The Indonesia government has played a strategy of not allowing people to go into East Timor ... There is a fear. The eyes say it all. You don’t have to talk to the people of East Timor. Even the little children show the fear in their eyes, in their face, they never smile. There is not one family that has not lost a member of their family. Inis Almeida, Timorese exile
Twenty years after the invasion, and as a consequence of the Indonesian occupation, the martyred people of East Timor suffered the greatest genocide registered in the XXth century ...
It strikes us to notice how a genocide of such dimension could pass unnoticed by the public world opinion. It was precisely the lack of knowledge of such reality and the information black out that contributed the most to the intolerable proportions of the East Timor drama. Professor Antonio Barbedo de Magalhaes, article ‘East Timor: A People Shattered by Lies and Silence’
Genocide is not just a murderous madness; it is, more deeply, a politics that promises a utopia beyond politics – one people, one land, one truth, the end of difference. Since genocide is a form of political utopia, it remains an enduring temptation in any multiethnic and multicultural society in crisis. Michael Ignatieff
The 20th century taught us how far unbridled evil can and will go when the world fails to confront it. It is time that we heed the lessons of the 20th century and stand up to these murderers. It is time that we end genocide in the 21st century. Allyson Schwartz
Genocide begins, however improbably, in the conviction that classes of biological distinction indisputably sanction social and political discrimination. Andrea Dworkin
In the case of Yugoslavia v NATO one of the charges was genocide. The US appealed to the court, saying that, by law, the United States is immune to the charge of genocide, self-immunized, and the court accepted that, so the case proceeded against the other NATO powers, but not against the United States. Noam Chomsky
When Washington finally signed the Genocide Convention after 40 years it added a reservation excluding itself from charges. Noam Chomsky, lecture Edinburgh University 2005, ‘Illegal But Legitimate: A Dubious Doctrine for the Times’
Genocide denial has been a leading and highly valued feature of the intellectual and more culture in the United States and remains so. Noam Chomsky, lecture MIT December 2009, ‘History of US Rule in Latin America’
East Timor: The silence began in December 1975 with the Indonesian invasion: from then on there’s a sharp decline in coverage – it reaches zero, zero literally in the United States and Canada, in 1978 which is the year in which the atrocities peaked, and in which in fact Jimmy Carter took some time off from his sermons about human rights to increase US aid to Indonesia because they were actually running out of arms in the war against this tiny country. Noam Chomsky, lecture MOMA 16th November 1992
The Great Act of Genocide in the modern period is Pol Pot from 1975 through 1978. Professor Noam Chomsky
By 1978 it [East Timor] was approaching genocidal levels. The Church and other sources estimated about two hundred thousand people killed. The US backed it all the way: the US provided 90% of the arms. Right after the invasion arm shipments were stepped up. When the Indonesians actually began to run out of arms in 1978, the Carter administration moved in and increased arms sales. And other western countries did the same. Professor Noam Chomsky
The invasion was carried out with US arms which by treaty with Indonesia can only be used for self-defence. The United States secretly expressed the hope that the invasion would be carried out quickly … sending new arms under the cover of the embargo. Noam Chomsky, Dorothy lecture September 1999, ‘Sovereignty and World Order’
You can talk about Holocaust denial, but it’s really marginal for the most part. What is compelling about the Armenian genocide, is how it has been forgotten. Atom Egoyan
When word got out we were interested in the genocide, the army would no longer let the survivors participate in the movie. And so they suggested we film with the perpetrators. The Act of Killing ***** Sky Atlantic 2015, director’s introduction
In 1965 the Indonesian government was overthrown by the military. Anybody opposed to the military dictatorship could be accused of being a communist: union members, landless farmers, intellectuals and the ethnic Chinese. In less than a year and with the direct aid of western governments, over one million ‘communists’ were murdered. ibid. caption
‘At first, we beat them to death, but there was too much blood.’ ibid. executioner
‘Communism will never be accepted here, because we have so many gangsters, and that’s a good thing.’ ibid. governor of province
Pancasila Youth is one of Indonesia’s biggest paramilitary organizations. Pancasila Youth played a leading role in the 1965-1966 killings. ibid. caption
‘We have too much democracy. It’s chaos. What is this ‘democracy’? Things were better under the military dictatorship. Better economy. More security.’ ibid. leader of Pancasila Youth
‘There were people like me everywhere in the world.’ ibid. gangster
‘But when I’m falling asleep it comes back to me.’ ibid.
‘I’m absolutely aware we were cruel.’ ibid.
‘And that is the source of all my nightmares: I’m always gazed at by those eyes that I didn’t close.’ ibid.
Sinjar: that is genocide. Seven thousand women were taken captive by Isis. Ross Kemp, Fight Against Isis, Sky 2016
‘There are orders and directives bearing my name that are not in accord with international law. But there were justified.’ Last Days of the Nazis IV: The Executioners, Keitel, 2015
These orders [Keitel’s] called for the immediate execution of soldiers and civilians alike. ibid.
[Paul Blobel] was responsible for the deaths of as many as 60,000 people. ibid.
Chemists like Becker had used gas to implement the T4 euthanasia programme in Germany. They developed a mobilised version of this technique to be used on the Eastern front ... by diverting the engine exhaust into the passenger compartment. ibid.
Franz Stangl: ran security for the T4 euthanasia programme before being assigned to extermination camps in Poland. ibid.
In California a genocidal campaign had reduced the indigenous population from 150,000 in 1846 to 30,000 by 1870. Plutocracy: Political Repression in the USA I: Divide and Rule, 2015
The Rwandan genocide spilled over into neighbouring Congo and lasted until 2003. Congo, My Precious, RT 2017
The Hague Netherlands, 22 November 2017: A UN tribunal will imminently deliver its long awaited verdict in the war crimes trial of former Serb military commander Ratko Mladic. Storyville: The Trial of Ratko Mladic, news report, BBC 2019
In the 1990s a series of brutal wars raged across the former Yugoslavia. 130,000 people are killed; 4 million were displaced. During the conflicts the United Nations established a court to prosecute war crimes suspects: General Ratko Mladic became their most wanted. ibid. captions
The indictment charged two counts of genocide and five counts of crimes against humanity, namely, persecution, murder, extermination, deportation and inhumane acts of forcible torture. ibid. court judge
President Josip Broz Tito ruled Bosnia and the rest of Yugoslavia for 35 years. His policy of ‘brotherhood and unity’ suppressed ethnic tensions. Following his death in 1980, the country began to fall apart. ibid. captions
Ratko Mladic was in hiding for sixteen years. During that time he suffered a heart attack and two strokes. The Defence will not allow him to testify due to his diminished physical and mental state. ibid.
Peter McCloskey is in charge of the Srebrenica genocide case. General Mladic is accused of murdering over 7,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica in 1995. ibid.
Genocide, mass murder, crimes against humanity – I’m always trying to figure out why do people participate in acts that are hateful, evil, destructive, that are monstrous. How did human beings arrive at that place, and at the same time, how do some people manage to resist the evil: to push back the darkness? Why We Hate s1e5: Crimes Against Humanity, Patrician Viseur Sellers, criminal lawyer, Discovery 2019
The heart of genocide: how do you destroy a group? ibid.
Through lynching the individuals, you terrorise the entire population. ibid.
5th February Sarajevo, Bosnia: The capital had been under siege for almost two years. Thousands had died in the city killed by sniper and shell attacks. But this was a dark day even by the standards of the Bosnian war. Secret Wars Uncovered: Battleground Bosnia, History 2020