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Posted by
User: What price Liberty
From: m4.c2.telstra-mm.net.au
On: September 27, 1999 at 15:30:28

I confess that I find it interesting that a person who has clearly had the benefit of education espouses such virulent rubbish. What are we left to conclude but that you are in some way a supporter of the violence and attrocities that have been visited upon the ET people by the indonesian military.
Since you are clearly not an ignorant person, one must conclude that you are deeply racist against occidentals, and proclaim them as the harbingers of evil to the region.
Countries who guard against the destruction of liberty of minorities with a sovereign state, who are prepared to stand and be counted as opposing the right of any regime to simply absolve themselves from the protection of basic human rights for their populaces are not the evil ones as you seem to purport. Surely any right minded person can see that there can be no argument which is valid for allowing any government to commit crimes against humanity.

Many of your arguments are fatuous to say the very least, but in particular response as to why ET and not the rest of Indonesia: - Indonesia is a sovereign state duly recognised as member of the community of nations, The particular point with East Timor is that the government of Indonesia gave an undertaking to the Community of Nations to allow the people of that country the right to vote for independence freely and without coercion. To ensure that vote would be fair and free of coercion the UN secured agreement to allow the process to be overseen by impartial witnesses.
From the first moment the Government and military of Indonesia has worked to subvert the vote, and to turn the election into a mandate for remaining in ET. Despite the presence of vast contigents of troops, the arming of militia, and coercion of the people by violence, threat and bribery, the election was held and returned an overwhelming majority by the people to move to independence. At this point the true intentions of the Indonesian government and military becomes abundantly clear, as the protectionist forces supposedly present to guarantee the safety and security of the region and ALL it's peoples, degenerated into little more than a lawless bunch of rabble intent upon causing the destruction of East Timorese people, their society, property and liberty.
Your assertion that the US, Britain Australia and other western countries are seeking to dominate is as purely facile as it is possible to be. I remind you that the United Nations, NOT the individual governments, determined the need for insertion of peace keeping forces into ET in order to stop the destruction and persecution of those people. The debate about the issue, and the vote within the UN by member Nations, are a matter of public record, and should you require further enlightenment I suggest you read the transcripts and see if you can find ANY support for the actions of the Indonesian Government and Military.

Further your assertion that the US and other governments have responded to this crisis as a result of economic interests rather than out of well held altruistic beliefs is clearly incorrect for several reasons. Firstly if economic benefit was the underlying motive then a status quo within the region would have proven to be far more acceptable, stability within any region is unilaterally preferable, and is particularly sought in developing regions in order to protect the investments that made by external corporations and governments. Secondly, in your hypothesis that the remainder of the world, and in particular USA and Australia stand to make economic benefits from providing security for the ET people is patently flawed, as the enormous expense for providing this humanitarian mission is being borne directly by the Nations who are involved in the UN peace keeping mission. A net cost if you would like to view it in accountancy terms, that will go on for many years, and for which no re-imbursement will be sought.

I could continue on and rebut the remainder of your facile missive, however I will instead suggest that you undertake some study of the situation and hope that you might find room in your heart to pray for the unfortunate people of East Timor, and condemn the aggressors who have clearly casued this situation.




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