Genocide: Greatest Hits

[Steelhead]

Doktor Jimmy inquires:

>Um...not to quibble over a few hundred thousand lives here or there, but
>doesn't the Cambodian horrorshow orchestrated by Pol Pot, in which between
>one million and three million were killed, take those dubious honors?  And
>that, too, can indirectly be laid at Kissinger's feet, seeing as how the
>U.S. destabilized the Sianhouk regime, encouraged the Lon Nol coup, and, by
>its bombing inside the Cambodian border, sent the Khmer Rouge marching
>deeper toward Phnom Penh?

I won't quibble. Cambodia or East Timor. Take your pick. The atrocities in
East Timor, I believe, eliminated a higher percentage of the population
than the Kissinger-sponsored rampages against life in Camobodia. Thus, the
most effective genocidal campaign.

Two other reasons to highlight East Timor:

1. While the slaughter in Cambodia received a smattering of press coverage
in the States, the grim business in East Timor has almost gone unnoticed,
except for the courageous reporting of my friends Alan Nairn of The Nation
and Amy Goodman at Pacifica, who were almost killed in the most recent
bloodbath.

2. The killing continues and is intimately tied to the Indonesian money
scandals that have been so poorly written about in the mainstream press.
The point of this affair is certainly not that the political thugs of
Indonesia (or Chinese/Indonesia businessmen) are corrupting the American
political system with their campaign contributions, but that American
corporations and the American government want a free hand to extract
Indonesia's lucrative natural resources (oil, timber, coal, and gold) and
exploit that country's huge pools of cheap labor. Pynchon can surely
appreciate the ironies of the way the press has handled this story by
making America the victim of these demonic third world leaders (who, of
course, we placed into power).

Steelhead