Sir, - The events taking place in East Timor are as bad as what happened in Kosovo, or worse, but the "Western" response is strangely different. Perhaps this is not surprising: the people are not white, and Indonesia is a friend of the "West". In the earlier conflict, we had the repeated, ugly sight of the prime minister of a small country off the coast of Europe baying for the blood of people in another corner of that continent. The relative inaction of Mr Blair and his cohorts about East Timor is remarkable, as is the willingness of the British Government to treat with the very architects of the massacres taking place in that country by supplying them with some of the weapons needed to carry out their murderous campaigns.
There is one common theme in the cases of Kosovo and East Timor, however: the alleged "ineffectiveness" of the UN. The undemocratic stranglehold which the five permanent members of the Security Council hold over the UN is a central reason for this problem. In particular, certain countries have worked hard to subvert and destroy its authority and replace it by a self-interested, militarised first-world control system. In recent years it has been the US, UK and France, as much or more than Russia and China, which have placed obstacles in the UN's way. The US owes billions of dollars.
We should salute the bravery of the UN personnel in East Timor (who comprise many nationalities, including American), dealing with impossible odds. We should also recognise, as the present case clearly illustrates, that there are occasions when force is necessary to defend the weak. The lesson of East Timor and Kosovo is that we need a greatly strengthened UN with real authority. What we do not need is the NATO-led militarisation of international affairs, orchestrated by governments with blood on their hands, in thrall to their own armaments industries. These are the same people we are now being asked to work with through NATO/PFP; we should not do so. - Yours, etc.,
Piaras Mac Einri, Model Farm Road, Cork,