Two places on opposite sides of the world share similar circumstances: innocent people killed and displaced by government forces and paramilitaries. The violence on one side of the world begets harsh condemnation and a series of threats from Western powers, followed by a massive bombing campaign. The violence on the other side of the world -- the latest episode in a bloodbath that began in 1975 -- receives scant attention in Japan and the West.
The two places are Kosovo and East Timor, and the governments implicated in the atrocities in these regions are those of Yugoslavia and Indonesia.
For the past several months in East Timor, ever since the Indonesian government suggested it might grant independence to the illegally occupied territory, paramilitary groups armed and trained by the Indonesian army have carried out a number of attacks on presumed proindependence civilians. A recent massacre of at least 25 refugees in a church and adjoining priest's home in a village just outside East Timor's capital, Dili, is the worst of these attacks.