Dear BP Members,

I apologize for this email which could not be further off-topic than
I could imagine. But I feel compelled to ask for help from you good
people in a matter of the utmost importance for humanity.
Events taking place in East Timor now are beyond civilized belief.
Reports coming into Australia today confirm fears that a deliberate
programme of genocide is taking place, under the control of the
Indonesian military.
Unless the world intervenes urgently, East Timor will soon take its
place in the world's catalogue of horrific atrocities along with the
Pol Pot regime in Cambodia and the Jewish holocaust in Nazi Germany.
After expelling the world's press, the Indonesian military is
conducting a systematic programme of slaughter of young men to wipe
out a generation of East Timorese.
Today, on television, I saw the Chairman of your Joint Chiefs of
Staff say that no US interests are underthreat in East Timor. What
about morality? What about humanity? What about decency? What about
protection of the innocent? What about democracy? Aren't these US
interests? East Timor is a long way away from you but it's still on
the same planet.
The East Timorese desperately need outside help and the support of
democratic nations, in particular the USA. No less than 78.5% of East
Timorese voted for independence from Indonesia. Since then, Indonesia
has subjected them to a terrible revenge. Indonesian military and
their militias have been burning, shooting and looting their way
through East Timor for days. These forces are under direct control
from Jakarta. They are not 'rogue elements' of the military or out of
control.
The latest estimate (given by John Moore, Australian Defence
Minister) is that 200,000 East Timorese have been forcibly evacuated
to West Timor and elsewhere in the Indonesian archipelago. There is a
systematic programme of destruction and genocide taking place --
designed to wipe out the East Timorese elite and raze the
infrastructure of East Timor to the ground. In a few days there will
be no East Timorese left to save.
East Timor is an Asian Kosovo: Indonesian military forces, police and
militia are causing terror in East Timor even as you read this
message. A gentle 80-year-old nun who helped care for the Nobel
prize-winner Bishop Belo has been shot, and there are numerous
accounts of children and young men being hacked to death. The neck of
a three-year-old child was wrung while his family watched. Cells in
the police station at Dili are stacked high with bodies.
I'm writing to you as someone who is outraged at these events and who
cannot believe that the world, and the US in  particular, will do
nothing to stop this holocaust. There is a desperate, urgent need for
immediate outside help for the Timorese, a gentle Christian people,
who believed that the world would stand by them.
Australia has committed 4,500 troops for a peacekeeping force but has
so far failed to get any tangible support from the US. There is a
great sense of sadness, anger and frustration here about this. And I
must tell you that there is great disappointment at the lack of US
interest.
Australia has always stood with the United States whenever the US has
asked for support -- in Korea, Vietnam and the Gulf War. This is the
first time in more than 50 years that we have asked for US help --
not for us, but for a people who were courageous enough to vote for
freedom and are now being crucified for their bravery. We have
provided bases for US military installations on our soil. We are and
always have been reliable and solid friends of the United States.
Please help us to save these defenceless and innocent Christian
people.
Our troops are on standby in Darwin but we cannot do this alone. By
coincidence there is a substantial number of US troops and several
warships also in Northern Australia. My guess is that a significant
show of force and commitment by the US would make all the difference.
Indonesia must be persuaded, by whatever means necessary, to accept
outside military intervention.
I beg you, please help. Ask your Congressman and President Clinton to
take a stand for democracy and confront the evil, malevolent forces
at work in East Timor today.

Yours very sincerely,



Ian Evans
PO Box 591, Mullumbimby, New South Wales
Australia 2482. Phone/fax +612 6684 7677
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