Global Policy Forum

By William D. Hartung

The Clinton Administration's recent statements on the mass slaughter being undertaken by anti-independence militias in East Timor have portrayed the United States as an innocent bystander with little or no leverage over the Indonesian armed forces' actions in the territory. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Since Indonesia illegally occupied East Timor in 1975, the U.S. government has approved sales of over $1 billion in U.S. weaponry to the regime in Jakarta, including everything from F-16 fighter planes to military helicopters to M-16 combat rifles. Although exports of certain items have been curtailed in recent years due to justified concerns regarding Indonesia's human rights record, the United States has remained a significant source of arms and training for the Indonesian military.

A World Policy Institute analysis of official Pentagon and State Department statistics on arms exports indicates that since the first year of the Clinton Administration in 1993, the United States has supplied Indonesian forces with over $148 million worth of weapons and ammunition, including technical support and spare parts for Indonesia's considerable arsenal of U.S.-supplied aircraft and armored vehicles. Commercial sales of U.S. military equipment licensed by the State Department have increased substantially over the past three years from $3.3 million in 1997 to an estimated $16.3 million last year. Notwithstanding recent statements to the contrary by State Department spokesperson Jamie Rubin, the United States continues to provide essential support for the operation and sustenance of the Indonesian armed forces.

To make matters worse, as recently as 1997 the Pentagon violated the spirit of a Congressional prohibition on U.S. military training to Indonesia by providing assistance to Indonesia's notorious Kopassus counterinsurgency units under the Joint Combined Exercise and Training program (JCET). Kopassus has long been implicated in acts of repression within East Timor, and Kopassus members are suspected of involvement in the recent campaign of murder and harassment of pro-independence figures in the territory.

This longstanding pattern of supplying U.S. arms and training to Indonesia has helped fuel the current round of killing in East Timor. The Indonesian military helped set up the militia forces, and there is no doubt that the current reign of terror in East Timor is being conducted in part with U.S.-supplied weaponry that has been passed on to the anti-independence death squads by representatives of the Indonesian government. In a September 2nd dispatch from East Timor's capital, Dili; entitled "As Police Stand and Watch, the Timor Militia Go on a Rampage" -- Richard Lloyd Perry of the British Independent makes note of the use of U.S.-origin M-16 rifles by the militias-- rifles that were most likely given to them by members of the Indonesian armed forces, which have received thousands of M-16s from the United States and use them as their primary rifle.

Given this history of U.S. support for the Indonesian military and its violent occupation of East Timor, the United States has a special responsibility to take forceful action to stop the killing there. In addition to cutting off all arms, training, and economic assistance to the Jakarta regime, the Clinton Administration should press immediately for a UN protection force to defend the people of East Timor from the rampaging armed militias that have been terrorizing them. Given the role of U.S. arms supplies in fueling the current violence there, it is the least our government can do to rectify this horrific situation.