East Timor and the FALN

Connect the dots and follow the money. Those two rules of politics will
help you explain the unexplainable.

If you want to understand why Bill Clinton sat on his hands while they
murdered tens of thousands and moved hundreds of thousand of East Timor
citizens, connect the dots and follow the money. If you want to
understand why Bill Clinton moved with uncharacteristic speed to free
Puerto Rican terrorists, connect the dots and follow the money.

Let’s start with East Timor. In 1974, a coup by Portuguese generals
marked the end of Portugal’s 400 years of rule over Asian, Latin
American and African colonies. One of those colonies was East Timor, a
half-island country of 600,000 people, predominately Catholic.

On Nov. 28, 1975, as Portugal was leaving, the East Timorese declared
their independence. On Dec. 7, 1975, Indonesia invaded East Timor. On
Dec. 22, 1975, the Security Council of the United Nations demanded that
Indonesia withdraw. Indonesia, with the support of an American
government still smarting from the loss of Vietnam, ignored the U.N.

The 1960 U.N. Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial
Countries and Peoples mandated a process by which the people of East
Timor could decide whether they wanted to be independent. Indonesia
ignored that U.N. mandate and instead maintained control of East Timor
by force of arms. They have killed or forcibly removed hundreds of
thousands of East Timorese residents during Indonesia’s illegal
occupation of East Timor. Militias subject to the influence of the
Indonesian government have murdered several western journalists.

In 1996, Jose Ramos-Horta and Bishop Belo, leaders of the East Timor
independence movement, won the Nobel Peace Prize. According to the Nobel
Committee, “the citizens of this former Portuguese colony have been
fighting a 23-year war of independence against Indonesia, who annexed
the then newly independent nation in 1975.” Since annexation, “it has
been estimated that one-third of the population of East Timor lost their
lives due to starvation, epidemics, war and terror.”

On Aug. 30, 1999, a U.N.-sanctioned election finally gave the people of
East Timor the chance to decide whether they would remain a part of
Indonesia or become independent. Seventy-eight and one-half percent of
the people of East Timor voted for independence in spite of widespread
violence from pro-Indonesia gangs of thugs. Since that fair and open
election, pro-Indonesia militias have murdered tens of thousands of East
Timorese civilians. Hundreds of thousands of East Timorese have been
forced to flee their homes in terror.

This is much worse than anything that happened in Kosovo. In fact, thugs
have killed more people in East Timor since the election of Aug. 30,
1999 than the total death toll in Kosovo since 1998. So the question is,
why was the Clinton administration hell bent on going to war to “save”
the Kosovar Albanians but unwilling to save the East Timorese?

One week after the independence election, the Washington Post
reported that “Pro-Indonesian militias assisted directly by local
soldiers and policemen executed East Timorese independence leaders and
herded thousands of people into military trucks Monday in an organized
campaign of violence that left a U.N. sponsored peace plan for the
territory in tatters.” This was no surprise. It was to be expected. Yet
in the face of the inevitable slaughter of thousands of innocents, Bill
Clinton did nothing. Why?

According to the Boston Globe, “When President Clinton visited Rwanda
last year on the fourth anniversary of the genocide that left more than
half a million people dead, he apologized to survivors and said the
world should have intervened. “Never again must we be shy about the
evidence.” Clinton said. “We did not act quickly enough after the
killing began. … We did not immediately call these crimes by their
rightful name: genocide.” Yet in spite of Bill’s tough words, he sat
idly by while the lifeblood drained out of tens of thousands of East
Timorese. Why?

Now, let’s look at FALN. The Armed Forces of National Liberation is a
terrorist group dedicated to the independence of Puerto Rico. The only
problem is that during a 1988 referendum in Puerto Rico, less than 3
percent of the people of Puerto Rico voted for independence.

Federal prosecutors have blamed FALN for 130 bombings in the United
States from 1974 to 1983. Once they tracked down these terrorists,
arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced them to 35 to 90 years of
prison, the violence stopped. When Bill Clinton was sworn in as
president in 1993, supporters of FALN immediately submitted clemency
petitions. That was six years ago. Suddenly, a month ago, Bill Clinton
decided to offer clemency to 16 FALN members. Why?

Most Americans and politicians believe that the only reason Bill Clinton
dusted off the six-year-old clemency appeal of FALN was to help his
wife’s political campaign. That is why both the House and the Senate
voted overwhelmingly to condemn Bill’s coddling of terrorists. If you
think the word terrorist is too strong, let’s look at the crimes that
these people committed.

Ten of those offered clemency were convicted of seditious conspiracy,
weapons charges and other counts after being arrested in 1980 in
connection with the armed robbery of a car rental agency in Evanston,
Ill., and were charged with plotting another armed robbery. They
convicted four others of seditious conspiracy and other charges in
connection to what prosecutors said was a 1983 plot to bomb two military
installations in Chicago. The final new “Friend-of-Bill” was convicted
of planning the 1983 robbery of a Wells Fargo depot in Hartford, Conn.,
with plans to use the $7.1 million stolen for the militant Puerto Rican
group Los Macheteros.

