SYDNEY -- As an Australian-led multinational rescue mission landed at burned-out Dili on Monday, a shocked nation is asking: How could Indonesia have permitted such horror? And could we have done more to prevent this Asian holocaust?
Nobody here is looking for an answer from Jakarta. Rather, Australians are agonizing over the knowledge that Canberra and Washington knew in advance what would happen and could have done more, a lot earlier, to thwart the planned genocide in East Timor.
As U.N. troops led by Sydney-born Maj.-Gen. Peter Cosgrove fan out from Dili, all Australia is praying for a speedy rehabilitation. In Darwin, Prime Minister John Howard and opposition leader Kim Beazley farewelled the first sea lift of 2,500 Australian troops. Not since World War II have Australians been so much at one.