Dublin - The chairman of Trocaire, Bishop John Kirby, warned yesterday that "the people of East Timor are facing genocide". Dr Kirby, who is Bishop of Clonfert, said yesterday that, in Rwanda in 1994, "the UN stood by and watched people being slaughtered, and then left the country.
"The Indonesians have learned this lesson very well and are now forcing the UN and international media to leave East Timor so that they can continue their awful project to overturn the result of a free vote and make the territory ungovernable," Dr Kirby said. "I have never been so dismayed at the inaction of the international community," he added, and called on the Government to promote a series of initiatives on the issue.