Dictionary of Genocide - D Ank Unlimited

E
Early Warning System. Originally a term used by the armed services, it is now broadly used
to refer to any type of process or program that monitors pertinent situations in order to collect,
analyze, predict, and disseminate information for the express purpose of alerting governmental
and intergovernmental organizations and officials, as well as the general public,
about potential dangers ranging from natural disasters (e.g., extreme climate conditions such
as hurricanes and droughts), to man-made disasters (e.g., ethnic conflict, major human
rights violations, and genocide). Among some of the many early warning systems that have
been developed over the years are: Global Environment Monitoring System (GEMS),
UNESCO’s International Tsunami Warning System (ITWS), the PIOOM Program (the
Dutch acronym for Interdisciplinary Program of Research on Root Causes of Human Rights
Violations), and the former United Nations’ Office for Research and Collection of Information
(ORCI), which collected and disseminated data on potential massive refugee movements
and comparable emergencies. (See Genocide Early Warning System.)
East Timor, Genocide in. East Timor is an island nation situated in the Indonesian
archipelago between Indonesia and Australia. For three centuries it was part of the
Portuguese overseas empire, but in 1975, with Portugal’s imperial retreat, one of the East
Timorese national movements, FRETILIN, declared the territory independent. Within
weeks, Indonesian military forces invaded, declared East Timor to be that country’s twentyseventh
state, and began a systematic campaign of human rights abuses which resulted in
the mass murder, starvation, and death by torture of up to two hundred thousand people,
representing one-third of the preinvasion East Timorese population. For the next two
decades the international response to this ongoing human rights disaster was one of indifference.
Indonesia’s neighbor Australia was especially keen not to antagonize the populous
nation to its north, and was the first (and, for a long time, the only) country to recognize
the de jure incorporation of East Timor into the body of Indonesia. United Nations resolutions
calling on Indonesia to withdraw were ignored, and the United States, anxious lest
a hard-line approach toward the annexation be seen by the Indonesians as a reason to
look elsewhere for friends with which to side—such as the nonaligned nations—trod
very softly on the issue. Only in 1999, after a long period of Indonesian oppression under
the rule of President Mohamed Suharto (b. 1921), and an outbreak of genocidal violence
after his downfall in 1998 (this time committed by Indonesian-backed militias and units
of the Indonesian army), was East Timor freed as a result of Australian and UN military