Suharto's No Hero

Three short years after his death, Indonesia's dictator Suharto has been nominated to a shortlist to be designated a "National Hero." The final decision rests with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. and any honors will likely be announced on November 10, Heroes’ Day. President Obama is scheduled to visit Indonesia around that date.


After Suharto died in January 2008, ETAN wrote:

Indonesia's former dictator General Suharto has died in bed and not in jail, escaping justice for his numerous crimes in East Timor and throughout the Indonesian archipelago. One of the worst mass murderers of the 20th century, his death tolls still shock...

We cannot forget that the United States government consistently supported Suharto and his regime. As the corpses piled up after his coup and darkness descended on Indonesia, his cheerleaders in the U.S. welcomed the "gleam of light in Asia." In the pursuit of realpolitik, U.S. administration after administration, fully aware of his many crimes, provided military assistance and hardware, training and equipping Suharto's killers. The Indonesian dictator sought and received U.S. approval before he launched his invasion of East Timor; ninety percent of the weapons used in this illegal attack came from the U.S.  

Indonesia's human rights, anti-corruption and other activists are opposed. Agence France Presse quotes human rights activist Raharjo Waluyo Jati,

"He caused so much suffering. So many activists were arrested, detained, punished and some even killed without trial during his rule. All the mess Indonesia is in now, with problems of corruption and human rights violations, were his doing. He built this chaos."

We hope Indonesian authorities do not take their clue from the appalling U.S.'s condolence statement on Suharto's death by now departed Ambassador Cameron Hume. He observed that while "there may be some controversy over his legacy" Suharto oversaw "a period during which Indonesia achieved remarkable economic and social development." 


At the time, we expressed our dismay that the "condolence statement on behalf of the U.S. government fails to even acknowledge the extraordinary crimes of this brutal and corrupt dictator" or the U.S. role in arming and supporting the regime.


President Obama once understood this. In his book The Audacity of Hope,  Obama wrote that "for the past sixty years the fate of [Indonesia] has been directly tied to U.S. foreign policy," a policy which included "the tolerance and occasional encouragement of tyranny, corruption, and environmental degradation when it served our interests." In Dreams from My Father, he described Suharto's seizure of power: "The death toll was anybody's guess: a few hundred thousand, maybe, half a million. Even the smart guys at the [CIA] had lost count." These "smart guys" had, of course, encouraged and assisted in the coup. 


Whether or not the corrupt or brutal dictator receives the posthumous honor, we urge President Obama to apologize to the people of Indonesia and East Timor for the U.S. role in their suffering during the Suharto years and to offer his condolences to Suharto's many victims throughout the archipelago.

ETAN helps East Timorese runners enter New York Marathon

Office of the President
Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste

20 October 2010

Timorese runners to take on the New York City Marathon

Top male and female distance runners from Timor-Leste are getting set to take on the New York City Marathon on 7 November. They will be accompanying the Australian Indigenous Marathon Project fronted by Australian marathon legend Robert de Castella.

Marathon running in Timor-Leste has kicked into gear this year with the inaugural International Dili "City of Peace" Marathon taking place on 20 June 2010. 24 year old Augusto Ramos Soares inspired the nation, coming in just one minute behind the Kenyan star and winner, Philemon Rotich, to take second place in a solid time of 2 hours and 36 minutes. From an incredibly poor farming family in rural Timor, Augusto and Olympic veteran Agueda Amaral will be joining their neighbours from regional Australia in under three weeks to compete in the NY Marathon. 

The International Dili Peace Marathon is a dynamic new addition to the President's 'Dili - City of Peace' initiative, and was run on 20 June 2010. On 6 April 2010, Sydney Olympic Marathon Course Director, Stephen Jackson, confirmed the course for the Marathon to be up to international standards. The Dili Marathon attracted 1270 runners from across 28 nations, of which 115 ran the full 42 kms, while the others ran either 21, 10 or 5 km races. The President announced: "It is my honour to welcome, on behalf of the State, all of our participants and supporters of the first Dili Marathon. This is an inaugural event, which will help place Timor-Leste in its rightful place on the world stage."

The President of Timor-Leste and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, H.E. Jose Ramos-Horta, initiated a process of cooperation with the Australian Indigenous Marathon Project, which has led to the two Timorese runners and coaches joining de Castella and his team for a training programme in Australia and a week of intensive preparation for the marathon.

