The East Timor Genocide and Carter's Whitewashed Legacy

https://www.democracynow.org/2025/1/10/jimmy_carter_indonesia_east_timor_genocide 

The American support for Indonesia's genocide in East Timor is usually associated with Ford and Kissinger. The invasion famously began the day after Air Force One left Jakarta in December 1975. The Americans were fully aware of what Suharto was planning and many would go further and point to evidence suggesting the US encouraged the invasion. East Timor like Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea were Portuguese colonies up for grabs with the collapse of the dictatorship in the so-called Carnation Revolution of 1975.

In this contest for ex-Portuguese territories, the US would back guerrillas and South African troops in the subsequent African wars (which continued through the 1990's) and many view East Timor as a proxy conflict in which Indonesia (acting as a US agent) secured the tiny nation and guaranteed it would not become a beachhead for a Leftist regime. Indonesia had its own interests and the current president Prabowo was deeply involved in the violence in both Timor and the nearby Papua insurgency.

In the early 2000's declassified documents revealed that at the very least Ford and Kissinger gave their approval to Suharto and only cautioned him to move quickly. The implication is that the US would give diplomatic cover until things blew over but if it was dragged out for too long then such support would prove increasingly difficult.

The invasion actually was bogged down as the Timorese put up a tremendous fight. It was the Carter administration that equipped the Indonesian army enabling them to crush the remaining resistance and force the island to fall under Indonesian rule - which would continue until Suharto's exit in 1998. East Timor was finally granted independence in 1999. In the meantime a genocide took place throughout the late 1970's and 1980's, and in terms of percentages of the population, it was probably the most deadly of the 20th century. Figures range from 150,000 to over 300,000 but with a population of under 700,000 in 1975, the statistical weight of the mass killings exceeds just about any other genocide in modern times. It is certainly on par with the Jewish Holocaust in the 1940's.

And much of this took place under Carter - but he was by no means alone. The killings would continue into the 1980's with massacres still taking place into the early 1990's. It was the second time the US had collaborated with Suharto in a genocidal project.

The Democracy Now clip with Carter will surprise few but for those who know the East Timor story, his near offhand dismissal is pretty eye opening. It hardly constitutes repentance. Either way he was either woefully negligent and guilty of moral dereliction or he's simply whitewashing one of the great crimes of the Cold War and one that certainly challenges his 'moral' presidential narrative.

Who can doubt that Carter's National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski played a role in pushing the conflict? He was ever the Cold War hawk and we all know the role he played in baiting the USSR into Afghanistan. But this hardly lets Carter off the hook. These were his people and he can't feign ignorance. They acted in his name.

As Simpson explains, Southeast Asia was different. In 1975, the US was smarting from its defeat and expulsion from Indochina and it was looking for allies and to strengthen its hand. This argument would have still carried weight in 1977 when Carter took office. And as the article suggests, Carter doubled support and the genocide was basically bankrolled by the United States - and again figures like Prabowo (today's president) worked with the Americans and at various points in time were trained by them.

The mention of Richard Holbrooke who died in 2010 made me sit up. Mostly forgotten by now, the man was once a giant in US diplomatic circles. I always took great umbrage at the suggestion that he was some kind of moral diplomatic agent. Again and again his name is associated with hypocrisy, mendacity, and death. East Timor is no exception as he played a crucial role in obscuring what was happening, using his moral authority to provide cover for the genocide. And then years later we had to endure his absurd talk of sitting across the table from 'evil' as he faced the Serbian leadership. And just like today the media played its part - making sure the story was not told and the public was left in the dark about the true history of this evil man.

Unlike Amy Goodman and Simpson, I don't see the need in trying to present Carter as some kind of flawed giant when it comes to human rights. I'm sure he possessed a degree of sincerity but it was held within what was fundamentally an immoral and compromised framework. You don't make it to the White House without selling your soul. Whether you come to acknowledge this or not is a different story. For all the moral bankruptcy of Lyndon Johnson I always think that (of all contemporary presidents) he actually felt the weight and the crushing guilt associated with the office. Others might say his sorrow was a broken and crushed ego, his post-White House retreat and downward spiral an admission of defeat. Maybe. I'd like to think there was some reflection there but in reality it may have been self-serving. I'm not sure Carter ever arrived at that point - humble pride is more of what comes to mind.