The Washington Post reported on Sunday, "Former dictator Suharto, an army general who crushed Indonesia's communist movement and pushed aside the country's founding father to usher in 32 years of tough rule that saw up to a million political opponents killed," died on January 27. The article never mentions the US role in any of his "32 years of tough rule."

The liberal radio network NPR did state:

"During the Cold War, Suharto's anti-communist credentials made him a key U.S. ally; he enjoyed close relations with several U.S. administrations. In 2001, declassified documents confirmed a long-held suspicion that in a December 1975 meeting with President Gerald Ford [Grand Rapids native] and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Suharto was given the green light to invade the breakaway region of East Timor."

However, the NPR story does not provide any details of what happened during the Indonesian invasion of East Timor. The US government's relationship to the Suharto regime is worth a review.

Suharto came to power in 1965 during a CIA sponsored coup, where estimates of 500,000 to 1 million dissidents were murdered. One former CIA agent states, "CIA agents contributed in drawing up the death lists" used in targeting those murdered. In 1975, as the NPR story mentions, Suharto met with President Ford and Secretary of State Kissinger on the eve of Indonesia's invasion of East Timor. Declassified documents of that meeting demonstrate that Ford and Kissinger were in complete support of Suharto's plan. The invasion led to one of the worst cases of genocide in the 20th century where over 200,000 Timorese were slaughtered.

The US relationship with Suharto did not change over the decades despite ongoing scrutiny from the international community. The Timorese independence movement continued to grow throughout the 1980's and 90's. The efforts of these movements were recognized by the international community, which gave two Timorese activists the Nobel Peace Prize in 1996. Despite the push towards independence, the Clinton administration continued to support Suharto by providing weapons and providing diplomatic support right up until Suharto was forced to resign. Democracy Now! recently aired an interview that Allan Nairn did with former President Clinton in 1999 who defended his support of Suharto. The same kind of justification was offered by Richard Holbrooke, then Assistant Secretary of State in the late 70's under Jimmy Carter, who in response to that administration's supply of weapons to Indonesia said, "And the solution to the problem, as I said to an earlier question, does not, in my view, involve a complete arms cut-off." It is worth noting that Holbrooke is a foreign policy advisor to presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

Here is part of a statement that some of the victims of Suharto's policies wrote the day after his death. The East Timor Action Network certainly doesn't ignore or minimize the US role in Suharto's brutality:

"To overcome Suharto's legacy and to uphold basic international human rights and legal principles, those who executed, aided and abetted, and benefited from his criminal orders must be held accountable. The U.S. must undergo a complete accounting for its role in backing the dictator. As a start, the U.S. government must support for an international tribunal to prosecute human rights and war crimes committed in East Timor from 1975 to 1999, and Washington should condition military assistance to Indonesia "on progress towards full democratisation, the subordination of the military to the rule of law and civilian government, and strict adherence with international human rights" as recommended by East Timor's Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation."