Too late...
Posted by peegee on Wed, 05/26/2004 - 12:49am.
Ha, if you slip into your geopolitical nerd role again I cannot help slipping into the complimentary behavioural pattern. Because as bad as the situation was in East Timor (or with Indonesia in general, during Suharto's rule), for about 25 years nobody intervened. After all East Timor was invaded by Indonesia in 1975(!), there was a UN resolution (as with Iraq and Kuwait), but unlike Iraq Indonesia received both good-will and the weapons necessary to maintain their occupation of East Timor. The prime suppliers of such were - the UK and Australia. Only around 1999 UN peacekeepers were brought in. Handled in a quick fashion, eh ?
I remember reading about an Australian soldier who was sent to East Timor as part of a UN peacekeeping force and who remarked on the irony of the fact that "first they (i.e. Australia) had helped him (i.e. Suharto) get there (i.e. East Timor), now they came back to kick him out". Just goes to show that there is still a lot of decency to be found with common people and very little with those (politicians) who are supposed to represent them.
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