But it nearly didn't happen. The registration process for the New York City Marathon had already passed its deadline before the starting gun had even been fired here in Dili. The final means of registration was through the Team for Kids charity in New York, requiring a certain amount of money to be raised for guaranteed entry into the race. Team for Kids (http://www.runwithtfk.org/) raises money to allow disadvantaged children to get involved in regular health and fitness programmes where they otherwise wouldn't have access to such facilities.

With time running short and money needing to be raised, The East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN) came into play. ETAN was pivotal in mobilising contacts both in Australia and New York to make the project a reality.

This momentous work has been greatly helped by the generosity and quick mobilisation of countless individuals. Two of the major hurdles presented along the way were getting the right training and race gear, as well as getting travel to New York from Dili.

After their excellent support during the Dili Marathon on 18 June this year, Nike was once again keen to get involved and support Timorese runners. With the AIS coaching session organised for Sydney and New York's Central Park, the Timorese athletes are sure to excel now that they are equipped with the top gear.

Getting the athletes and delegation over to New York was no small task. From the dusty Dili streets to the city that never sleeps on the opposite side of the world was made considerably easier by the generosity of V Australia and our long-term regional airline partner in Airnorth.

The momentum gained from pushing for the sports/peace "heroes" development in Timor-Leste is now going to an all new level with this first and all important step towards the London 2012 Olympics.

Follow the progress of Augusto and Agueda at www.dilimarathon.com

Contact Michael Stone on +670 7231964
 Email contact: media@tourdetimor.com

WPAT: Torture video reveals "Indonesia's Abu Ghraib" on eve of Obama visit

UPDATE: Interview with Ed McWilliams on Radio Australia's Connect Asia program

Contact: Ed McWilliams (WPAT) +1-575-648-2078

October 19, 2010 - A new video shows the torture of helpless men in the Indonesian-ruled territory of West Papua. Monitoring groups are already describing the footage as "Indonesia's Abu Ghraib." The video reveals indisputably Indonesian security force brutality, and raises serious questions about the Obama administration's decision to embrace cooperation with Indonesian security forces engaged in active and ongoing torture.

The video, available at ; http://material.ahrchk.net/video/AHRC-VID-012-2010-Indonesia.html is the second in recent months to offer graphic footage of Indonesian security force torture of Papuans. In it, a Papuan man is held to the ground while a hot stick, still smoldering from a fire, is held against his genitals. A plastic bag is wrapped around his head several times, a rifle held against him. Another man has a large knife held against him while he pleads: "I'm just an ordinary civilian, please..." One of his interrogators responds: "I'll cut your throat... Do not lie, I will kill you! Burn the penis!" The video appears to have been taken on the cell phone of one interrogator.

Still from video via Sydney Morning Herald

Thanks to the courage of Papuan human rights advocates in the face of harsh security measures designed to silence them, the world periodically has been witness to the harsh rule of West Papua. In the past, the faith in international justice and humanity demonstrated by these courageous Papuans has been betrayed by the international community's deference to the Indonesian government's insistence that neither its course nor rule there not be challenged. Numerous governments have placed the territorial integrity of Indonesia and the desire to support its democratization process first. In the process, however, they have abandoned what could have been constructive efforts to uphold human rights in West Papua, which continue to be systematically violated.

Geopolitical and commercial goals led the U.S. government to ignore Suharto dictatorship atrocities  targeting its own people and the people of East Timor for decades. President Bill Clinton acknowledged this when East Timor gained its independence in 2002, saying : "I don't believe America or any of the other countries were sufficiently sensitive in the beginning and for a long time, a long time before 1999, going all the way back to the '70s, to the suffering of the people of East Timor." It was the suffering of the people of East Timor that led to Congress deciding tosuspend military cooperation with Indonesia.

The system of security force rule and repression of peaceful dissent has been dismantled in much of Indonesia, but the same security system and the same systematic human rights violations continue in West Papua today. Such stopgap solutions as "special autonomy" have been clearly rejected by the Papuan people. Despite the continued human rights violations, the Obama administration has continued the Bush administration's policy of support to the Indonesian security forces. It has continued support to the Indonesian military through the IMET program, and support through the Anti-Terror Assistance Program to the notorious Detachment 88 of the Indonesian National Police, credibly accused of torture and other rights violations. It has resumed cooperation with the Indonesian special forces (Kopassus) notwithstanding that unit's  decades-old record of human rights abuse including recent, credible accounts of brutality targeting Papuan civilians.  In so doing the Obama Administration, like its predecessors, has wittingly or unwittingly made itself complicit in the repression now underway in West Papua.

