It All Depends On Whose Ox is Being Gored

Kurt Jonassohn
September 1999

This year the media have been saturated with news from East Timor where people are tortured and murdered by a military regime that has never made any pretensions to democracy. But why is this news? After all, during the past quarter century this regime has reduced the population of East Timor by one third. People were raped, starved, tortured, relocated in guarded villages, and killed. All this was the result of Portugal’s decolonization and Indonesia’s annexation. The West, with the United States in the lead, not only agrred with the annexation which was opposed by much of the population of East Timor, but also supported that murderous regime with military, commercial, and political resources. The fact that several United Nations votes called for the termination of these illegal actions was ignored not only by Indonesia, but also by most of the major powers.

Why are the same countries now clamouring for humanitarian intervention--but only with the Indonesian government’s permission. That adds a novel dimension to the notion of intervention. By what new provisions does the perpetrator have to give permission for outside intervention?

By what set of rules does the perpetrator now insist that it has a prerogative to investigate its own violations of human rights? But again: why now?

Could it be because now the victimization is not limited to the East Timoreans any more? Could it be that targeting Christian clerics, diplomats, Red Cross workers, and United Nations employees makes all the difference?

Or could it be that the apparently well-organized ‘feeding frenzy’ in the media serves to draw attention away from other arenas where gross human rights violations are escalating?