Representative Christopher H. Smith - (NJ04)

Today's hearing is about the continuing humanitarian and human rights crisis in East Timor and about the past, present, and future of United States policy toward that country. I am particularly pleased that one of our witnesses will be East Timorese independence leader Xanana Gusmao, whom I first met in Cipinang [Chee-pee-NAHNG] Prison in May of last year. We will also hear from the State Department, from Nobel Peace Prize winner Jose Ramos-Horta, and from several other distinguished experts and human rights advocates.

When I visited Indonesia about a year and a half ago, just after the fall of the Soeharto regime, I hoped not only that democracy would come to Indonesia, but also that the people of East Timor would finally get the chance to exercise their right of self-determination. But I did not dream this exercise would occur so soon. Now that the referendum in East Timor is history and the people have spoken, it should be a time for congratulation and celebration.

Instead, however, the post-election period has become a time of mass killings, forced relocations, and other grave human rights violations. Although these atrocities were ostensibly committed by anti-independence East Timorese militias, it is clear that they were assisted and probably directed by important elements in the Indonesian military. Nobody knows how high the chain of complicity extends into the Indonesian military command, and nobody knows how many thousands of people have been killed. Even now, although the international peacekeeping force is doing great work in Dili and a few other locations in East Timor, in other places it appears that the brutal campaign of destruction carried out by the militias and their Indonesian military sponsors continues. The arrest this week in East Timor of a number of KOPASSUS soldiers is a clear indication of this. I have to wonder whether any of these killers were trained by our government, and I hope that Secretary of Defense Cohen will send a strong message during his visit that there will be no more training, no more military assistance, and no other nonhumanitarian assistance to the government of Indonesia until the perpetrators of these atrocities, however high-ranking they may be, are held accountable. In the meantime, the United States must provide whatever assistance is necessary to get the peacekeeping force in full and immediate control of the entirety of East Timor. Specifically, I understand the Administration has requested $140 million for a contribution to peacekeeping in East Timor. I understand this amount would be fully offset by reductions in various non-humanitarian accounts. Although this request has come in subsequent to both House and Senate passage of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act for FY 2000, I will work to get it included in the conference report, and I urge my colleagues on the Appropriations Committee to provide the necessary appropriations.

We also need to step up humanitarian assistance to prevent people who are still hiding in the hills, as well as those who have returned to their burned-out homes, from dying of starvation and disease.

Finally, international humanitarian organizations including the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees must be given immediate and complete access to the refugees in West Timor. There are credible reports that people are being murdered in these camps by the same militias and the same Indonesian soldiers who were murdering them a few days ago in East Timor, and that many of the refugees may be forced to relocate in other parts of Indonesia. We must insist that a transparent and secure process be set up immediately to find out how many of these refugees wish to return to East Timor and to assist them in returning.

I understand there are also East Timorese living in Jakarta and elsewhere in Indonesia who are in grave danger. I hope the United States will assist in arrangements for the immediate evacuation of these people. It may be possible to find temporary asylum for them in safe countries in the Asia-Pacific region. If not, we should offer them a safe haven in the United States until it becomes feasible for them to return to East Timor.

Every day these urgent measures are delayed, more people will die. So our immediate emphasis must be on addressing these elements of the current humanitarian crisis. I hope, however, that our witnesses will speak not only to the immediate present, but also to the past and the future. First, we must analyze and learn from the mistakes we have made, particularly in our relationship with the Indonesian military. We armed them, trained them, conducted joint exercises with them, even gave them honors and awards, on the theory that this would make them less likely to violate the internationally recognized and God-given human rights of their own people and of the people of the captive nation of East Timor. It now seems clear that we were wrong. The recent suspension of the U.S.-Indonesia military-military relationship is a positive step. An even more positive step would be for Congress to enact, and the President to sign, legislation which would set forth clearly the conditions on which that suspension will either continue or be lifted, including full compliance with Indonesia's international agreements regarding East Timor, immediate release of the refugees in West Timor, top-to-bottom reform of the military, and accountability for those who committed human rights violations. The Feingold-Helms bill, which should soon pass the Senate, contains all these provisions, and I am a co-sponsor of the companion House bill introduced by Congressman Pat Kennedy, H.R. 2895. I promise to work for the passage of this legislation in the House, and I urge the Administration to endorse it and work for it as well.

As for the future, we must discuss how to rebuild East Timor and to set the new country on the road to self-sufficiency. One benchmark for how much help we should give East Timor could be the amount of our past assistance, including bilateral aid as well as World Bank and IMF money, that contributed directly or indirectly to suppression and then destruction in East Timor.

Finally, I want to emphasize that Indonesia is not the enemy. Individual murderers and thugs, and whatever structures within the military and the government of Indonesia allowed them to remain and prosper, are the enemy. Whatever his weaknesses, President B.J. Habibie deserves credit for agreeing to the referendum in the first place. I am also pleased that Megawati Sukarnoputri, who will probably be Indonesia's next President, has issued strong statements accepting the results of the referendum and condemning the violence. So it is important to make clear that the United States should look forward to a continued friendly relationship with the Indonesian people and even the Indonesian government --- but only on the clear conditions that the killing must stop, the killers must be brought to justice, and the system must be reformed to ensure that nothing of this sort ever happens again.