Now, let’s connect the dots and follow the money. The war over Kosovo
started just as the Chinese spy scandal started to heat up. The war over
Kosovo started when Clinton was fighting for his political life after
having been impeached by the House of Representatives. Kosovo was a
true, let’s-distract-the-media, “wag-the-dog” war.

East Timor is different. Bill feels safe now. This week’s big scandal is
Waco and Janet’s rear is on the line for this one. Oh by the way, Bill
is close friends with the Riady family, one of the wealthiest families
in Indonesia. Connect the dots and follow the money.

Back to FALN. One million, three hundred thousand Puerto Ricans live in
New York State. Their vote is crucial in any Democrat primary. Hillary
is running for Senate in New York State. Bill has an immediate and
present need to use his power to help his wife. After all, she stood by
his side when he disgraced her and their daughter. Helping FALN is
popular with some Puerto Rican voters. Freeing terrorists, however, is
not very popular in a state that suffered through the World Trade Center
bombings. So, time for more Clintonian strategy.

If Bill says, “you’re free” and Hillary says, “not so fast,” they can
cover both sides of the table. Oh yes, some Puerto Rican Democrats have
made a lot of noise, but that is all for show. Remember, less than 3
percent of the people of Puerto Rico want independence. Also, the most
vocal “anti-Hillary” Congressman Jose Serrano, was also the most vocal
“pro Bill” Democrat during impeachment.

To get a sense of how much of a charade all of this is, the New York
Times reprinted what the good congressman said on the floor of the House
on the day that they impeached Bill:

“The Republican right wing in this country doesn’t like it when we
say coup d’etat, so I’ll make it easier for them — golpe de estato —
that’s Spanish for overthrowing a government. From Day 1, they wanted to
get rid of Bill Clinton. They’re blinded by hate today. This place is
full of hate, because of what they tried to do to our president.” He
closed with a little street talk straight from his Bronx boyhood:
“Bullies get theirs, and you’re going to get yours, too.”

Does that sound like the rhetoric of a man who is going to turn on
Bill’s wife a few months later? To be sure, Hillary showed the arrogance
of her husband by making a unilateral decision without talking to anyone
connected with Puerto Rico. Many believe, however, that the sins of the
wife can be cured if her husband is willing to substantially increase
federal spending in Congressman Serrano’s district. Connect the dots and
follow the money.

Now let’s look at what we know about Clinton’s Indonesia ties. Since his
days as governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton has had a very close and very
strange relationship with the Riady family, one of the wealthiest and
most powerful families in Indonesia. Their family holding company, the
Lippo Group, has been involved in several questionable deals since Bill
Clinton become president.

For example, the Lippo Group paid Webster Hubbell a $250,000 bribe in
the months after he resigned from his position as the third highest
ranking member of Janet Reno’s staff until Ken Starr sent him to prison.
If you have forgotten, Web Hubbell went to prison for stealing from his,
and Hillary’s, law clients.

As bad as that was, the most smelly deal was when Clinton unilaterally
turned millions of acres of low-sulphur coal producing land in Utah into
government owned, “you-can’t-mine-it” land just before the 1996
election. Only a few journalists reported that this governmental
decision, in turn, increased the value of wharf and shipping investments
that the Lippo Group owned to export the last major source of low
sulphur coal in the world. Guess where that last source is from? That’s
right, Communist China. Connect the dots and follow the money.

Now maybe all of this is a coincidence. Maybe Bill Clinton did not
sacrifice the poor people of East Timor for political reasons. Maybe
Bill Clinton really wanted to wait until it had permission of the
Indonesian government to intervene. Maybe Bill’s decades-long
relationship with the Lippo Group and the Riady family had no impact on
him. Maybe, just maybe, freeing FALN terrorists had absolutely nothing
to do with Hillary’s run for the U.S. Senate.

If you believe that all of this “just happened,” I have a bridge in
Brooklyn that I want to sell you.

Finally, I want to know why “legitimate” journalists aren’t asking these
questions. Why doesn’t the “establishment” press connect the dots
between the Clinton-Indonesia connection and America’s foreign and
domestic policy decisions and follow the money?

Why haven’t the “professional” journalists looked at the FALN deal with
more creativity? Have they lost their backbones? We know they’ve sold
their souls long ago.

There is a Pulitzer prize here for the taking. This is another “All the
President’s Men” book deal. This is a chance to be the next Bernstein
and Woodward. Unless they just don’t care about what the Clintons do
with our government.

Fortunately, thanks to the Internet, we don’t have to wait for the paid
flacks to do the hard work. Because we can connect the dots and follow
the money on our own.