CNRT: UN Warned To Back Talk With Action

CNRT: National Council for Timorese Resistance

MEDIA RELEASE

For immediate release: 1230 Australian
EST, Thursday 16 September 1999

CNRT: UN must tell Indonesia: if your military or auxiliaries attack UN forces, they will be engaged and wiped out

STATEMENT BY:

Joao Carrascalao

Head of CNRT in Australia

President of UDT (Timorese Democratic Union)

The United Nations and Australia must publicly call Indonesia's bluff and tell its military leaders bluntly -- if their military or auxiliaries attack or impede Australian and other UN peacekeepers, they will be engaged and wiped out.

We must reject the ridiculous statements by the Indonesian spokesperson, Dewi Anwar, that the militias will be especially antagonistic towards Australian troops.

There are no militias as such, only Kopassus and army-led auxiliary units of thugs plus some unfortunate East Timorese pressed into service at the point of a gun who are simply looking for a way to escape and live in peace.

Let me make it perfectly clear: the vast majority of East Timorese will welcome Australian troops with open arms, tears of joy, and every expression of gratitude. Further, they will trust Australian troops 100% as peacekeepers.

Any resistance to the work of the peacekeepers, Australian or others, will involve the Indonesian military or police and will be on Jakarta's orders.

HURRY! People are starving and the Indonesians plan more massacres

The need now is for speed. Move now, do not give Indonesia a timetable. Get the first troops in; get food, medicine and shelter and particularly protection to the people starving in the mountains.

Adopt the approach suggested by Indonesia's Ambassador Wiryono. He said Australia needed to be more Asian. He is right. We should take a lesson from Jakarta. Confront, invade, massacre, starve, burn, kidnap, steal ... then blandly deny that anything is happening and complain of our pride being hurt.

A measure of the Asian way is that the hated Indonesian army and Kopassus are threatening 60,000-70,000 unarmed, starving, East Timorese refugees in Dare. Those soldiers are murderers. Their leaders in Jakarta are murderers.

They are ready for a last, spiteful massacre. If the peacekeepers do not move in hard and fast on the side of the refugees, they will arrive to bury the dead to the sounds of derisive Indonesian laughter.

Thousands of East Timorese have died in the past few months, more are dying today, because of Australia's "softly, softly" approach in the ridiculous belief it had a special relationship with Indonesia and could influence it. They died for a myth. That special relationship was never more than Australia being a fawning sycophant to a contemptuous, arrogant and murderous military dictatorship.

This time, let's use Indonesia's own "Asian way" to save East Timorese lives.

FURTHER INFORMATION: Joao Carrascalao, CNRT Spokesperson in Australia. Tel: 0418 767 101

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