENT DICTATOR
1
The day before the Indonesian invasion U.S. president Gerald Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger met in Jakarta with President Suharto. The notes on the Ford-Kissinger-Suharto discussion (online at
www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB62/doc4.pdf
) reveal that the United States openly approved of the plan to invade. Suharto said, “We want your understanding if we deem it necessary to take rapid or drastic action.” And Ford consented, saying, “We will understand and will not press you on the issue.” Kissinger expressed some misgivings about the possible U.S. public reaction and cautioned: “We understand your problem and the need to move quickly, but I am only saying that it would be better if it were done after we returned [to the United States].”
2
The Timorese were asked to vote yes to one of the two following statements: “Do you ACCEPT the proposed special autonomy for East Timor within the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia?” or “Do you REJECT the proposed special autonomy for East Timor, leading to East Timor’s separation from Indonesia?”
3
Ian Martin, “The Popular Consultation and the United Nations Mission in East Timor—First Reflections,” in James J. Fox and Dionisio Babo Soares, eds.,
Out of the Ashes: Destruction and Reconstruction of East Timor
(Canberra: Australian National University Press, 2003), p. 133.
4
Some 230,000 fled or were deported to refugee camps in Indonesia-controlled West Timor, and several hundred thousand more were internally displaced.
5
Ian Martin, “Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in East Timor,” Public Hearing, March 15-17, 2004.
6
Sandy Berger, “Special White House Briefing, Subject: President Clinton’s Trip to APEC Meeting in New Zealand,” September 8, 1999.
7
Rupert Cornwell, “East Timor in Turmoil,”
Independent
(London), September 6, 1999, p. 3.
8
André Glucksmann, “Impardonnable ONU” (Unpardonable UN),
L’Express,
September 23, 1999.
9
“Le bloc-notes de Bernard-Henri Lévy” (Bernard-Henri Lévy’s Note Pad),
Le Point,
September 24, 1999.
10
SVDM, “Réplique a deux intellectuals cabotins” (Retort to Two Intellectual Show-offs),
Le Monde,
October 17, 1999.
12
Kofi Annan, Press Conference, New York, September 10, 1999.
15
Geoffrey Robinson, “‘If You Leave Us, We Will Die,’”
Dissent
, Winter 2002, p. 97.
16
On September 9, the Australian government announced that individuals fleeing East Timor would be able to apply for special humanitarian visas upon arrival in Australia (rather than before entry). The humanitarian stay visas were for those who had “been, or will likely be, displaced from their place of residence” and were a more general version of a special visa category that the Australian government had established for Kosovar refugees the previous April. The visas were expected to last no longer than three months, and the Australian immigration minister told ABC radio: “It’s not intended to be used in a large number of cases.”“Government Change to Humanitarian Visa Arrangements,” Australian Associated Press, September 1999.
17
Seth Mydans, “Cry from Besieged City: Don’t Forget East Timor,”
New York Times,
September 12, 1999, p. A14.
18
Manfred Becker (director),
The Siege,
Telefilm, Canada, 2004.
19
Officially, the language is known as Bahasa Indonesia. East Timor itself is known in Tetum as Timor Lorosa’e, in Portuguese as Timor-Leste, and in Indonesian as Timor Timur.
20
Robinson, “‘If You Leave Us,’” p. 94.
22
SVDM, “Note for Mr. Prendergast: Re: IDPs in UN Compound,” September 9, 1999.
25
Michael Carey, "UNAMET’s Final Humiliation,” ABC Australia, September 9, 1999.
26
Kofi Annan, Press Conference, New York, September 10, 1999.
27
Keith Richburg, “Indonesia Softening on Peacekeepers,”
Washington Post,
September 12, 1999, p. A1.
28
Bill Clinton, Press Conference on East Timor,Washington, D.C., September 9, 1999.
29
Seth Mydans, “Indonesia Invites a UN Force to Timor,”
New York Times,
September 13, 1999, p. A1.
30
Doug Struck, “‘The Militias Will Eat Your Crying Babies’; Terrified Refugees Describe Harrowing Escape from Dili,”
Washington Post,
September 16, 1999, p. A17.
31
On April 30, 1975, as the United States withdrew from captured Saigon, desperate Vietnamese gathered at the U.S. embassy and other points across the city. Over the previous two weeks, 50,000 South Vietnamese who had supported the United States in the war had been evacuated along with 6,000 Americans. Upon learning that the North Vietnamese would overtake Saigon at daybreak, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and President Gerald Ford ordered U.S. helicopters to evacuate the embassy in the middle of the night. After discovering that 129 U.S. Marines had been left behind, they sent another helicopter back, now in daylight. As the helicopter ascended, around 400 Vietnamese who had been promised evacuation were abandoned below. Marines tossed tear gas grenades down among the Vietnamese.
32
Seth Mydans, “Refugees Are Joyful in a Dili of Ashes,”
NewYork Times,
September 21, 1999, p. A10.
33
SVDM, Speaking Notes, “Handing Over Ceremony with General Cosgrove,” February 23, 2000. He continued, “Had a force like INTERFET been deployed in the spring of 1994 to Rwanda, hundreds of thousands of lives would have been saved.”
34
Laura King, “Thousands Cheer East Timor Leader,” Associated Press, October 22, 1999.
35
Terry McCarthy and Jason Tedjasukmana, “The Cult of Gusmão,”
Time Europe,
March 20, 2000, p. 30.
36
UN Security Council Resolution 1272, October 25, 1999.
37
Francesc Vendrell, the senior UN envoy who had miraculously persuaded the Indonesians to allow the referendum and had been working on East Timor since 1976, was told not to meddle and was treated at UN Headquarters, in the words of one UN official, “like a common criminal.”
38
FALINTIL is the Forças Armadas da Libertação Nacional de Timor-Leste (the Armed Forces for the National Liberation of Timor-Leste).
39
Conflict Security and Development Group, King’s College, London, “A Review of Peace Operations: A Case for Change, East Timor,” March 10, 2003, pp. 18-21.
40
The ratio of professional staff members to operation has since risen to two or three per operation. But the ratio of professional staff in Headquarters to UN personnel in the field remains around 1:149. UN General Assembly, Administrative and Budgetary Committee, “Introductory Remarks by the Under-Secretary-General for the Department of Management,”
Comprehensive Report on Strengthening the Capacity of the Organization to Manage and Sustain Peace Operations,
June 5, 2007.
41
Only in December 2000, thirteen months after Vieira de Mello departed, did a near-mutiny in the office convince Annan to formally replace Vieira de Mello with Kenzo Oshima, a career Japanese diplomat.
42
UN Security Council Resolution 1272. Jarat Chopra has helpfully described four categories of transitional authority: assistance, where the state was still intact and functioning, and the UN gave technical advice but exerted no direct authority over a government; control, as in Cambodia, where the UN sent transitional personnel to exercise “direct control” over certain governing functions; partnership, as in Namibia, where the UN and South Africa initially collaborated; and outright governorship, as in East Timor, where the UN exercised direct governmental authority. Jarat Chopra, “Introducing Peace Maintenance,”
Global Governance
4 ( January-March 1998), p. 7.
43
SVDM, Address to National Council, June 28, 2001.