Journalist Allan Nairn to speak on 20 years of Organizing for Justice (ETAN)

The East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN) invites you to a discussion with journalist and activist Allan Nairn on 20 years of reporting and organizing for justice for the peoples of East Timor and Indonesia

Thursday, January 5, 2012, 7 - 9 p.m.

Graduate Center, CUNY 365 Fifth Ave (btn 34 and 35 St), Room 5307, Manhattan

Allan Nairn's reporting has been crucial in exposing U.S. complicity with human rights and war crimes by Indonesia's security forces. He has forcefully urged that U.S. officials be held accountable for their crimes against humanity.

Nairn will speak about the successful movement to support East Timor's self-determination and restrict U.S. military assistance to Indonesia  and its significance for Occupy Wall Street and today's global movements for justice.

On November 12, 1991, Nairn with Amy Goodman witnessed the Santa Cruz massacre in Dili, the capitol of East Timor. Nairn was beaten and had his skull cracked. Their reports of the massacre inspired the founding of ETAN, and Nairn has served as a key advisor to ETAN and was a member of its Steering Committee.

The testimony and documentation of Nairn, Goodman, and other foreign journalists who survived Santa Cruz exposed the brutality of Indonesian military occupation to the outside world, and helped spark a successful campaign in the U.S. to block military assistance to Jakarta in support of self-determination for East Timor.

Eight years later, he was one of the last journalists to leave East Timor in the violent aftermath of the pro-independence vote in 1999, when he was arrested amidst the ruins of Dili and deported. In 1997, he exposed U.S. military training taking place in Indonesia, violating the intent of Congress which had suspended most  military training years earlier. In 2002, he questioned former President Clinton in Dili, just after East Timor's independence ceremony. He challenged the then U.S. commander in the Pacific's actions prior to East Timor's independence referendum. More recently, Nairn has exposed Indonesian army Kopassus special forces targeting of West Papuan activists and army assassinations in Aceh. After these exposes, Nairn was threatened with arrest and imprisonment.

Contact: etan@etan.org,             917-690-4391      , www.etan.org