[ETAN-key] Crimes Against Humanity From Ford to Saddam

[John M Miller]

[see http://etan.org/news/kissinger/default.htm 
for more links on Ford's role in Indonesia's 
invasion and occupation of East Timor]

CounterPunch.org Weekend Edition January 6 / 7, 2007

Standards for Rembrance

Crimes Against Humanity From Ford to Saddam

By JOSEPH NEVINS

Now that both Gerald Ford and Saddam Hussein are 
dead and buried, the question of how they will be 
remembered here in the United States arises. If 
the talk of officialdom and the mainstream media 
outlets thus far is any indicator-and surely it 
is-the U.S. collective memories of the two 
leaders will be diametrically opposed.

As one might expect, official Washington's 
reactions to the two deaths have been as 
different as night and day, with Democrats 
following the White House lead in lockstep. 
President Bush expressed sadness in the wake of 
Ford's death, calling the former president a 
"great man" while Representative Nancy Pelosi 
voiced respect for Ford's "fair and reliable 
leadership." By contract, George Bush welcomed 
Hussein's execution, characterizing it as "an 
important milestone on Iraq's course to becoming 
a democracy," and Senator Joseph Biden, the new 
chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations 
Committee, declared with satisfaction that "Iraq 
has . . . rid the world of a tyrant."

On the surface, it makes sense to judge the two 
men in such divergent ways. After all, an Iraqi 
court convicted Hussein of a crime against 
humanity for ordering the deaths of 148 Shiite 
villagers in Dujail. While the court was of the 
kangaroo variety, there's no doubt that the 
Dujail massacre was only one of many atrocities 
he oversaw while ruling Iraq. Gerald Ford, to the 
contrary, was never even indicted for any such crime.

But this distinction, it turns out, reflects a 
double standard for judging similar conduct. If 
we do not limit our analysis of Ford to his role 
as a U.S. "statesman," and instead examine his 
behavior through an internationalist lens similar 
to that employed to judge Saddam Hussein and 
concerned with crimes against humanity, we find 
that Ford, too, was responsible for mass 
murder-in East Timor. The responsibility goes 
further than Ford's now-well-known giving to 
Indonesia the proverbial green light to invade. 
What the green light metaphor obscures is just 
how decisive Ford's authorization was, and how 
his complicity with Indonesia's crimes continued 
throughout his brief White House occupancy.

On Dec. 6, 1975, Ford and Henry Kissinger, his 
secretary of state, were in Jakarta, Indonesia to 
meet the country's dictator, General Suharto. 
Ford was fully cognizant of Indonesia's plans to 
launch an imminent invasion of the former 
Portuguese Timor. According to declassified 
documents published by the Washington-based 
National Security Archive, Ford assured Suharto 
that with regard to East Timor, "[We] will not 
press you on the issue. We understand . . . the intentions you have." (1)

Suharto needed Washington's go-ahead due to a 
1958 agreement that prohibited Indonesia from 
using U.S.-origin weaponry, which made up 90 
percent of Jakarta's arsenal at the time, except 
for "legitimate national self-defense." (2) For 
this reason Kissinger suggested that the invasion 
be framed as self-defense, thus circumventing any legal obstacles.

Kissinger then expressed understanding for 
Indonesia's "need to move quickly" and advised 
"that it would be better if it were done after we 
[he and Ford] returned [to the United States]." 
About 14 hours after their departure, Indonesian 
forces invaded neighboring East Timor.

While Indonesian forces massacred civilians 
during the first hours of the Dec. 7 invasion, 
Ford spoke at the University of Hawaii. There, he 
declared-apparently with a straight face-his 
commitment to a "Pacific doctrine of peace with 
all and hostility toward none," and spoke of an 
Asia "where people are free from the threat of foreign aggression." (3)

Ford and his White House successors helped make 
sure that his lofty vision was not realized in 
Indonesia-ravaged East Timor. According to the 
now-independent country's truth commission 
report, released late last year, Indonesia's war 
and illegal occupation resulted in many tens of 
thousands of East Timorese deaths, widespread 
rape and sexual enslavement of women and girls, 
and, in the waning days of Jakarta's presence, 
systematic destruction of the territory's 
buildings and infrastructure. (4) Today, East 
Timor is one of the world's poorest countries. It 
is, according to a 2006 United Nations 
Development Program (UNDP) report, a country "chained by poverty." (5)

Over the almost 24 years of Indonesian rule, 
Democratic and Republican administrations alike 
provided invaluable diplomatic cover and billions 
of dollars' worth of weapons, military equipment 
and training, and economic aid to Jakarta. For 
such reasons the truth commission report 
characterizes U.S. assistance as "fundamental" to 
the invasion and occupation, and calls upon 
Washington to apologize and pay reparations to East Timor.

Washington's considerable share of the blame for 
East Timor's plight does not rest solely at 
Ford's feet. But it was Gerald Ford that opened 
the door to this dreadful chapter in history.

There is little doubt that Ford's authorization 
was key to Indonesia's invasion. Intelligence and 
diplomatic documents reveal that Jakarta was so 
worried about how the U.S. would react to its 
aggression that Suharto had vetoed earlier plans 
to invade. Had the United States (along with its 
allies, especially Australia and Britain) said 
"no" to Jakarta's invasion prior to its 
launching, the Suharto regime would have been in 
a very difficult bind and most likely have 
reversed course. And, given the profound 
anti-communism of the regime, it could hardly 
have turned to the likes of the Soviet Union as an alternative.

