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A Not-So-Distant Horror: Mass Violence in East Timor
On August 30, 1999, in a United Nations-sponsored ballot, East Timor voted for independence from Indonesia and for an end to a brutal military occupation. Upon the announcement of the result, Indonesian troops and their paramilitary proxies launched a wave of terror that, over three weeks, resulted in the murder of more than 1,000 people, the rape of untold numbers of women and girls, the razing of 70 percent of the country's buildings and infrastructure, and the forcible deportation of 250,000 people. In recounting these horrible acts and the preceding events, Joseph Nevins shows that what took place was only the final scene in more than two decades of atrocities. More than 200,000 people, about a third of the population, lost their lives due to Indonesia's 1975 invasion and subsequent occupation, making the East Timorese case proportionately one of the worst episodes of genocide since World War II.
In A Not-So-Distant Horror, Nevins reveals the international complicity at the center of the East Timor tragedy. In his view, much if not all of the horror that plagued East Timor in 1999 and in the 24 preceding years could have been avoided had countries like Australia, Japan, the United Kingdom, and especially the United States, not provided Indonesia with valuable political, economic, and military assistance, as well as diplomatic cover. The author explores issues of accountability for East Timor's plight and probes the meaning of what took place in terms of international institutions and law. Examining issues such as violence, the geography of memory, and social power, Nevins makes clear that the case of East Timor has much to tell us about the contemporary world order.
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A Not-So-Distant Horror: Mass Violence in East Timor
On August 30, 1999, in a United Nations-sponsored ballot, East Timor voted for independence from Indonesia and for an end to a brutal military occupation. Upon the announcement of the result, Indonesian troops and their paramilitary proxies launched a wave of terror that, over three weeks, resulted in the murder of more than 1,000 people, the rape of untold numbers of women and girls, the razing of 70 percent of the country's buildings and infrastructure, and the forcible deportation of 250,000 people. In recounting these horrible acts and the preceding events, Joseph Nevins shows that what took place was only the final scene in more than two decades of atrocities. More than 200,000 people, about a third of the population, lost their lives due to Indonesia's 1975 invasion and subsequent occupation, making the East Timorese case proportionately one of the worst episodes of genocide since World War II.
In A Not-So-Distant Horror, Nevins reveals the international complicity at the center of the East Timor tragedy. In his view, much if not all of the horror that plagued East Timor in 1999 and in the 24 preceding years could have been avoided had countries like Australia, Japan, the United Kingdom, and especially the United States, not provided Indonesia with valuable political, economic, and military assistance, as well as diplomatic cover. The author explores issues of accountability for East Timor's plight and probes the meaning of what took place in terms of international institutions and law. Examining issues such as violence, the geography of memory, and social power, Nevins makes clear that the case of East Timor has much to tell us about the contemporary world order.
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A Not-So-Distant Horror: Mass Violence in East Timor
On August 30, 1999, in a United Nations-sponsored ballot, East Timor voted for independence from Indonesia and for an end to a brutal military occupation. Upon the announcement of the result, Indonesian troops and their paramilitary proxies launched a wave of terror that, over three weeks, resulted in the murder of more than 1,000 people, the rape of untold numbers of women and girls, the razing of 70 percent of the country's buildings and infrastructure, and the forcible deportation of 250,000 people. In recounting these horrible acts and the preceding events, Joseph Nevins shows that what took place was only the final scene in more than two decades of atrocities. More than 200,000 people, about a third of the population, lost their lives due to Indonesia's 1975 invasion and subsequent occupation, making the East Timorese case proportionately one of the worst episodes of genocide since World War II.
In A Not-So-Distant Horror, Nevins reveals the international complicity at the center of the East Timor tragedy. In his view, much if not all of the horror that plagued East Timor in 1999 and in the 24 preceding years could have been avoided had countries like Australia, Japan, the United Kingdom, and especially the United States, not provided Indonesia with valuable political, economic, and military assistance, as well as diplomatic cover. The author explores issues of accountability for East Timor's plight and probes the meaning of what took place in terms of international institutions and law. Examining issues such as violence, the geography of memory, and social power, Nevins makes clear that the case of East Timor has much to tell us about the contemporary world order.
Joseph Nevins teaches in the Department of Geology and Geography, Vassar College. He is the author of Operation Gatekeeper: The Rise of the Illegal Alien and the Making of the U.S.-Mexico Boundary. Under the pen name Matthew Jardine, he is the author of East Timor: Genocide in Paradise and the coauthor of East Timor's Unfinished Struggle: Inside the Timorese Resistance.
What People are Saying About This
Noam Chomsky
The Indonesian invasion of East Timor and the quarter-century of shocking crimes that followed are among the darkest eras of post-World War II history. The struggle of the people of East Timor for survival, against incredible odds, is a truly inspiring achievement, one of the most astonishing of recent history. This remarkable book combines depth of knowledge and compassionate understanding, with intimate familiarity from the ground to the historical-documentary record, and the broader geopolitical and cultural-moral context. Joseph Nevins accurately describes the horrors as 'not-so-distant.' That is a painfully accurate assessment. The United States, Britain, France, and others did not 'look away' or 'fail to act' as deniers often say. They looked right there and acted decisively to expedite terrible crimes, and continued to do so through the final paroxysm of atrocities, until finally, in the last days, public pressure became too great to ignore and Washington terminated the crimes with barely more than a word. There are very important lessons here, which no reader of this searingly honest and penetrating study can fail to draw.
Adam Hochschild
Joseph Nevins has performed a great service with this book. Among all the massacres that lead politicians to solemnly promise 'never again'—the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust, Rwanda—the ruthless Indonesian rule and mass murder that took place in East Timor is almost always ignored. Nevins carefully and vividly places this tragic chain of events on the record, and shows how much of the responsibility for these deaths rests squarely on the United States and its allies.
Jeffrey Winters
In a book that is both sophisticated and widely accessible, Joseph Nevins documents the suffering endured by the people of East Timor from the invasion of 1975 through the failed process of accountability following the 1999 referendum and independence. Along the way, Nevins wrestles with why some lives seem to matter a lot and others almost not at all. A Not-So-Distant Horror is one of the best books about East Timor's long and painful path to freedom.
Amy Goodman
Joseph Nevins's book is a magnificent memorial to the people of East Timor and a damning indictment of international powers, like the United States, that armed, trained, and financed the Indonesian army's quarter-century reign of terror. Nevins eloquently moves from the horrifying reality of the slaughter on the ground to the international political elite who allowed it to happen, and go unpunished. A Not-So-Distant Horror goes beyond Timor because the bravery and endurance of the people of East Timor are a lesson to us all.
