For months, the Indonesian military treated militia massacres as a volume knob, adjusting the slaughter to avoid American intervention while the UN struggled to hold a referendum.
While General Kiki Syanakri surrendered the capital to avoid a clash, TNI soldiers and proxies murdered civilians on the road to Los Palos—a cost kept secret for decades.
While Bill Clinton publicly cut off military aid to Indonesia, a secret cable shows the U.S. played the "friend" to a general whose forces were razing East Timor to the ground.
The president and his senior staff were warned in September 1999 that the Indonesian military would keep its ties to violent militias, a fact kept from the public while killers retreated to West Timor
The Clinton administration chose to ignore "overwhelming" evidence of military-led atrocities in East Timor to secure a security pact with General Wiranto.