US Silence on East Timor Genocide: Practice for Palestine?
The story focuses on East Timor's decades-long search for justice, 50 years after Indonesia's brutal 1975 invasion. What's curiously absent from the mainstream narrative (and Al Jazeera, to an extent) is the glaring record of US complicity. Declassified documents confirm the Ford administration, including Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, green-lit Indonesia's invasion, with President Ford
reportedly telling Suharto, 'We understand and will not press you on the issue.' (Source: National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 62, "Ford, Kissinger and the Indonesian Invasion, 1975-76"). The US then supplied 90% of Indonesia's arms used in the eventual genocide claiming an estimated 200,000 lives. Today, the world watches as similar diplomatic maneuvers and arms shipments fuel
another humanitarian crisis. One might wonder if the past isn't just prelude, but rehearsal, for how 'justice' is denied when it's politically inconvenient—or profitable.