Kerry and Genocide: Know What
You Are Voting For
By Merlin Chowkwanyun and Joshua Frank
Antiwar.com, November 1, 2004
Soon the tallies will be rolling in,
and those who cast a vote for John Kerry in hopes of altering the
U.S. foreign policy paradigm will have wasted their energy. What the
mainstream media and others have failed to disclose this election
season is that one of Senator Kerry's key foreign policy advisors,
Richard
Holbrooke, happened to play a significant role in perhaps the
largest U.S.-backed genocide of the 20th century. Mr. Holbrooke is
considered a likely tap for secretary of state if Kerry defeats
President Bush.
In 1975, during Gerald Ford's administration, Indonesia
invaded East Timor and slaughtered 200,000 indigenous Timorese. The
Indonesian invasion of East Timor set the stage for a long and bloody
occupation that recently ended after an international peacekeeping
force was introduced in 1999.
Recent transcripts of meetings among Indonesian dictator Mohamed
Suharto, Gerald Ford, and his Secretary of State Henry Kissinger have
shown conclusively that Kissinger and Ford authorized and encouraged
Suharto's murderous actions. "We will understand and will not press
you on the issue [of East Timor]," said President Ford in a
meeting with Suharto and Kissinger in early December 1975, days
before Suharto's bloodbath. "We understand the problem and the
intentions you have," he added.
Henry Kissinger also stressed at the meeting that "the use of
U.S.-made arms could create problems," but then added, "It depends on
how we construe it; whether it is in self defense or is a foreign
operation." Thus, Kissinger's concern was not about whether U.S. arms
would be used offensively, but whether the act could be interpreted
as illegal. Kissinger went on: "It is important that whatever you do
succeeds quickly."
After Gerald Ford's loss and Jimmy Carter's ascendance into the
White House in 1976, Indonesia requested additional arms to continue
its brutal occupation, even though there was a supposed ban on arms
trades to Suharto's government. It was Carter's appointee to the
Department of State's Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs,
Richard Holbrooke, now the most likely candidate to be nominated
for Kerry's secretary of state, who authorized additional arms
shipments to Indonesia during this supposed blockade. Many scholars
have noted that this was the period when the Indonesian suppression
of the Timorese reached genocidal levels.
During his testimony before Congress in February 1978, Professor
Benedict Anderson cited a report that proved there was never a U.S.
arms ban, and that during the period of the alleged ban the U.S.
initiated new offers of military weaponry to the Indonesians:
"If we are curious as to why the Indonesians never
felt the force of the U.S. government's 'anguish,' the answer is
quite simple. In flat contradiction to express statements by
General Fish, Mr. Oakley, and Assistant Secretary of State for
East Asian and Pacific Affairs Richard Holbrooke, at least four
separate offers of military equipment were made to the Indonesian
government during the January-June 1976 'administrative
suspension.' This equipment consisted mainly of supplies and parts
for OV-10 Broncos, Vietnam War-era planes designed for
counterinsurgency operations against adversaries without effective
anti-aircraft weapons, and wholly useless for defending Indonesia
from a foreign enemy. The policy of supplying the Indonesian
regime with Broncos, as well as other counterinsurgency-related
equipment, has continued without substantial change from the Ford
through the present Carter administrations."
If we track Holbrooke's recent statements, the disturbing
symbiosis between him and figures like the hawkish Paul Wolfowitz,
whom Kerry supporters enjoy invoking when demonizing Bush, is
startling.
"In an unguarded moment just before the 2000 election, Richard
Holbrooke opened a foreign policy speech with a fawning tribute to
his host, Paul Wolfowitz, who was then the dean of the Johns Hopkins
School of Advanced International Studies in Washington," reported
First of the Month following the terrorist attacks in
2001.
The article continued:
"Holbrooke, a senior adviser to Al Gore, was acutely
aware that either he or Wolfowitz would be playing important roles
in next administration. Looking perhaps to assure the world of the
continuity of U.S. foreign policy, he told his audience that
Wolfowitz's 'recent activities illustrate something that's very
important about American foreign policy in an election year, and
that is the degree to which there are still common themes between
the parties.' The example he chose to illustrate his point was
East Timor, which was invaded and occupied in 1975 by Indonesia
with U.S. weapons - a security policy backed and partly shaped by
Holbrooke and Wolfowitz. 'Paul and I,' he said, 'have been in
frequent touch to make sure that we keep [East Timor] out
of the presidential campaign, where it would do no good to
American or Indonesian interests.'"
In short, Holbrooke has worked vigorously to keep his bloody
campaign silent. The results of which appear to have paid off. In
chilling words, Holbrooke describes the motivations behind support of
Indonesia's genocidal actions:
"The situation in East Timor is one of the number of
very important concerns of the United States in Indonesia.
Indonesia, with a population of 150 million people, is the fifth
largest nation in the world, is a moderate member of the
Non-Aligned Movement, is an important oil producer – which
plays a moderate role within OPEC – and occupies a strategic
position astride the sea lanes between the Pacific and Indian
Oceans. . . . We highly value our cooperative relationship with
Indonesia."
(The authors would like to thank Sunil K. Sharma for his
research.)
