U.S. IGNORES '75 MASSACRE OF EAST TIMORESE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000100150035-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 5, 2012
• Sequence Number: 35
• Publication Date: October 12, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

ST A T
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/05 :
ART!'v1,1
C) 14 P`
U.S. Ignores
15 Massacre of
East Timoi'ese
The civilized world reacted with
horror to the slaughter of several
hundred Palestinians in Beirut last
month, as well it should have.
But butchery of a far greater
order of magnitude has been all but
forgotten: the genocidal attack on
the peaceful people of East Timor
by Indonesian troops on Dec. 7,
1975.
The subject of the bloody con-
quest of East Timor may come up
when President Suharto of Indonesia
meets with President Reagan in the
White House this week, but don't
bet on it.
The Reagan administration seems
determined to play the same see-no-
evil, hear-no-evil, speak-no-evil role
that the Ford and Carter adminis-
trations saw tit to adopt over the In-
donesian campaign that cost the
lives of as many as 200,000 East Ti-
morese.
Indonesia's oil and its staunchly
anti-communist regime are consid-
ered too important to risk by asking
picky questions about mass murder
and repression.
Its bad enough that President
Ford gave his tacit approval to the
12 OO 'O3E3 1982
CIA-RDP90-00965R000100150035-0
Indonesian invasion, and that Pres-
ident Carter declined to apply his
loudly proclaimed human-rights
standards to Indonesia. But U.S.
diplomats ever since have been play-
ing down the Indonesian conquerors'
continued brutal treatment of their
vanquished neighbors.
"The State Department has en-
gaged in a consistent pattern of dis-
counting reports of Indonesian-in-
flicted suffering upon the people of
East Timor," declared Rep. Tony P.
Hall (D-Ohio).
He and Sen. Paul E. Tsongas (D-
Mass.) have emphatically challenged
the glowing reports submitted by
Foreign Service personnel fearful of
offending their Indonesian hosts. In
addition, 75 members of Congress
have signed a letter to President
Reagan protesting the Timor trag-
edy.
Starvation, which played a major
role in the mass deaths, is once again
a danger, according to the scant fir-
sthand reports _ issuing from East
Timor.
Malaria is a serious problem. And
the' Indonesians have "relocated" al-
most 4,000 Timorese to an island
called Arturo, which amounts to a
detention camp.
Don't expect any outcry over East
Timor from the man who is in line
to be the new U.S. ambassador to
Jakarta. Kent Crane.
A former aide to disgraced Vice
President Agnew. Crane reportedly
has close ties to the oil and financial
interests that dominate Indonesian''
politics. He'll he no boat-rocker.
Sources told my associate Jak-
Mitchell that a formidable coalition
of presidential aide Edwin Meese III
CIA officials and right-wing adviser'
are pushing Crane's appointment
Foreign Service officials oppose the
nomination because of Crane's re-
portedly close ties to the intelligence
community as well as some alleged
business dealings in Indonesia.
Crane's cordial relationship with
the spooks is confirmed by a Greek
exile leader in a good position to
know.
Years ago, when the exile, Elias
Demetracopoulos, raised questions
about. Thomas Pappas, the Greek-
American businessman who helped
bankroll Nixon, Agnew dispatched
Crane to the CIA's "dirty tricks" di-
vision to get, derogatory information
about Demetracopoulos.. The CIA'
obligingly gave Crane a calumnious',
one-page memo on Nixon's trouble-
some tormentor.
So the fix is still in, apparently.-
Oil and anti-communism will once'
again keep an American administra-
tion from embarrassing Suharto by
speaking out in behalf of the op-
pressed people of East Timor.
Footnote: State Department of-
ficials have insisted to Congress that'
the Agency for International Devel-
opment is doing all it can to assist
the Timorese. Kent Crane had not
returned several telephone calls by
the time I went to press.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/05: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100150035-0