The following resolution passed unanimously at the California-Nevada Annual Conference (meeting June 21- 25 in Sacramento) and in the process garnered more votes than any other resolution presented. -- John Chamberlin, East Timor Religious Outreach
WHEREAS this year will mark the 20th anniversary of Indonesia's invasion of East Timor; and
WHEREAS Indonesia continues to illegally occupy East Timor in defiance of ten United Nations resolutions; and
WHEREAS the invasion and occupation have resulted in the death of over 200,000 people (one-third of the population), according to Amnesty International and Roman Catholic Church estimates; and
WHEREAS the Indonesian government has displaced Timorese families from their ancestral home lands and has moved over 100,000 Indonesian transmigrants into East Timor in an attempt to dilute the Timorese population and culture; and
WHEREAS on November 12, 1991, the Indonesian army massacred as many as 250 Timorese mourners at the Santa Cruz cemetery in Dili, East Timor, which massacre was witnessed by Western journalists, whose reports to the outside world resulted in the renewal of a worldwide effort to free East Timor from Indonesian domination and oppression; and
WHEREAS in November, 1994, twenty-nine Timorese students conducted a nonviolent sit-in on the grounds of the U. S. Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia, at the time of the APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) meeting there in an attempt to draw attention to the brutal occupation of their country and to ask for the release of Jose Alexandre (Xanana) Gusmao and other Timorese political prisoners, while hundreds of other Timorese demonstrated in the streets of Dili, East Timor; and
WHEREAS the Indonesian government responded with stepped-up repression in East Timor, including the torture and murder of six civilians in the town of Liquica in January 1995, and the employment of black-hooded "ninja" gangs who have conducted a campaign of terror, including the abduction and beating of dozens of Timorese who are thought to advocate independence; and
WHEREAS on March 1, 1995 the United Nations Human Rights Commission expressed its "deep concern over the continuing reports of violations of human rights in East Timor"; and
WHEREAS in March 1995, Assistant Secretary of State John Shattuck testified before two House International Relations subcommittees that he was very concerned about the human rights situation in East Timor, which, he testified, had begun deteriorating in late 1994, and had worsened even further in early 1995, even as the vice chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff announced in Jakarta that he endorsed the resumption of U.S. financed IMET training of Indonesian military officers; and
WHEREAS the United States government is not yet working to implement the United Nations resolutions calling for withdrawal of the Indonesian military from East Timor and for self-determination for the people of East Timor; and
WHEREAS the governments of Indonesia and Australia and several large oil companies are presently involved in a venture to extract oil that is rightfully the property of East Timor from the "Timor Gap"; and
WHEREAS in June 1993 and in June 1994, the California-Nevada Annual Conference expressed its profound concern for East Timor by adopting resolutions calling for a cut-off of all U.S. aid and arms sales to Indonesia until Indonesia complied with U.N. resolutions and withdraws its military forces from East Timor; and
WHEREAS in his August 1993 pastoral column in the United Methodist Review, Bishop Melvin G. Talbert was prophetic in calling on UMC congregations to take up the issue of East Timor as a social justice "priority"; and
WHEREAS a pastor in this Annual Conference recently returned from a fact-finding investigation to East Timor where he met with members of the religious community and confirmed that daily life in East Timor reveals unremitting tension and frequent terror; and
RECOGNIZING once again our continuing moral and religious duty to respond to acts of inhumanity and genocide and to rescue a people, a nation, and a culture from annihilation;
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the 1995 California-Nevada Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church again calls on the President of the United States and the U.S. Congress to take immediate administrative and legislative steps to halt all United States military aid and assistance (including IMET training), economic aid, and weapons sales (both commercial and government-to-government) to Indonesia until the Indonesian government complies with United Nations resolutions on East Timor, withdraws its military occupation forces from East Timor; and cooperates with the United Nations and other relevant bodies to facilitate a process of genuine self-determination for the East Timorese; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Conference Secretary be instructed to immediately send copies of this resolution to the President of the United States, to the U.S. Senators from California and Nevada, and to each Congressional Representatives within the bounds of the California-Nevada Annual Conference; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the California-Nevada Annual Conference appoint a committee to explore the feasibility of divesting all Conference assets from any and all corporations directly involved in the expropriation of Timorese natural resources until such time as the government of Indonesia complies with United Nations resolutions and allows genuine self-determination in East Timor such that said corporations may then contract with the lawful owners of said natural resources, and that that committee be instructed to prepare a report to be presented to the 1996 annual meeting of the California-Nevada Annual Conference; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the California-Nevada Annual Conference again urges the General Board of Global Ministries and the General Board of Church and Society to make the issue of East Timor a priority for social justice and mission purposes, to support constituency education and related projects on East Timor, and to prepare a resolution on East Timor to be voted on at the 1996 General Conference.