January 29, 2008

Ambassador Cameron R. Hume
U.S. Embassy
Jakarta, Indonesia
Via e-mail

Dear Ambassador Hume,

As U.S. organizations that care deeply about human rights, as well as the image of the United States in Indonesia and within the international community, we find your statement regarding the death of the dictator General Suharto appalling. We are deeply dismayed that your condolence statement on behalf of the U.S. government fails to even acknowledge the extraordinary crimes of this brutal and corrupt dictator. You must be aware that these crimes include the extra-judicial killing of hundreds of thousands of his own citizens, the murder of more than 100,000 civilians in East Timor, the imprisonment of hundreds of thousands of political prisoners, and the theft of billions of dollars from his country's coffers.

His legacy is a country that suffers under an unaccountable military that continues to commit egregious human rights violations and a judicial system incapable of affording justice to victims of the ruling military and corporate elite to which his regime gave birth. His legacy is a political system shorn of its best and brightest, literally, by the sword.

Finally, no U.S. statement could credibly have addressed these failings without acknowledging that it was the U.S. which made Suharto's brutal reign possible. U.S. intelligence agents provided lists of those who were killed in 1965. U.S. air-to-ground attack aircraft and other weaponry facilitated the invasion and subjugation of East Timor. U.S. weapons and training transformed the Indonesian military under Suharto into the widely-feared machine which kidnapped, tortured and killed. U.S. diplomatic action prevented effective UN action to address the Indonesian invasion of East Timor as an act of aggression. Suharto's military remains unrepentant and unaccountable. It is his military which continues to repress civilian populations in West Papua and elsewhere. And it is his military which the current U.S. administration plans to continue to train and arm.

Your failure to acknowledge the enormous harm done to the people of Indonesia and East Timor by this dictator, and your unwillingness to admit the central role the U.S. played in empowering and encouraging this tragedy, is a travesty of history. It is a shameful view of Suharto from which we feel compelled to disassociate ourselves.

Sincerely,


John M. Miller, National Coordinator, ETAN

Cambodia:

To view the pictures we took during our time in Cambodia select the menu item 'Cambodia' in the top left section.

Cambodia:

To view the pictures we took during our time in Cambodia select the menu item 'Cambodia' in the top left section.

The Republic of Ghana is a country in West Africa. It borders Côte d'Ivoire (also known as Ivory Coast) to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south. The word "Ghana" means "Warrior King",^[3] and was the source of the name "Guinea" (via French Guinoye) used to refer to the West African coast (as in Gulf of Guinea).

Ghana was inhabited in pre-colonial times by a number of ancient kingdoms, including the Ga Adangbes on the eastern coast, inland Empire of Ashanti and various Fante states along the coast and inland. Trade with European states flourished after contact with the Portuguese in the 15th century, and the British established a crown colony, Gold Coast, in 1874.^[4]

Upon achieving independence from the United Kingdom in 1957,^[5] the name Ghana was chosen for the new nation to reflect the ancient Empire of Ghana that once extended throughout much of western Africa. In the Ashanti language it is spelled Gaana

The Philippines (Filipino: Pilipinas), officially the Republic of the Philippines (Republika ng Pilipinas; RP), is an archipelagic nation located in Southeast Asia, with Manila as its capital city. The Philippine archipelago comprises 7,107 islands in the western Pacific Ocean, bordering countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Palau and the Republic of China, although it is the only Southeast Asian country to share no land country with a population approaching 87 million people. Its national economy is the 47th largest in the world with a 2007 gross domestic prodborders with its neighbors. The Philippines is the world's 12th most populous uct (GDP) of over US$161.07 billion.

Filipinos are mostly of Austronesian descent, but there are significant Chinese, Hispanic, Negrito, Arab, American and Indian minorities. There are more than 11 million overseas Filipinos worldwide, about 11% of the total population of the Philippines.

The Philippines became a Spanish colony in the 16th century, and then a U.S. territory and commonwealth after the Spanish-American War. The Philippine Revolution was an attempt to gain independence from Spain, and later from the U.S. in the Philippine-American War. The Philippines ultimately gained its independence from the United States on July 4, 1946 after the Pacific War under the terms of the Tydings-McDuffie Act. The Philippines then became a fledging democracy until the authoritarian rule of Ferdinand Marcos led to his overthrow in the People Power Revolution of 1986. Political upheavals alternated with peaceful transition of power on the period that followed.

Today, the Philippines has many affinities with the Western world, derived mainly from the cultures of Spain, Latin America, and the United States. Roman Catholicism became the predominant religion, although pre-Hispanic indigenous religious practices and Islam still exist. The two official languages of the Philippines are Filipino, which is based on Tagalog; and English.