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dipsydoodle Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jan-17-08 07:58 PM
Original message
East Timor 'must forgive Suharto'
Edited on Thu Jan-17-08 08:01 PM by edwardlindy
Source: BBC News

East Timor's president has urged his countrymen to forgive ailing ex-Indonesian leader Suharto, who ruled them with an iron fist for 23 years.

Suharto, who ordered the invasion of East Timor in 1975, is critically ill in hospital in Jakarta.

Jose Ramos-Horta said he would not go to see Suharto personally but would "ask the Pope to pray for him" on an forthcoming visit to the Vatican.

He said the former leader contributed "many positive things" to Indonesia.


Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7193643.stm



I never read such a complete load of bollocks in my life. The man is mass murderer.

See here, read and inwardly digest : http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Kissinger/Kissinger_Indonesia.html

Two hundred thousand dead regretable...............
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Warren Stupidity Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jan-17-08 10:08 PM
Response to Original message
1. Around 300,000 - 1,000,000 or more as Suharto came to power in '65.
His CIA backed coup came complete with a massive 'liquidation' of the entire Indonesian left. One of our worst allies in our grand moral struggle against godless communism. Of course in Indonesia's case it was simply democratic socialism that was to be bled out of the system.

"Between 300,000 and one million Indonesians were killed in the mass-killings following the arrest of PKI members in Suharto's cabinet on October 6, 1965. Both the military and auxiliaries from conservative Muslim, Catholic, Hindu and secular nationalist militias conducted the killings. Though most communists were identified by locals, the CIA is known to have supplied the Indonesian military with a list of 10,000 suspected communists. Ironically, a CIA study of the events in Indonesia assessed that "In terms of the numbers killed the anti-PKI massacres in Indonesia rank as one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century..".<22>

It must also be noted that, in addition to the CIA, British and Australian intelligence were well aware of events as they transpired.

Time Magazine presented the following account on December 17, 1966 : "Communists, red sympathisers and their families are being massacred by the thousands. Backlands army units are reported to have executed thousands of communists after interrogation in remote jails. Armed with wide-bladed knives called parangs, Moslem bands crept at night into the homes of communists, killing entire families and burying their bodies in shallow graves."

"The murder campaign became so brazen in parts of rural East Java, that Moslem bands placed the heads of victims on poles and paraded them through villages. The killings have been on such a scale that the disposal of the corpses has created a serious sanitation problem in East Java and Northern Sumatra where the humid air bears the reek of decaying flesh. Travellers from those areas tell of small rivers and streams that have been literally clogged with bodies."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suharto



Amongst the worst affected areas was the island of Bali, where PKI had grown rapidly prior to the crackdown. On November 11 clashes erupt between PKI and PNI, ending in massacres of PKI accused members and sympathizers. Whereas much of the anti-PKI pogroms in the rest of the country were carried out by Islamic political organizations in the name of jihad, the killings in Bali were done in the name of Hinduism. Bali stood out as the only place in the country where local soldiers in some way intervened to lessen the slaughter.


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davidinalameda Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-18-08 01:27 AM
Response to Original message
2. its called forgiveness
people should really try it sometime


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Dutch Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-18-08 07:22 AM
Response to Reply #2
3. Yeah, especially those who've had their families massacred.
That they can't show compassion towards this poor, poor mass-murdering monster is just appalling.
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Warren Stupidity Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-18-08 08:48 AM
Response to Reply #2
4. Do you undestand that he is/was one of the worst mass murderers
of the 20th century? That there has been no attempt to redress the crimes committed by his regime? No expression at all of any remorse for the 30 years of bloody brutal and corrupt dictatorship? Forgiveness? I will omit the obvious analogy, but it certainly applies.
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gratuitous Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-18-08 08:52 AM
Response to Reply #2
5. Indeed
Because the act of forgiveness isn't necessarily for Suharto's sake.
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boricua79 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-18-08 11:46 AM
Response to Reply #2
6. easy for those who didn't suffer to say
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dysfunctional press Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-18-08 12:03 PM
Response to Reply #2
7. so i guess that you've completely forgiven bush & cheney for the past 7 years?
:shrug:

that's mighty white of you.
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DrDebug Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-18-08 12:09 PM
Response to Reply #2
8. Forgiveness comes after penance
Edited on Fri Jan-18-08 12:11 PM by DrDebug
Suharto never should the slightest bit of penace for all the mass murder which he committed.

If a person doesn't understand or refuses to understand that what he did was wrong then forgiveness is an idle word which will only fool yourselves.
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SOS Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-18-08 12:50 PM
Response to Original message
9. No mention of Richard Holbrooke?
"A little known chapter in Holbrooke’s career in the US government is his complicity in Indonesia’s campaign of genocide against East Timor."

http://www.zmag.org/CrisesCurEvts/sunil.htm
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struggle4progress Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-18-08 11:35 PM
Response to Original message
10. Indonesia's students want justice for Suharto (Reuters)
Fri Jan 18, 2008 11:01pm EST

By Fitri Wulandari and Harry Suhartono

JAKARTA (Reuters) - As a student activist, Heri Akhmadi was beaten and jailed. Unable to witness the birth of his son because he was in prison, he named the boy Gempur Suharto, or "Attack Suharto", after the man he holds responsible for his suffering ...

"Suharto took so many lives when he rose to power and he did the same when he stepped down," said Heri, who was jailed during university demonstrations in 1978 demanding that the People's Consultative Assembly not reappoint Suharto to another presidential term ...

Up to half a million people died in an army-backed purge in the following months, while intellectuals, teachers and artists, including the writer Pramoedya Ananta Toer and the painter Hendra Gunawan, were among the thousands of Indonesians sent to jail or labor camps for suspected left-wing sympathies.

During Suharto's 32 years in power, the armed forces crushed dissent in Aceh, Papua and East Timor, killed student activists, and were linked to extrajudicial killings of criminals ...

http://www.reuters.com/article/inDepthNews/idUSSP26332920080119

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struggle4progress Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-18-08 11:37 PM
Response to Original message
11. Reform of East Timor security forces crucial-report
Fri Jan 18, 2008 6:16am EST

JAKARTA, Jan 18 (Reuters) - East Timor needs to reform its police and army rapidly to head off the risk of renewed violence in the tiny country, a report by the International Crisis Group said on Friday.

Asia's youngest nation plunged into mayhem in 2006 when the army tore apart on regional lines and foreign troops had to be brought in to restore order.

The ensuing factional bloodshed killed 37 people and drove 150,000 from their homes, setting back development in one of the world's poorest nations ...

The United Nations will decide in February whether to extend the mandate of UNMIT, its fifth mission to East Timor since 1999 ...

http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSJAK24114



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struggle4progress Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-18-08 11:39 PM
Response to Original message
12. Prosecutor won't probe Timor's PM (TVNZ)
Jan 18, 2008 8:45 PM

... Former prime minister Mari Alkatiri has called on current Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao to resign, amid claims he orchestrated the violence that plunged the country into crisis.

Alkatiri quit as prime minister in June 2006 after a request Gusmao, who was then the president, amid claims Alkatiri and some of his ministers gave instructions to arm civilian militia during the crisis.

But last week, rebel leader Alfredo Reinado alleged Gusmao was the "mastermind" who had fomented the 2006 unrest, which left 37 people dead and drove 100,000 from their homes ...

Prosecutor General Longuinhos Monteiro has told local media his office will not be investigating Reinado's claims about Gusmao's alleged involvement in the unrest because they are "too political" ...

http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/536641/1549013
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