The Campaign to End Genocide: East Timor

- The Campaign to End Genocide: East Timor -

On August 30, 1999, 78% of East Timorese voted for independence in U.N.-supervised elections. The subsequent rampage of murder, looting and arson by anti-independence militias and Indonesian troops shocked the world. But it shouldn't have, since it was a continuation of 24 years of Indonesian repression that cost over 200,000 East Timorese lives. (U.S. complicity was direct: the Indonesian invasion of East Timor in 1975 came one day after a visit to Jakarta by President Ford and Secretary of State Kissinger.)

In conjunction with Amnesty International, the Asia-Pacific Center for Peace and Justice, Catholic Relief Services, the International Crisis Group, Mennonites, Human Rights Watch, and the East Timor Action Council, the Campaign to End Genocide formed an East Timor Crisis Group in Washington, D.C. Our first meeting was convened by Nobel Peace Prize winner, Jose Ramos Horta.

We set five goals: 1. Get an international peacekeeping force into East Timor. 2. Get aid to the refugees and the displaced. 3. Get a special session of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights convened in Geneva. 4. Get a U.N. Commission of Inquiry appointed to investigate the atrocities. 5. Get a criminal tribunal created to try those who committed crimes against humanity.

Crisis Group members lobbied the U.S. government, I.M.F., World Bank, and the governments of the U.K., France, and Australia, along with members of the U.N. Security Council. Amnesty International took the lead in lobbying members of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, and succeeded by one vote in getting the special session called, only the fourth in the Commission's history. The U.S., I.M.F., and World Bank told Indonesian President Habibie that international financial assistance would end if he did not accept a peacekeeping force in East Timor. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff called General Wiranto and told him to call off his troops or be held accountable.

The Director of The Campaign to End Genocide drafted an options paper on creation of a criminal tribunal for East Timor that was widely circulated in the State and Defense Departments and National Security Council, as well as to the governments of the U.K., France, Australia and U.N. Security Council members. The day after U.K. Campaign board members Bernie Hamilton (Leo Kuper Foundation) and Peter Hall (Physicians for Human Rights) presented the paper to the British Foreign Ministry, Foreign Secretary Robin Cook publicly supported creation of an international criminal tribunal for East Timor.

All of the goals of the East Timor Crisis Group were met. With Indonesian acquiescence, Australia sent in a U.N. authorized peacekeeping force. Catholic Relief Services took the lead in organizing relief for the refugees. The U.N. Commission on Human Rights appointed a Commission of Inquiry to investigate the atrocities committed in East Timor. Its report is due December 31. We expect that it will recommend a tribunal for those who committed serious crimes. In November, the new Indonesian President promised that the 200,000 refugees forced into camps in West Timor would be allowed to return to East Timor. A U.N. peacekeeping and reconstruction operation in East Timor has now been authorized by the Security Council. For the people of East Timor, however, rebuilding their homes and their shattered lives has only begun.

Gregory H. Stanton (Director )
The Campaign to End Genocide
World Federalist Association
418-420 7th St. SE
Washington, D.C. 20003
202-546-3950
Fax 202-546-3749 gstanton@wfa.org