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8 the Other Press

Other Feature

Itis August 2, 1990. In the early morning hours, hundreds of Iraqi tanks are streaming into the cape
of the tiny principality of Kuwait. Within hours, the resistance of the Kuwaiti army against an
overwhelmingly larger foe collapses. Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein soon proclaims Kuwait to be the
19th province of Iraq.

As the dust settles, the lucky few who have escaped Kuwait plead desperately for help from the outside’ a
world. They call on the United Nations to come down hard on Iraq for its blatant violation of
international law, and to expel Iraq from the territory of Kuwait. Kuwaiti refugees flee from their
country by the thousands, telling gruesome stories of horrendous atrocities committed by Iraqi troops, of §
arbitrary murder, rape and looting. :

However, the Kuwaitis’ appeals fall on deaf ears. The United Nations, though it passes resolutions
condemning the invasion, is unable to bring about any effective action, due to the reluctance of many

powerful countries to offend Saddam Hussein. The United States, China, the Soviet
Union, Canada, Britain, France, and many others refuse the calls for sanctions against
Iraq, calling the takeover of Kuwait a fait accompli against which nothing can be done.
Weapons continue to flow to the brutal regime in Baghdad, weapons which are then put
to use against the brave but pitiably few remaining forces of resistance in Kuwait. The
annexation of Kuwait quickly disappears from the news columns and evening news
broadcasts, and is soon banished to the back pages, a peripheral story of little concern.
For the next seventeen years, the Kuwaiti people put up a lonely struggle against a brutal
occupier, while the entire “civilized” world contents itself with looking the other way.

  

 

by David Whale

To anyone who remembers the events in the
back in 1990-91, the above scenario would no déub
far-fetched and absurd. In reality, of course, the invasion of
Kuwait was greeted not with indifference but with
campaign of concerted international outrage and
determination. Barely six. Months after it began, the Iraqi
occupation of Kuwait ended, With the shattered remnants‘

the occupying army expelled. and exterminated en masse by
one of the most ferocious armed assaults i in history, led by.

the United States.

 
 
 
 
 
  
  
  
   
  

  

However, change a few naities and dates, and the above
account would apply perfectly to certain other acts of
international aggression in recent years: < specifically, the
brutal invasion and occupation ‘of the former Portuguése
colony of East Timor by Indonesia since 1975. It fact, the...
invasions of these two territories, Kuwait and East Himor,”
provide an important insight into the principlesthat. govern
international relations in the modern world. \_ \ ‘

 

 

The story of East Timor remains virtually unkngyn in\. Ne
the Western world, and, for that mater, in the rest of the
world as well. This is not too surprising, considering that the
reaction to the Indonesian invasion illustrates beyond
question that, in spite of the noble rhetoric favoured by
politicians and heads of state about moral principles and
international law, crude self-interest remains the primary
operating principle which determines the behaviour of states
in the international arena.

The eastern half of the island of Timor was one of the last
remnants of the age of great European empires to be
granted independence; it was not until 1974 that the first
tentative steps toward self-rule were undertaken, after
nearly 400 years as a Portuguese colony. However, from the
beginning, the brutal military dictatorship of General
Suharto in Indonesia expressed. P basi i
new nation. From the moment the t
power, Indonesian troops began harrassing the border areas
of East Timor, and it soon became obvious to all observers
that Indonesia intended to invade outright.

Desperate to gain international support against the

 

\ to obliterat
carried out a program of enforeed sterilization of Timorese

   

inevitable invasion, East Timor declared independance on
November 28, 1975. Precisely ten days later, on December 7,
1975, the Indonesian invasion began. The invaders quickly
captured the capitol, Dili, and the remnants of the Timorese
government took to the mountains, where they have been
engaged in a guerilla war against the Indonesian occupiers
ever since.

» Thus, East Timor has enjoyed independence from foreign
domination for precisely ten days in the last four hundred

Though In ridonesia has attempted to almost totally shut off

 

‘Eat Tintor from the outside world since the invasion,
‘ réports filtering out leave little doubt that a horrendous

imassacre has taken place, with indiscriminate killing, rape,

amurder and destruction. The populations of entire villages

have reportédly been exterminated, and large aréas of the
mountainous interior are subjected to ferocious carpet
bombing; often with napalm and white eo orens:

 

Those = oivdse who have survived this savage,
continuing military assault must contend with disease,
starvation and the deliberate destruction of the country’s
social and.economic infrastructure. Indonesia has attempted

lL expressions of, Timoresé culture, and has

  

women in order to reduce the population further. At the
same time, the Indonesian policy of “transmigration” brings
inlarge numbers of non-Timorese immigrants from
elsewhere in the archipelago in a further attempt to dilute
and annihilate the native:culture. ~

Human rights groups such as. Amnesty International. .
generally estimate that about 200,000 people have-been ‘
killed during the occupation of East Timor, out of a pre-
invasion population of 600-700,000. In other words, one out
of every three men, women and children in the territory has
been killed, making the Indonesian slaughter in Timor a
contender for one of the worst acts of genocide in the

twentieth « century, easily ranking with the simultaneous
massacres under Pol Pot in Cambodia.

The fate of East Timor provided an uncanny premonition

of the fate of Kuwait fifteen years later. In each case, a tiny,

largely defenseless country was brutally subjugated by an

    
 
 
  
 
 
 
  
 
  
     
 
 
  
  
 
 
 
  
  
  
  
  
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
  

December 10, 1992

AT

4 is

infinitely more powerful neighth
repressive dictator. Both invasio
aggression and violation of all t
United Nations condemned bot
withdrawal of the occupiers fro
conquered countries.

However, the invasion of
different reaction than the inva
later: more or less, total indiffer
most of the states of the world, 2
to make a difference, None of thi
intervene imdefense of this obse
no particular strategie or econot
oil-rich Kuwait).

Indeed; the Western countr
weapons to.the Indonesian invad
The United States alone account
military equipment, and could e;
making further aggression in i

‘contrary, the U.S. actually i. incte
To this day, the United States’ ar
Canada) continue to supply the

weapons necessary for it-to cont

‘ With regards to internatio
repeatedly condemned the occuy
have been unable to enfore the n
way, due to the reluctance of mz
States, in particular, went to gre
taking:aniy effective action agai
(indeed; with some pride) by Dai
Ambassador to the U.N. atthe t

Canada’s behaviour in the fa
international law has been neles¢
following the invasion, Canada a’
resolutions condemning the Indo
1980’s onward, Canada has ac
making the Canadian governme
major atrocities of modern time
much better. Australia, for its pa
legally recognize the annexation
(Britain, France, Japan, India, et