It is most regrettable that up to now, Malaysia has failed to play any leading or significant role in the United Nations Security Council to ensure that Indonesia uphold its international responsibility to provide order and security in East Timor and that the international community act swiftly by despatching an international peace-keeping force to prevent East Timor from the tragedy of being the first people to suffer two ethnic cleansings and genocides for two consecutive generations.
An estimated 200,000 East Timorese were massacred in 1975 when Indonesia invaded East Timor, and the international community should ensure that there should not be another ethnic cleansing and genocide.
Malaysia must live up to her international responsibility as a Security Council member to demand international as well as ASEAN action to prevent another bloodbath of the people of East Timor.
DAP calls on the Foreign Minister, Datuk Syed Hamid Albar to ensure that Malaysia plays her role and assume her international responsibility as a member of the Security Council to play a leading role both in the United Nations and in ASEAN to prevent a Bosnia or Kosovo in the ASEAN backyard.
The Malaysian Government must do its utmost to ensure that it could not be accused of hyprocrisy and double-standards in international relations, where it could take a laudable leading international position against ethnic cleansing and genocide in Bosnia and Kosovo but yet could condone ethnic cleansing and genocide by its silence and inaction with regard to East Timor.
(7/9/99)