by StarmanSkye » Fri Mar 24, 2006 8:42 pm
As if we need a reminder -- the same corporate criminals are continuing their murder and plunder unchecked in the vacuum of 'news' blackout -- a monstrous betrayal of humanity and their nation's presumed endorsement of humanitarian laws. As in East Timor, so the crimes on behalf of big business occur in Papua and Iraq and Afghanistan.<br><br>Civilized, decent informed peoples can't help but be appalled at the official lies and denials that mask complicity in providing arms and political cover and supporting murderous regimes that use terror and killing to 'win' and protect valuable economic concessions.<br><br>And of course, the corruption precedes and will continue long past the Bush, Blair and Howard (and other, more hidden) administrations, unless a thorough purge of the west's government and economic criminals eliminates the rot of mercenary corporatism.<br><br>Starman<br>******<br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/030906D.shtml">www.truthout.org/docs_2006/030906D.shtml</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--> <br><br>The Secret War Against the Defenseless People of West Papua <br>By John Pilger <br>Thursday 09 March 2006 <br><br>In 1993, I and four others traveled clandestinely across East Timor to gather evidence of the genocide committed by the Indonesian dictatorship. Such was the depth of silence about this tiny country that the only map I could find before I set out was one with blank spaces stamped "Relief Data incomplete." Yet few places had been as defiled and abused by murderous forces. Not even Pol Pot had succeeded in <br>dispatching, proportionally, as many people as the Indonesian tyrant Suharto had done in collusion with the "international community." <br><br> In East Timor, I found a country littered with graves, their black crosses crowding the eye: crosses on peaks, crosses in tiers on the hillsides, crosses beside the road. They announced the murder of entire communities, from babies to the elderly. In 2000, when the East Timorese, displaying a collective act of courage with few historical parallels, finally won their freedom, the United Nations set up a truth commission; on 24 January, its 2,500 pages were published. I have never read anything like it. Using mostly official documents, it recounts in painful detail the entire disgrace of East Timor's blood sacrifice. It says that 180,000 East Timorese were killed by Indonesian troops or died from enforced starvation. It describes the "primary roles" in this carnage of the governments of the United States, Britain and Australia. America's "political and military support were fundamental" in crimes that ranged from "mass executions to forced resettlements, sexual and other horrific forms of torture as well as abuse against children." Britain, a co-conspirator in the invasion, was the main arms supplier. If you want to see through the smokescreen currently around Iraq, and understand true terrorism, read this document. <br><br> As I read it, my mind went back to the letters Foreign Office officials wrote to concerned members of the public and MPs following the showing of my film Death of a Nation. Knowing the truth, they denied that British-supplied Hawk jets were blowing straw-roofed villages to bits and that British-supplied Heckler & Koch machine guns were finishing off the occupants. They even lied about the scale of suffering. <br><br> And it is all happening again, wrapped in the same silence and with the "international community" playing the same part as backer and beneficiary of the crushing of a defenseless people. Indonesia's brutal occupation of West Papua, a vast, resource-rich province - stolen from its people, like East Timor - is one of the great secrets of our time. Recently, the Australian minister of "communications," Senator Helen Coonan, failed to place it on the map of her own region, as if it did not exist. <br><br> An estimated 100,000 Papuans, or 10 per cent of the population, have been killed by the Indonesian military. This is a fraction of the true figure, according to refugees. In January, 43 West Papuans reached Australia's north coast after a hazardous six-week journey in a dugout. They had no food, and had dribbled their last fresh water into their children's mouths. "We knew," said Herman Wainggai, the leader, "that if the Indonesian military had caught us, most of us would have died. They treat West Papuans like animals. They kill us like animals. They have created militias and jihadis to do just that. It is the same as East Timor." <br><br> For over a year, an estimated 6,000 people have been hiding in dense jungle after their villages and crops were destroyed by Indonesian Special Forces. Raising the West Papuan flag is "treason." Two men are serving ten- and 15-year sentences for merely trying. Following an attack on one village, a man was presented as an "example" and petrol poured over him and his hair set alight. <br><br> When the Netherlands gave Indonesia its independence in 1949, it argued that West Papua was a separate geographic and ethnic entity with a distinctive national character. A report published last November by the Institute of Netherlands History in The Hague revealed that the Dutch had <br>secretly recognized the "unmistakable beginning of the formation of a Papuan state," but were bullied by the administration of John F. Kennedy to accept "temporary" Indonesian control over what a White House adviser called "a few thousand miles of cannibal land." <br><br> The West Papuans were conned. The Dutch, Americans, British and Australians backed an "Act of Free Choice" ostensibly run by the UN. The movements of a UN monitoring team of 25 were restricted by the Indonesian military and they were denied interpreters. In 1969, out of a population of 800,000, some 1,000 West Papuans "voted." All were selected by the Indonesians. At gunpoint, they "agreed" to remain under the rule of General Suharto - who had seized power in 1965 in what the CIA later described as "one of the worst mass murders of the late 20th century." In 1981, the Tribunal on Human Rights in West Papua, held in exile, heard from Eliezer Bonay, Indonesia's first governor of the province, that <br>approximately 30,000 West Papuans had been murdered during 1963-69. <br><br>Little of this was reported in the West. <br><br> The silence of the "international community" is explained by the fabulous wealth of West Papua. In November 1967, soon after Suharto had consolidated his seizure of power, the Time-Life Corporation sponsored an extraordinary conference in Geneva. The participants included the most powerful capitalists in the world, led by the banker David Rockefeller. Sitting opposite them were Suharto's men, known as the "Berkeley mafia," as several had enjoyed US