serendipityoucity

This was a horrible man, who tortured, raped, disapeared and killed thousands and to add insult to injury then robbed the nation of an estimated 35 Billion dollars - one of the most populated nations where millions live in abject poverty and complete squallor.

Canada was very complicit in his regime, which had me sit out on many national anthems at sports events.  There was no way I was going to blindly demonstrate nationalistic rituals when my country was supporting the illegal occupation of East Timor.  To add insult to injury the Chretien government did one of its Team Canada trade meetings in Indonesia during the Suharto regime and invited Surhato to visit for the APEC meetings BC in 1997.  In a most undemocratic move, Chretien cut a deal with Suharto that he would violate Canadian’s right to protest his visit.  Canadian activists you see wanted to arrest him for war crimes.  Sure enough, Canadian protesters were holled off to jail and pepper sprayed for holding up signs along the Suharto limo route. 

Gen. Suharto agreed to come only on the condition that he not face protesters and that he could bring a large armed security detail, a privilege seldom allowed a visiting foreign leader.

As it turned out, the whole thing was a public-relations and civil-rights disaster that served only to embarrass the Liberal government.

Staff-Sergeant Peter Montague, who served as RCMP liaison to the Indonesian delegation, later told an internal-affairs investigation that the jittery Indonesians were prepared to shield Gen. Suharto from any sort of protest. If students had approached the dictator’s limo or swarmed the summit site, "I am absolutely convinced … that somebody would have probably ended up dead … Indonesian security forces would shoot them without any question, with great impunity. I mean, it would have been an honour for them."

As it later became clear, the RCMP seized two Indonesian guards at UBC who were stealthily communicating via walkie-talkies, and then arrested three more at gunpoint in the Hotel Vancouver where Gen. Suharto was staying. The guards had gate-crashed a private party on the top floor of the Hotel Vancouver and frantically demanded to know how to reach the roof. (Globe & Mail)

52 Canadian protesters were arrested and finally it was disclosed that the RCMP were out of line and overeacted.  A full report of the RCMPs Final Report of the Public Hearings on the matter is available for full reading. 

Note that this was the pre-cursor event to the battle of Seattle and all of the Anti-Globalization rallies to come.

Amazing how the Canada had become Indonesia’s fourth largest trading partner under the Suharto regime, and how that bought us a twarting of civil rights at home and put blood on our hands.  The mission in Aghanistan is far more honourable than what the country did with Indonesia yet most Canadians are unaware of it.

We also let the Embassy officials here in Ottawa harrass Bella Galhos, the only East Timorese Refugee living in Canada and one of the officials visited Bella’s mother in East Timor with the armed military guards.  They suggested to her mother that she keep her daughter in Canada quiet or else…The Canadian Government finally sent a diplomatic letter to condone the harrassement of the family of a Canadian, a teeny tiny slap on the diplomatic wrist.  Indonesian officials would infiltrate ETAN Ottawa meetings, gatherings, public lectures and rallies.  We retaliated by filming them and having Bella surrounded by very big bearded marshals from CUPW.  Indonesian students were continuously watched and told to not participate in any of these events.  The reach of the Kleptocratic dog was far and wide but now it is finally over.