The New York Times
Friday, September 10, 1999
Clinton Demands End of Violence in East Timor
By PHILIP SHENON
WASHINGTON -- President Clinton demanded Thursday that Indonesia permit an international peacekeeping force to try to restore order in East Timor if the Indonesian military is unable to end "this madness" -- the wave of violence that has taken hundreds of lives across the tiny province since it voted for independence last week.
"If Indonesia does not end the violence, it must invite, it must invite the international community to assist in restoring security," the President said at the White House as he prepared to leave for the Asia-Pacific economic summit meeting in New Zealand.
But the President did not threaten an immediate cut off of economic assistance to Indonesia, as some lawmakers and human rights groups had wanted. Nor did he cut off commercial arms sales to Indonesia, which are expected to total about $16 million over the next year.
Instead, he said that he had ordered the Pentagon to suspend its few formal contacts with the Indonesia military, and that he would consider economic sanctions if the killings in East Timor did not stop. "My own willingness to support future assistance will depend very strongly on the way Indonesia handles this situation," he said.
He said the United States was prepared to assist Australia in its efforts to form an international peacekeeping force for East Timor, an idea Indonesia has rejected.
Clinton made clear that no decision had been made on the extent of American involvement in the mission. The Pentagon has said there are no plans to deploy American ground troops.
The Administration has faced a difficult calculation in deciding how to react to the bloodletting that began after the independence referendum in East Timor. Hundreds of people are reported to have been killed by anti-independence militias backed by elements of the military.
More Roman Catholic priests and nuns became targets in East Timor today in what the Vatican interpreted as a campaign against the church. At the same time, the United Nations sharply reduced the size of its staff in Dili, the capital of East Timor.
Clinton acknowledged Thursday that the United States was unclear on how decisions were being made in Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, about how to deal with the killings in East Timor.
He said it was possible that "nobody's got the authority" among Indonesia's military or civilian leaders to quell the violence.
While strongly protesting the violence, the United States wants to preserve a relationship with the civilian Government of President B. J. Habibie, which has been responsible for democratic reforms in Indonesia, an archipelago nation of more than 200 million people. East Timor, a former Portuguese colony of about 800,000 people, was invaded and annexed by Indonesia in 1975.
Clinton touched on the larger policy dilemma when, at the beginning of his remarks on East Timor, he saluted Indonesia for its "important democratic transformation," adding, "It has the capacity to lift an entire region if it succeeds and to swamp its neighbors in a sea of disorder if it fails."
He noted that Indonesia's economy, which was ravaged by the Asian economic crisis, has begun to rebound in recent months, largely as a result of billions of dollars in American-backed emergency aid through the International Monetary Fund.
"It would be a pity if the Indonesian recovery were crashed by this," he said of the crisis in East Timor. "But one way or the other, it will be crashed by this if they don't fix it, because there will be overwhelming public sentiment to stop the international economic cooperation.
"Precisely because Indonesia's future is important, I am so deeply concerned by the failure of its military to bring a stop to gross abuses now going on in East Timor."
The I.M.F. had already suspended all emergency aid to Indonesia, even before the crisis in East Timor, because of concerns over possible misuse of funds previously sent to Indonesia. And because of the current violence, an observation team from the I.M.F. that was to have gone to Indonesia this month has postponed its trip.
"We believe that, in effect, any future assistance from international financial institutions is effectively cut off as of now," Thomas Pickering, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, said today in Congressional testimony.
"There will not be any more forthcoming."
The suspension of military cooperation between the United States and Indonesia is little more than symbolic, since military ties between the two countries have been sharply limited by Congress in recent years because of human rights abuses attributed to the Indonesian armed forces.
The United States ended military exercises with Indonesia last year. As a result of today's action, the United States will freeze a $470,000-a-year military training program between the two countries and a handful of officer exchange programs.
Informal contacts between the two nations will continue. Clinton Administration officials said the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Henry H. Shelton, intended to remain in contact with his Indonesian counterpart, Gen. Wiranto, who is considered the key figure in the crisis.
In an appearance before Congress on his nomination for a second two-year term as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Shelton said he spoke with General Wiranto by phone on Monday and "laid out for him in no uncertain terms what I thought we needed to see from Indonesia, and specifically from him."
But while he said the United States was alarmed by the violence that has overwhelmed East Timor, General Shelton stressed that American national security interests were not on the line in the tiny territory.
"Certainly if you look at East Timor by itself, I cannot see any national interest there that would be overwhelming -- would call for us to deploy or place U.S. forces on the ground in that area," he said.
The general instead described the crisis in East Timor as a "moral issue" that "very clearly challenges our role as a leader with other nations in that region of the world."
