Sir, - While it is great relief to all of us that a small military force under the United Nations is entering East Timor, the international community still needs to monitor the situation very carefully. I would like at this point particularly to applaud the significant intervention of Mrs Mary Robinson, United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights. It is noticeable that even in Ireland East Timor is sometimes carelessly described in the media as a "province" of Indonesia, which of course it never was. It was brutally and criminally annexed by a ruthless dictatorship, with enormous loss of life over the years. Moreover, the notion of co-operation with the Indonesian forces is morally repugnant in the light of their history although it may be necessary for practical purposes. One wonders how the second World War allies would have felt in directly analagous circumstances had they been asked to co-operate with the Gestapo in the aftermath of the Holocaust.
Those countries which now seek to gain moral status from their participation in the international force - Australia, the United States, France and Britain - should not be allowed easily to expunge their past guilt. In particular there should be a public outcry from world opinion demanding that the Australians immediately revoke the Timor Gap Treaty under which previous Australian administration sought, in contravention of international law, to collaborate with the Indonesians in the rape of the mineral assets legitimately accruing to the Timorese people.
Nor should it be forgotten that the US has blood on its hands also. Its grisly record started with the decision by President Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to give the green light for the original murderous invasion carried out by the Indonesians. Meanwhile, France and Britain continued over many years to profit from the sale of military hardware which was used in the attempted genocide against the people of East Timor. The degree of credibility one should accord to Foreign Secretary Robin Cookes' much vaunted "ethical foreign policy" must be assessed in the context of the astonishing fact that a week or so ago the British government invited the Indonesian military to attend an arms fair in London at the exact time the East Timorese were being massacred with the assistance of a previous shipment of arms. The most stinging rebuff suffered by Messrs Blair and Cooke must be the fact that even the morally bankrupt Indonesians did not have the gall to attend. Despite the absence of a withdrawal of the invitation by the British, the Indonesian military declined it themselves.
Once the situation on the island is stabilised, all of these nations must be required to invest heavily and without strings in the reconstruction of the country. This is nothing other than blood money and all have a blood guilt which will take many years of good deeds to wash away.
There is finally the plight of the many thousands of unfortunate East Timorese forcibly driven into West Timor by the Nazi-style tactics of the Indonesian army and their malicious stooges. There is little doubt that if the international community does not act on this issue there will be a Rwandan-style series of massacres in the concentration camps in West Timor. No diplomatic delicacy should prevent the world community from intervening to avert a possible slaughter. - Yours, etc.,
Senator David Norris, Seanad Eireann, Baile Atha Cliath 2.