: I believe that the US should stay out of East Timor and just let them figure things out for themselves, their country is so much different than ours is and we may not even end up helping matters, but only making them worse. We are also digging ourselves deeper into debt by aiding them : --
: McSpotlight: Please form an orderly queue to respond to this one...
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When you say "the US should stay out" what do you mean?
Here are a few tid-bits from - mole.org - Project Underground:
"The East Timorese resistance movement has never accepted the legality
of the 1989 Timor Gap Treaty, under which the sea between Timor and
the Australian coast has been divided into three zones, with Australia
and Indonesia sharing management, exploration and exploitation of the
middle area (Zone A).
The Cipinang meeting comes less than a month after BHP announced the
start of the first oil production in Zone A, the combined reserves of
which are put at 29 million barrels of light, low-sulphur crude oil.
BHP is the major partner in a consortium which is pumping oil from
three fields in Zone A, that includes Phillips Petroleum of the United
States."
----
"The government of Indonesia has ordered oil production sharing
contractors like Mobil Oil Indonesia and PT Atlantic Richfield Co. to
hand over to the state treasury the proceeds from the sale of "blank"
shares. These type of shares were allegedly given to government
officials to help the companies win government contracts, while the
officials avoided paying any money for the shares. According to Asia
Pulse, Arco is 10% owned by PT Bimantara Dutasamudra, a company owned
by Bambang Trihatmojo, a son of former president Suharto, and Mobil
Oil is affiliated to the Humpus Group, which is owned by Hutomo
Mandala Putra, another son of Suharto. (Asia Pulse, March 22, 1999)"
"inhabitants of Desa Ampeh, in North Aceh, on the Indonesia are suing
Mobil Indonesia for 10 billion rupiah (US$1.33 million) for taking
their land and for taking over a cemetery to use as an airfield at
P.T. Arun, a liquefied natural-gas producer. Indonesia's state-owned
oil monopoly, Pertamina, holds a controlling 55 percent stake of Arun
while Mobil owns 35 percent.
The lawsuit was launched just as investigations indicate that Mobil
staff may have known about torture, massacres and mass burials by the
Kopassus, the most elite and murderous arm of the Indonesian military,
which took place next to Mobil's oil drilling operations. As many as
39,000 people are believed to have disappeared from the area over the
last two decades.
[As we know, the Kopassus have been equally busy in East Timor]
"On October 10 a coalition of 17 Indonesian human rights organizations
issued a statement saying that the Mobil is "responsible for human
rights abuses" by providing crucial logistic support to the army,
including earth-moving equipment that was used to dig mass graves.
Mobil flatly denies this."
And then there's FREEPORT-McMoRan, INC. that operates the Grasberg
mine on the island of Irian Jaya. The corporation controles an area of
land the size of Belgium and is one of the world's largest gold/copper
mines. (Henry Kissinger, the man who approved of the origonal invasion of East Timor by Indonesia, sits on the board of directors). Aboriginals have been forced off their land - a typical move by these large transnationals - and there has been huge environmental damage - also typical.
"Freeport also pays directly for the Indonesian military to guard the
mine. The same military has been convicted by local courts on the
basis of reports conducted by the Indonesian government human rights
commission of massacring dozens of people near the mine in 1994.
'[Villagers] were beaten with rattan, sticks and rifle butts and
kicked with boots. [Some] were tortured until they died,'' one tribal
leader told human rights investigators. In total some 2,000 people are
estimated to have been killed by the military near the mining
concession."
---
"In late September 1996, Freeport cancelled all of its insurance by
both the World Bank and the US government rather than face an
independent investigation into its activities in Indonesia. In the
midst of one of the most violent periods in Indonesian history,
Freeport has stated that it "no longer perceives a need" for political
risk insurance."
Most of this information can be found at
http://www.moles.org/ProjectUnderground/index1.html
