Mobile (Alabama) Register: 6 April 2000
MEDIA: JOURNALIST'S EXPERIENCE LEADS HIM ON A CRUSADE
Noted freelance writer Allan Nairn hoped to prevent bloodshed in 1991 when he and another American journalist literally stepped between a line of Indonesian soldiers and a crowd of pro-democracy protesters, moments before the troops opened fire and slaughtered hundreds of the demonstrators. Nairn has returned to Indonesia at least three times since then, despite being banned from the country as a national security threat.
By JOE DANBORN
NOTED freelance writer Allan Nairn hoped to prevent
bloodshed in 1991 when he and another American
journalist literally stepped between a line of Indonesian
soldiers and a crowd of pro-democracy protesters,
moments before the troops opened fire and slaughtered
hundreds of the demonstrators.
Nairn has returned to Indonesia at least three times since
then, despite being banned from the country as a
national security threat. Monday, he stood at the edge of
a mass grave in the Timorese village where the soldiers
dumped the dead and dying bodies of the protesters
nine years ago, a mound he described as 30 yards long
by several yards wide, adorned with a wooden cross.
"In a way, they were the liberators of their country,"
Nairn said Wednesday afternoon in a brief address at
Government Plaza in downtown Mobile. "After that
massacre, a movement began here that pressed
Congress to stop aiding the Indonesian military, and that
made a dramatic difference."
Nairn came to Mobile to speak Wednesday night at the
University of South Alabama about his experiences
reporting human rights abuses and U.S. foreign policy in
Indonesia and Latin America.
But Mobile is also the home of Rep. Sonny Callahan,
whose influence as chairman of the House
Appropriations subcommittee on foreign operations
could once again have dramatic impact on the infant
nation of East Timor, Nairn said. Callahan's
subcommittee is slated to give its recommendation on
the new foreign operations bill within a few weeks. Part
of the legislation will determine whether the United
States will continue military funding and arms sales to
Indonesia.
"Mobile will have a lot to say about what happens
because Callahan is in such a pivotal position," Nairn
said.
Many of the Indonesian officers who led the 1991
massacre (during which Nairn's skull was fractured by
the butt of an M-16 rifle) were trained by the U.S.
military, and the troops were armed with American-built
weapons, he said. But outcry following the massacre led
the United States less than a year later to cease training
Indonesian officers and curb arms sales to the world's
fourth-most populous country.
In 1995, Callahan supported legislation that would have
resumed such assistance to Indonesia. That support
coincided with talks involving IPTN, a state-owned
Indonesian aerospace company that considered building
a $100 million plant in Mobile to produce luxury jets; the
company purchased land here, but the deal never went
through.
"Mobile is never going to see that factory," Nairn said.
"Those jobs will not be coming here. If that ever was a
factor in the politics here, it isn't now."
Jo Bonner, Callahan's chief of staff, said the
congressman's past efforts in favor of military aid to
Indonesia likely fell in line with federal policy "rather than
any relationship to IPTN's consideration of Mobile.
"Sonny's opinion most likely would be influenced by the
requests that our administration made, both our State
Department and our Department of Defense," Bonner
said. "It is not the responsibility of any member of
Congress to become a pseudo-secretary of state," he
continued. "His role as a member of Congress is to
provide oversight and the constitutional checks and
balances regarding funding to these foreign countries."
Nairn met Wednesday morning with Bonner and plans
to speak with Callahan next week in Washington. "If
Callahan would soften his stance or even come over to
the other side ... I think that would be decisive," Nairn
said.
© 2000 Mobile Register. Used with permission (ETAN).