[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 93 (Thursday, June 8, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1179-E1180]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                       HUMAN RIGHTS IN EAST TIMOR

                                 ______


                        HON. JOHN EDWARD PORTER

                              of illinois

                    in the house of representatives

                         Wednesday, June 7, 1995
  Mr. PORTER. Mr. Speaker, as cochairman of the Congressional Human 
Rights Caucus, I rise today to speak out about human rights conditions 
in Indonesia, and specifically, on the island of East Timor. Home to 
nearly 200 million people, Indonesia is the fourth most populous nation 
in the world. Congress has already pressed the Government of Indonesia 
to give the people of East Timor greater freedom and to ensure the 
protection of their fundamental human rights. I am disheartened, 
however, by the lack of progress on ending abuses being committed by 
Indonesian military forces and the frequent reports of torture and 
other serious abuses being committed in East Timor. This year, the 
State Department's ``Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 
1994'' states:

       The [Indonesian] Government continued to commit serious 
     human rights abuses and in some areas, notably freedom of 
     expression, it became markedly more repressive, departing 
     from a long-term trend towards greater openness. The most 
     serious included the continuing inability of the people to 
     change their government and harsh repression of East Timorese 
     dissidents.

  In November 1994, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, 
Summary, and Arbitrary Executions reported that the atmosphere in East 
Timor continues to be oppressive and resembles the conditions that 
precipitated the mass killings by Indonesian forces in November 1991. 
The rapporteur's report serves as a warning to the world and should be 
a call to action for the international community to prevent a 
repetition of severe human rights violations.
  In addition, I remain concerned about the large Indonesian military 
presence on the island and about reports indicating that one of the 
Indonesian army battalions that was responsible for the Santa Cruz 
massacre recently returned to the region. I also oppose the 
mistreatment of Timorese political prisoners, the heightened migration 
of Indonesian settlers to East Timor, and the obstruction of 
international observers who are working to monitor trials of dissidents 
and report on conditions in East Timor. I firmly believe that these 
developments demand a strong response by the international community.
  Indonesian President Suharto has recently cracked down on free press, 
causing the firing of journalists who voice their dissent. This 
campaign to intimidate journalists is not the only repression that has 
intensified. There are frequent cases of Christians being arrested, 
beaten, and intimidated. There is little freedom of association, 
assembly or expression, and members of the security forces responsible 
for these human rights violations enjoy virtual impunity. Assistant 
Secretary of State John Shattuck recently reported to Congress that the 
human rights situation ``Which began worsening in late 1994, worsened 
further in January of this year.'' I call on Members to put pressure on 
the Indonesian Government to end their pattern of abuses in East Timor. 
I call on my colleagues to join me in my efforts to remain vocal and 
keep a bad situation from further deteriorating
  I also commend to Members the following article, from the Boston 
Globe dated April 3, 1995, which explains United States shortcomings in 
promoting human rights in Indonesia.
  One way to continue to keep pressure on the Indonesian Government is 
to continue the ban on International Military Education and Training 
[IMET] funds to them. I applaud Representative Reed of Rhode Island for 
the amendment he intends to offer to the American Overseas Interest Act 
to cut all IMET funds to Indonesia for fiscal year 1996 and fiscal year 
1997. I urge Members to support this amendment, which is a strong and 
clear message to the Indonesian Government that their disregard for 
human rights will not be tolerated by the United States.
                 [From the Boston Globe, April 3, 1995]

                       Compromising Human Rights

       The most generous way to describe the Clinton 
     administration's approach to human rights is to call it 
     ambivalent.
       John Shattuck, assistant secretary of state for human 
     rights, has said all the right things and produced candid 
     reports on human rights around the world. But President 
     Clinton ignored Beijing's abuses for the sake of trade, 
     subordinated human rights to strategic concerns when Boris 
     Yeltsin assaulted Chechnya and made the fatal mistake of 
     refusing to classify the mass murders in Rwanda as genocide 
     when to do so might have enabled UN forces to stop the 
     slaughter.
       Recently there has been an unusually overt demonstration of 
     the administration's ambivalence on human rights. Speaking in 
     the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, the vice chairman of the 
     Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. William Owens, said the Pentagon 
     wants to resume a US program for the military and educational 
     training of the Indonesian army, a program that Congress 
     suspended in 1992 because of Indonesia's flagrant abuse of 
     human rights on the conquered territory of East Timor.
       The same day, Shattuck was telling Congress that the human 
     right situation on East Timor, ``which began worsening in 
     late 1994, worsened further in January this year.'' 
     Shattuck's testimony replicated a report by the organization 
     Human Rights Watch/Asia on ``Deteriorating Human Rights in 
     East Timor.'' The report describes ``extrajudicial 
     [[Page E1180]] executions, torture, disappearances, unlawful 
     arrests and detentions and denials of freedom of association, 
     assembly and expression.''
       As Clinton and the new Congress consider the Pentagon's 
     request for $600,000 to spend on the training of Indonesian 
     officers, they ought to heed the counsel of the US Catholic 
     Conference. ``As difficult as the situation in East Timor has 
     been over the years,'' the bishops' office noted, 
     ``congressional protests and representations by various US 
     administrations have helped limit the severity of human 
     rights abuses, keeping a bad situation from becoming much 
     worse.''
       This is no time to encourage Indonesian persecution of the 
     East Timorese.
     

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