government scholarships to the University of California at Berkeley. Over three days, the Indonesian economy was carved up, sector by sector. An American and European consortium was handed West Papua's nickel; American, Japanese and French companies got its forests. However, the prize - the world's largest gold reserve and third-largest copper deposit, literally a mountain of copper and gold - went to the US mining giant Freeport-McMoran. On the board is Henry Kissinger, who, as US secretary of state, gave the "green light" to Suharto to invade East Timor, says the Dutch report. <br><br> Freeport is today probably the biggest single source of revenue for the Indonesian regime: the company is said to have handed Jakarta $33 billion between 1992 and 2004. Little of this has reached the people of West Papua. Last December, 55 people reportedly starved to death in the district of Yahukimo. The Jakarta Post noted the "horrible irony" of hunger in such an "immensely rich" province. According to the World Bank, "38 per cent of Papua's population is living in poverty, more than double the national average." <br><br> The Freeport mines are guarded by Indonesia's Special Forces, who are among the world's most seasoned terrorists, as their documented crimes in East Timor demonstrate. Known as Kopassus, they have been armed by the British and trained by the Australians. Last December, the Howard government in Canberra announced that it would resume "co-operation" with Kopassus at the Australian SAS base near Perth. In an inversion of the truth, the then-Australian defense minister, Senator Robert Hill, described Kopassus as having "the most effective capability to respond to a counter-hijack or hostage recovery threat." The files of human-rights organizations overflow with evidence of Kopassus's terrorism. On 6 July 1998, on the West Papuan island of Biak, just north of Australia, Special Forces massacred more than 100 people, most of them women. <br><br> However, the Indonesian military has not been able to crush the popular Free Papua Movement (OPM). Since 1965, almost alone, the OPM has reminded the Indonesians, often audaciously, that they are invaders. In the past two months, the resistance has caused the Indonesians to rush more troops to West Papua. Two British-supplied Tactical armored <br>personnel carriers fitted with water cannons have arrived from Jakarta. These were first delivered during the late Robin Cook's "ethical dimension" in foreign policy. Hawk fighter-bombers, made by BAE Systems, have been used against West Papuan villages. <br><br> The fate of the 43 asylum-seekers in Australia is precarious. In contravention of international law, the Howard government has moved them from the mainland to Christmas Island, which is part of an Australian "exclusion zone" for refugees. We should watch carefully what happens to these people. If the history of human rights is not the history of great power's impunity, the UN must return to West Papua, as it did finally to East Timor. Or do we always have to wait for the crosses to multiply? <br>***<br>For information on how help, visit FreeWestPapua.org. <br><br>******<br>Related:<br>The hiding-in-plain-sight smoking gun reports detailing the who-what-how-why-when of America's elitist decision to <br>embrace the use of military force for economic and energy goals --<br><br><br>Snippits from Cooperative Research's 911 Timeline Archive (1600 entries from Mainstream sources revealing enormous official duplicity, cover-up, complicity and fraud linked to the 911 attacks--<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:dS8mN0co_A4J:www.cooperativeresearch.org/item.jsp%3Fitem%3Da011901sanctions%26timeline%3Dcomplete_911_timeline+Hanjour,+left+airplane+on+runway&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=15">72.14.203.104/search?q=ca...clnk&cd=15</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>--quote--<br>April 2001 (D) <br> A report commissioned by former US Secretary of State James Baker and the Council on Foreign Relations entitled “Strategic Energy Policy Challenges For The 21st Century” is submitted to Vice President Cheney this month. “The report is linked to a veritable who's who of US hawks, oilmen and corporate bigwigs.” The report says the “central dilemma” for the US administration is that “the American people continue to demand plentiful and cheap energy without sacrifice or inconvenience.” It warns that the US is running out of oil, with a painful end to cheap fuel already in sight. It argues that “the United States remains a prisoner of its energy dilemma,” and that one of the “consequences” of this is a “need for military intervention” to secure its oil supply. It argues that Iraq needs to be overthrown so the US can control its oil. [Sunday Herald 10/5/02; Sydney Morning Herald 12/26/02] In what may be a reference to a pipeline through Afghanistan, the report suggests the US should “Investigate whether any changes to US policy would quickly facilitate higher exports of oil from the Caspian Basin region… the exports from some oil discoveries in the Caspian Basin could be hastened if a secure, economical export route could be identified swiftly” (see also September 2000 and Spring 2001). [Strategic Energy Policy Challenges For The 21st Century, 4/01] <br> <br>Spring 2001 <br> The Sydney Morning Herald later reports, “The months preceding September 11 [see] a shifting of the US military's focus … Over several months beginning in April [2001] a series of military and governmental policy documents [are] released that [seek] to legitimize the use of US military force” “in the pursuit of oil and gas.” Michael Klare, an international security expert and author of Resource Wars, says the military has increasingly come to “define resource security as their primary mission.” An article in the Army War College's journal by Jeffrey Record, a former staff member of the Senate armed services committee, argues for the legitimacy of "shooting in the Persian Gulf on behalf of lower gas prices.” He also “advocate[s] the acceptability of presidential subterfuge in the promotion of a conflict” and “explicitly urge[s] painting over the US's actual reasons for warfare with a nobly high-minded veneer, seeing such as a necessity for mobilizing public support for a conflict.” In April, Tommy Franks, the commander of US forces in the Persian Gulf/South Asia area, testifies to Congress in April that his command's key mission is “access to [the region's] energy resources.” The next month US Central Command begins planning for war with Afghanistan, plans that are later used in the real war (see May 2001 (F)). [Sydney Morning Herald, 12/26/02] Other little noticed but influential documents reflect similar thinking (see September 2000 and April 2001 (D)). <br> <p></p><i></i>
