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For release: 6 December 2001
For more information contact:
William Burr (202) 994-7032
Michael Evans (202) 994-7029
Ford and Kissinger Gave Green Light to Indonesia's Invasion of
East Timor, 1975:
New Documents Detail Conversations with Suharto
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The National Security Archive at George Washington
University today published on the World Wide Web previously secret archival
documents confirming for the first time that the Indonesian government
launched its bloody invasion of Portuguese East Timor in December 1975
with the concurrence of President Gerald Ford and Secretary of State Henry
Kissinger. Since then, the Suharto regime that sponsored the invasion
has disintegrated, and East Timor has achieved independence, but as many
as 200,000 Timorese died during the twenty-five year occupation.
Twenty-six years ago today, President Gerald Ford and Secretary of State
Henry Kissinger met with Indonesian President Suharto during a brief stopover
in Jakarta while they were flying back from Beijing. Aware that Suharto
had plans to invade East Timor, and that the invasion was legally problematic—in
part because of Indonesia's use of U.S. military equipment that Congress
had approved only for self-defense—Ford and Kissinger wanted to ensure
that Suharto acted only after they had returned to U.S. territory.
The invasion took place on December 7, 1975, the day after their departure,
resulting in the quarter-century long violent and bloody Indonesian occupation
of East Timor. Henry Kissinger has consistently denied that any substantive
discussion of East Timor took place during the meeting with Suharto, but
a newly declassified State Department telegram from December 1975 confirms
that such a discussion took place and that Ford and Kissinger advised Suharto
that “it is important that whatever you do succeeds quickly.” Two
key documents released today were declassified by the Gerald R. Ford Library
at the request of the National Security Archive; Archive staffers located
other documents at the National Archives. Today’s revelations include:
When Suharto told Ford and Kissinger that he was about to order an invasion,
the response was only to caution that "it would be better it it were done
after we returned" (the invasion began the next day).
Kissinger told Suharto that the use of U.S.-supplied arms in the invasion—equipment
that under U.S. law could not be used for offensive military operations—“could
create problems,” but indicated that they might be able to “construe” the
invasion as self-defense.
On 12 August 1975, a few days after a coup attempt in East Timor, Kissinger
observed that an Indonesian takeover would take place “sooner or later”.
Six months into the occupation of East Timor, Kissinger acknowledged to
senior State Department officials that U.S. military aid had been used
“illegally” and hinted at his own doubts about the invasion: Washington
had “not very willingly” resumed normal relations with Jakarta.
“This important set of documents reveals the overriding
importance that the Ford administration attached to maintaining friendly
relations with Indonesia in the immediate aftermath of the U.S. defeat
in Vietnam. Ford and Kissinger plainly viewed the maintenance of
warm ties with the Suharto regime as a foreign policy priority that far
outweighed any secondary concerns about the possible Indonesian use of
force in East Timor--even though the use of such force would … constitute
a clear violation of American laws. The callous disregard for the
human rights and political aspirations of the East Timorese are rather
breathtakingly exposed in these newly released documents.” --- Robert
J. McMahon, Professor of History, University of Florida, and author of
The Limits of Empire: The United States and Southeast Asia Since 1945
(1999)
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