The United States, under President John F. Kennedy, was responsible for the transfer of West Papua to Indonesian rule. In that act, the United States made itself co-responsible for the outcome of its actions. Successive administrations have not been sufficiently sensitive to the ongoing human rights violations, including torture to this day, which resulted from Indonesian rule.

President Obama's upcoming visit to Indonesia offers an opportunity to end the silence on West Papua, and to craft new policies that advance human rights rather than lending support to human rights violators. Information about the ongoing human rights violations in West Papua was
heard on September 22 by the House of Representatives Sub-committee on Asia, the Pacific.

The Obama administration should:

• Insist upon an investigation and prosecution of those who recently tortured Papuans in Puncak Jaya
• Seek an investigation by relevant United Nations human rights rapporteurs of this and other instances of torture in West Papua
• Suspend cooperation with Indonesian security forces accused of systematic human rights violations, including Detachment 88 and the Brimob (Mobile Brigade) of the National Police and the Indonesian special forces (Kopassus)
• Call for full and open access for journalists, humanitarian assistance personnel including the International Committee of the red Cross and other international monitors to all of West Papua
• Seek meetings between President Obama and Papuan human rights and civil society leaders during his visit to Indonesia
• Call upon the Indonesian government to carry out an internationally facilitated, senior-level dialogue process with Papuan officials and civil society designed to resolve the Papuan conflict peacefully, as was done in Aceh province

This releasee is also posted on ETAN's website at  http://etan.org/news/2010/10video.htm

see also

• West Papua Report
  
• House of Representatives: Crimes Against Humanity: When Will Indonesia's Military Be Held Accountable for Deliberate and Systematic Abuses in West Papua
• ETAN: Guide to U.S. Security Assistance to Indonesia and East Timor
• ETAN/WPAT: Suspend Training and Funding of Indonesian Police Unit Detachment 88
• ETAN Condemns U.S. Plan to Get Back in Bed with Indonesia's Kopassus Killers
• WPAT: Statement Regarding the U.S. Government's Decision to Resume Cooperation with Indonesian Special Forces (Kopassus)
• Background on Kopassus and Brimob

Indonesia's book banning law over-turned, sort of...

UPDATE: Australian Broadcasting's PM program has a new report where Indonesian artists discuss a climate of censorship where "their works were increasingly banned, attacked and even destroyed, usually by religious groups" as police stand by. One artist is quoted: "as Indonesia has become more democratic, post-Suharto, there's less artistic freedom."

On Wednesday, Indonesia's constitutional court has over-turned the Attorney General's unilateral power to ban books.

"The 1963 Law on Securing Printed Materials whose content could disrupt public order is against the constitution," Court Chief Mahfud MD said. "The law is no longer legally binding."

An editorial in the Jakarta Globe, praised the ruling but said

The ruling, however, is not a total victory for freedom of thought in this country. The AGO can still secure a ban or confiscate books but it will have to apply to the court for a ruling in its favor...  Indonesia still has laws that allow the state to restrict freedom of speech, such as the Anti-Pornography Law and the 1965 Blasphemy Law.... Also, the government can apply for a court to temporarily ban a book until due legal process has been completed to decide if the book should legally be banned in the longer term.

The 50-year old law had been used 22 times to ban books on West Papua, religion, the events of 1965, which brought the Suharto dictatorship to power,  among other topics.

UPI reported:

In February this year, author John Roosa, upon learning that his own book concerning Suharto's coup in 1965 had been banned, wrote that he was surprised Indonesia still censored so many publications.

"When I first heard that the translation of my book, 'Pretext for Mass Murder: The September 30th Movement and Suharto's Coup d'Etat' was banned, I had a deja vu," he wrote.

"It was like I was still living in the era of Suharto when every printed material was censored, when college students were charged for reading books authored by Pramoedya Ananta Toer, when a lot of my friends were working anonymously and moving underground in the fight against the dictator."

