In Reply to: Who are we ? posted by Sargent on Saturday, 6. November 2004 at 16:41 Bali Time:
Hundreds of thousands, possibly a million people were killed during 1965-66, not merely thousands.
From 1975-1999 about 250,000 East Timorese, about a third of the population, were killed. This was not the act of a "few members" of the military. It was an orchestrated campaign that bordered on genocide, and which was aided by the west. (Suharto primarily restored relations with the west by killing Indonesians -- and those they considered Indonesians, such as the East Timorese and Papuans.)
After a bitter struggle for independence in Papua, Suharto placed his own men as heads of each region and then allowed each head to vote on independence. What a surprise that the vote sided with Indonesia.
GAM has been operating since 1970. Aceh has been problematic since before then. Suharto didn't help things.
Ambon's situation is similar to Aceh's in many ways, though has the added conflict of mainly Christians being on one side and mainly muslims on the other. But the real problem is the same thing... they have resources that earn big money for multinational companies, and the funds that remain in Indonesia do not stay in the region. Pretty much the same thing in Papua, really.
Suharto stole $47 billion from the Indonesian people and his military slaughtered at least 2 million of them. And you say he's not as bad as we thought? How bad did you think he was?
Now, I have my criticisms of SBY, obviously. But I support his decision to seek closer ties to China and other countries in the region. Any ass-kissing he does to the west is only going to fire up the mad minority muslims. And any extra weapons supplied to the military, in the absence of sound reforms, is dangerous to every Indonesian citizen.
Oh, and Suharto chased Ba'asyir because he was one of the few people with the balls to criticise him, not because he was suspected of any terrorist activity at the time.
I don't want to get into a deep argument about suggestions to reform the military, because that is not a thing I have any expertise in... they are just suggestions. But I do want to say that even though the East Timor atrocities and the accountability of those who committed them might not be a priority in Indonesia or the US, they are still a matter of interest to the UN, and millions of concerned citizens around the world.
I'm not military-phobic, either. I am in favour of military responsibility. And a country that hasn't fought against any country it didn't perceive as its own territory for 40 years, yet has a military with 2 million deaths on its hands, needs to be more responsible.
And if we're fighting terrorism, why would we want to arm a military with proven links to terrorists? Especially when the police, who have done most of the work to combat terrorism, are so grossly underfunded, underequipped, and undermanned?