CLINTON ST. QUARTERLY li ii m ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii im ii ii ii ii ii m ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii m ii ii ii ii ii m “The war planes don’t stop all day long. There are hundreds o f human beings who die daily. The bodies are food fo r the vultures. I f bullets don’t kill us we die from epidemic disease, villages completely destroyed... The genocide will be soon. Cambodia? Viet-Nam? Afghanistan? Eritrea? Biafra?... Have you ever heard of Timor? The Red Cross (ICRC) estimates that 200,000 people have died there. Since 1975 this island, north of Australia, has been under siege by the Indonesian military. The East Timorese have been bombed, napalmed, and massacred; they have experienced rape, murder and great starvation: “The mountains shake with the bombardment. The earth talks with the blood o f the people, who die miserably... ” As heinous an act as this genocide is, it is being ignored by tne ‘free press’ the world over. There is no shortage of coverage of the situation in Cambodia or that in Afghanistan. Coverage of these ‘communist problems’ is to a large degree embellished. It is with relish that these accounts of human suffering and the denial of human rights are reported, published and then devoured by a public which must face the whims of the monopolized press. And how myopic our labeling of Cambodia as a ‘communist problem’; had Dr. Kissinger’s ‘shock therapy’ never been applied the Khmer Rouge would still be in the mountains, like their Thai and Malay counterparts. 200,000 East Timorese can testify to the mortifying effects of Dr. K’s elixir. Administered by the Indonesian army, air force, and navy, this medicine appears as saturation bombing, napaiming, and defoliation, not to mention looting, rape, torture, and starvation. Between East Timor and the island of Atauro lie the Ombai-Wetar Narrows, a waterway deep enough so that passing submarines need not surface. Use of this waterway Indonesian troops in East Timor. There was no reply. In its 1977 report on human rights that State Departshortens the passage from Guam to the Indian Ocean Diego Garcia outpost by 8-10 days. The prospect of a progressive government in control of the Narrows chilled the Pentagon’s spine. In Djakarta, the day before the Indonesians invaded East Timor, Kissinger told reporters that the US would not recognize the republic of East Timor. The Indonesian attempt to “ stabilize” East Timor continues to this day. Operations in East Timor show a remarkable similarity to other theati of US policy. Now in its 5th year, the task of protecting the East Timorese from 600 fierce Marxist guerillas, is taking 30 Indonesian lives and $500,000 daily not to mention over 100 Timorese lives a day. The US supplies 90% of Indonesian arms, has had advisors stationed in Timor and US pilots have reportedly been flying missions there. In 1977 a majority of members of the Australian Parliament petitioned President Carter to comment publically on the atrocities committed by ment did not even mention East Timor. This was corrected the following year when one paragraph mentioned that the killings took place before the Indonesian invasion! For its willingness to be a partner in US nuclear strategy Indonesia has been placed on Carter’s not-to-be-criticized list. Breaking a blockade in effect since 1975, one doctor and 2 nurses from the Red Cross were allowed into Timor last October. They report that the starvation there is comparable to that in Biafra or Cambodia. A massive military operation in April ’78 destroyed the subsistence economy which has supported the Timorese for millenia. Saturation bombing of the agricultural zones forced people to flee. Now, unable to cultivate, they can only wait for the next raid or the onset of the gnawing pangs of hunger, malnutrition, and the subsequent starvation. No one is taking notice of the annihilation o f a simple mountain people. Russian dissidents are front page news as are ‘communist’ atrocities in Cambodia. We are at the brink of WW III when Russia consolidates its hold on a satelite, yet the genocide of the East Timorese is ignored. On our behalf a sub-fascist client state is perpetrating genocide. 600,000 people remain out of a population which only a few years ago looked forward to independence after 400 years of Portugese rule. Can 8-10 days saved by a submarine possibly be worth 200,000 lives? In only a few moments every silo in the world could be emptied, our nuclear navy wouldn’t even be out of port, and one of the few places that wouldn’t have been bombed is already uninhabitable. Australian MP Michael Hodgman has written: For us... to bury our heads in the sand and turn our backs on what is alleged to have occurred, would be a gross act o f moral cowardice...future generations would have to bear the same shame and disgrace which fell upon those citizens o f nazi Germany who turned a blind eye to Auschwitz... The ghosts o f the dead will haunt each and every one o f us who seeks solace in silent acquiescence. How true this is of our Congress, Government and press whose complicity in the annihilation of the East Timorese is seen in increased arm sales to the Indonesians, votes against resolutions supporting the human rights of the East Timorese at the UN, and the refusal to recognize the gravity of the situation. One quarter of the population of East Timor has been murdered in the last 4/2 years. How many more will be killed before the world takes notice? For further information: Southeast Asia Resource Center, P.O.B. 4000- D, Berkeley, CA 94704; The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism, Chomsky and Herman, Enrico Martignoni LONG GOODBYE MAY CALENDAR 1 Alost 3 Metropolitan Jug Band 7 Titanics 8 Malchicks-, w/Young Canadians IO Metropolitan Jug Band 14 Sheila and the Boogiemen 15 Alost 16 TheBoloons 17 Malchicks 21 Sheila and the ' Boogiemen 22 The Racoons 23-24 The Odds 30 ,31 The Odds Tuesdays: Stand-up’ comedy with the Night People plus poetry Sundays: Michael Hurley Playback Theater Wed-Thur: In Consort - stand-up comedy F r iS a t : Mark Allen Players, Tin Pan Alley Musical Review Sundays: Famous French Postcards, Victorian dance review Long Goodbye 3 0 0 NW O h 228-1008 hammered dulcimers ♦ appalachtan 1 flutes ♦ gu itars* m an^o lt^s ♦ banjo piccolos ♦ unusual folk instrumerv books and recoMs of iraditiohal c tl t id rs ♦ recorders y f i c ^ e s ♦ whistles of many varieties id. ■o' Gther folk musics. 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