Call for Climate Justice in Timor-Leste

Timorese plant Mangrove trees on October 10, 2010. Photo by Charles Scheiner

The Movement for Climate Justice in Timor-Leste is joining the global movement to give one hour for the earth. 

On Sunday, 10/10/2010, thousands of actions all over the world will celebrate the international campaign to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to limit global carbon concentration to 350 parts per million to save our planet.

In Timor-Leste, an organizing committee is asking religious, government and other leaders, as well as the entire population of Dili, to take part in this campaign with a concrete action: stop all fossil-fuel-based transport in Dili from 3:00 pm to 4:00 pm Timor-Leste time on Sunday, 10 October 2010.

This concrete action will show the world that Timor-Leste is in solidarity with people worldwide in our common campaign on that day to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Our declaration follows below.

In addition, people will gather at 3:00 pm at the intersection next to Farol Primary School (across from Hasatil) to walk to the mouth of the river in Bidau Santana to plant mangrove trees.

DECLARATION OF THE MOVEMENT FOR CLIMATE JUSTICE

“One Hour for Mother Earth”


Today, the entire world is confronted by the huge impacts of climate change. The world is already at great risks to humanity, ecological disasters, hunger, and island nations disappearing under the sea. These consequences come from the interests of rich people, companies and countries who give importance only to their economic profit, rather than to the lives of people around the world.

Many scientists have already studied our earth and the lives of its inhabitants. They concluded that the conditions that are leading to the destruction of the world cannot be avoided as long as people, companies and industrialized countries continue to increase their emissions into the global atmosphere.

For the world able to survive for many more years with the guarantee that everyone will have the opportunity to live and have children, everyone must realize that the emission of greenhouse gases must be reduced, by changing people’s lifestyles.

Timor-Leste has become an oil-producing nation, and therefore contributes to global emissions. Development inside our country will also lead to environmental damage and pollution.

Today’s reality in Timor-Leste also shows us that we are already at risk from hunger, a threat which will confront humanity and human survival is close to us today. The rainy season doesn’t follow its time, dry days are few, natural disasters happen all the time, agricultural production drops and is destroyed, many springs have dried up, seas are high and rough (eroding the coastal zone), and more.

Everyone must pay attention to these phenomena, we all must be aware of “One world for all of us,” and we must all come together to save the planet for our children and future generations.

Secretary of State Avelinho Coelho prepares to plant Mangrove tree on 10/10/10

Therefore, we from the Timor-Leste Movement for Climate Justice ask and demand of:

·     Industrialized countries should reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 40-45% in 2020 and 80-85% in 2050, based on the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report.

·     Industrialized countries, especially the United States, European Union, Australia, China, Japan and others should consider all people in the world, and work to normalize greenhouse gases globally at 350 ppm.

·     Industrialized countries should give reparations and compensation equal to the environmental destruction they have caused so far.

·     Industrialized countries should mobilize and expand their use of environmentally-friendly renewable energy, including changing current environmentally-destructive lifestyles .

·     The United Nations, which facilitates Conventions on Climate Change, should be more pro-active in giving pressure to highlight solutions to this global emergency. They should resolve to stop and immediately cut environmentally destructive technology and development practices.

·     The United Nations, especially the Security Council, should issue a resolution against countries which gravely pollute at the subregional or regional level, as a crime against humanity.

·     The Government of Timor-Leste must also think about its own people, and follow a development path which is sustainable, renewable, and friendly to the environment.

·     The Government of Timor-Leste, which has already signed the Kyoto Protocol, should implement the clauses of this protocol.

·     Peoples across the globe must understand that we must reduce emissions and change lifestyles to save our planet.

·     The Government of Timor-Leste should cancel the expensive heavy oil project, which destroys land and the environment, and reallocate its budget to develop and promote environmentally friendly energy sources like wind, hydroelectric, solar, biogas and other renewable energy.

The Struggle Continues.

Movement for Climate Justice
Haburas Foundation, La’o Hamutuk, Permatil, Hasatil (list in formation) and other activists and individuals.
Contact: Demetrio (Haburas) +670-723-1881 or Maxi (La'o Hamutuk)  +670-733-6307

see Tetum version of the announcement and call here

UPDATE: posted a revised version of Declaration. Copy-editing changes only.  Added photos from 10.10.10 action