Henry Kissinger and the Murder of Timor-Leste
Few Timorese would have welcomed the late diplomat with open arms. Fewer still will be sad to see him gone.
The view from the old fortress in Balibo is of the Savu Sea and volcanic slopes consisting of sun-torched branches and eroded soil. Children of war-plagued parents play here, running along the boulders that the Indonesian invaders sprayed with bullets that day in late 1975 when Timor-Leste was overrun by the Indonesian army and pro-Indonesian militias.
The children engage in a game where branches act as rifles and shadows from the trees are invisible enemies that needs to be defeated. Cows dig in the gravel next to the “integration monument” erected by Indonesia in the wake of its completed occupation in 1978. The monument depicts a soldier in mid-war cry, holding a rifle in one hand and an Indonesian flag in the other.
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Klas Lundström is an investigative reporter and writer, based in Stockholm, who has reported from Indonesia, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste, and West Papua for various media outlets.