As William Colby, the head of the Central 
Intelligence Agency in 1975, told an interviewer 
during the 1990s, if the United States had vetoed 
Indonesia's plan to invade, "[w]e certainly would 
have had a little diplomatic strain there," but 
nothing beyond that, the implication being that 
Jakarta would have backed down. He went on to 
suggest that Jakarta had no other options apart 
from securing Washington's compliance and to ask 
rhetorically, "where would have [Suharto] gone" 
had the Indonesian ruler not been not happy with the U.S. position? (6)

Nonetheless, Ford's administration had previously 
warned Indonesia against using American weaponry 
in any planned aggression. But any reservations 
that the administration may have had about the 
employment of U.S. weaponry seem to have 
disappeared by Dec. 6, 1975, with horrific 
results for the people of Timor-Leste, as the 
now-independent country is officially known..

One week after the meeting in Jakarta, Ford sent 
Suharto a package of golf balls as "a personal 
gift." (7) In the months that followed, his U.N. 
ambassador, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, prevented 
the United Nations from taking effective steps to 
compel Jakarta to end its illegal aggression. (8) 
Later in 1976, Ford's administration shipped a 
squadron of U.S. OV-10 "Bronco" ground-attack 
planes to Indonesia's military, ones ideal for 
counterinsurgency of the type it was waging in East Timor.

In the 1990s, journalist Allan Nairn interviewed 
Gerald Ford and asked him if he had authorized 
the invasion, Ford replied, "Frankly, I don't 
recall." As Nairn recounted recently on Democracy 
Now!, Ford explained that there were many topics 
on the December 6, 1975 meeting agenda, and East 
Timor was one of the lesser items. (9)

While Ford had the luxury of forgetting-an 
example of what we might call imperial 
privilege-the people of East Timor are condemned 
to remember: they will live with the physical, 
social, and psychological effects of the horrific 
war and occupation for decades.

According to the 2006 UNDP report, 90 out of 
1,000 children there die before their first 
birthday; half the population is illiterate; 64 
percent suffers from food insecurity; half lack 
access to access to safe drinking water; and 40 
percent live below the official poverty level of 
55 cents a day. Meanwhile, a study conducted by 
the International Rehabilitation Council for 
Torture Victims determined that about one-third 
of East Timor's population suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. (10)

This is a legacy for which we should remember 
Gerald Ford, just as Saddam Hussein will 
justifiably be memorialized for his role in crimes against humanity.

Joseph Nevins is an assistant professor of 
geography at Vassar College. He is the author of 
Operation Gatekeeper: The Rise of the "Illegal 
Alien" and the Making of the U.S.-Mexico Boundary 
(Routledge, 2002) and, most recently, A 
Not-so-distant Horror: Mass Violence in East 
Timor (Cornell University Press, 2005). His email is jonevins at vassar.edu.

Notes

(1) Quotes taken from William Burr and Michael L. Evans, eds.,
East Timor Revisited: Ford, Kissinger and the Indonesian Invasion,
1975­76, National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No.
62, Document 1, December 6, 2001. Available 
online at http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB62/.

(2) Text of agreement reprinted in United States Congress, House
of Representatives, "Human Right in East Timor and the Question
of the Use of U.S. Equipment by the Indonesian Armed Forces,"
Hearing before the Subcommittees on International Organizations
and on Asian and Pacific Affairs of the Committee on International
Relations, March 23, 1977, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government
Printing Office, 1977: 76.

(3) Address of President Gerald R. Ford at the University of
Hawaii, December 7, 1975; available online at 
http://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/library/speeches/750716.htm

(4) Chega!, Final Report of the Commission for Truth, Reception,
and Reconciliation (CAVR) in East Timor, Dili, 2005; available
online at http://www.etan.org/news/2006/cavr.htm

(5) United Nations Development Programme, The Path out of Poverty:
Timor-Leste Human Development Report 2006, Dili, Timor-Leste:
United Nations Development Programme, January 2006.

(6) Quoted in Allan Nairn, "Foreword," in Constâncio Pinto and
Matthew Jardine, East Timor's Unfinished Struggle: Inside the
Timorese Resistance, Boston: South End Press, 1997: xiii-xiv.

(7) See Brad Simpson, "'Illegally and Beautifully': The United
States, the Indonesian Invasion of East Timor and the International
Community, 1974-76," Cold War History, Vol. 5, No. 3, August
2005: 281-315; available online at 
http://www.etan.org/etanpdf/pdf3/CWHarticle.pdf

(8) Daniel Moynihan (with Suzanne Weaver), A Dangerous Place,
Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1978: 247. In the same statement,
Moynihan boasts of blocking U.N. action to end Morocco's illegal
(and ongoing) occupation of the Western Sahara.

(9) See "President Gerald Ford Dies at 93; Supported Indonesian
Invasion of East Timor that Killed 1/3 of Population," Democracy
Now!, December 27, 2007; transcript available at 
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/12/27/1638254

(10) J. Modvig et al., "Torture and Trauma in Post-Conflict East
Timor," The Lancet, Vol. 356, Nov. 18, 2000: 1763.

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