A Not-So-Distant Horror: Mass Violence In East Timor [Paperback]

Joseph Nevins (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0801489849 | ISBN-13: 978-0801489846 | Publication Date: June 23, 2005

On August 30, 1999, in a United Nations–sponsored ballot, East Timor voted for independence from Indonesia and for an end to a brutal military occupation. Upon the announcement of the result, Indonesian troops and their paramilitary proxies launched a wave of terror that, over three weeks, resulted in the murder of more than 1,000 people, the rape of untold numbers of women and girls, the razing of 70 percent of the country’s buildings and infrastructure, and the forcible deportation of 250,000 people. In recounting these horrible acts and the preceding events, Joseph Nevins shows that what took place was only the final scene in more than two decades of atrocities. More than 200,000 people, about a third of the population, lost their lives due to Indonesia’s 1975 invasion and subsequent occupation, making the East Timorese case proportionately one of the worst episodes of genocide since World War II.

In A Not-So-Distant Horror, Nevins reveals the international complicity at the center of the East Timor tragedy. In his view, much if not all of the horror that plagued East Timor in 1999 and in the 24 preceding years could have been avoided had countries like Australia, Japan, the United Kingdom, and especially the United States, not provided Indonesia with valuable political, economic, and military assistance, as well as diplomatic cover. The author explores issues of accountability for East Timor’s plight and probes the meaning of what took place in terms of international institutions and law. Examining issues such as violence, the geography of memory, and social power, Nevins makes clear that the case of East Timor has much to tell us about the contemporary world order.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

"The Indonesian invasion of East Timor, and the quarter-century of shocking crimes that followed, are one of the darkest eras of post-World War II history. The struggle of the people of East Timor for survival, against incredible odds, is a truly inspiring achievement, one of the most astonishing of recent history. This remarkable book combines depth of knowledge and compassionate understanding, with intimate familiarity from the ground to the historical-documentary record, and the broader geopolitical and cultural-moral context. Joseph Nevins accurately describes the horrors as 'not-so-distant.' That is a painfully accurate assessment. The United States, Britain, France, and others did not 'look away' or 'fail to act' as deniers often say. They looked right there and acted decisively to expedite terrible crimes, and continued to do so through the final paroxysm of atrocities, until finally, in the last days, public pressure became too great to ignore and Washington terminated the crimes with barely more than a word. There are very important lessons here, which no honest reader of this searingly honest and penetrating study can fail to draw."—Noam Chomsky

"Joseph Nevins has performed a great service with this book. Among all the massacres that lead politicians to solemnly promise 'Never again'—the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust, Rwanda—the ruthless Indonesian rule and mass murder that took place in East Timor is almost always ignored. Nevins carefully and vividly places this tragic chain of events on the record, and shows how much of the responsibility for these deaths rests squarely on the United States and its allies."—Adam Hochschild

"In a book that is both sophisticated and widely accessible, Joseph Nevins documents the suffering endured by the people of East Timor from the invasion of 1975 through the failed process of accountability following the 1999 referendum and independence. Along the way, Nevins wrestles with why some lives seem to matter a lot and others almost not at all. A Not-So-Distant Horror is one of the best books about East Timor's long and painful path to freedom."—Jeffrey Winters, Northwestern University

From the Back Cover

"Joseph Nevins’s book is a magnificent memorial to the people of East Timor and a damning indictment of international powers, like the United States, that armed, trained, and financed the Indonesian army’s quarter-century reign of terror. Nevins eloquently moves from the horrifying reality of the slaughter on the ground to the international political elite who allowed it to happen, and go unpunished. A Not-So-Distant Horror goes beyond Timor because the bravery and endurance of the people of East Timor are a lesson to us all."—Amy Goodman, Host and Executive Producer, Democracy Now! --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 296 pages
• Publisher: Cornell Univ Pr (June 23, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0801489849
• ISBN-13: 978-0801489846
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #713,700 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Joseph Nevins is the author of Operation Gatekeeper: The Rise of the Illegal Alien and the Making of the U.S.-Mexico Boundary (Routledge, 2002) and, more recently, A Not-so-distant Horror: Mass Violence in East Timor (Cornell University Press, 2005). His writings have appeared in numerous journalistic publications, including The Christian Science Monitor, the International Herald Tribune, The Nation, Los Angeles Times, The Progressive, and The Washington Post. He is an associate professor of geography at Vassar College. Born and raised in Boston to a working class family, he attended the city's public schools. He graduated with a Bachelor's degree from Middlebury College in Vermont in 1987. It was as a student there that he became politically active, engaging in solidarity work with Central America, and efforts to end CIA recruitment on campus. He received a Ph.D. in geography in 1999 from UCLA. A long-time solidarity activist with East Timor, Joe is a founding member of the East Timor Action Network. He visited East Timor many times during the years of the Indonesian occupation and was the first American to meet with the East Timorese guerrilla movement. In 1999, he helped to organize and coordinate the largest non-governmental observer mission for the UN-run plebiscite in East Timor which resulted in the country's eventual independence. A father of two young girls, Joe is a board member of the Tucson-based BorderLinks, a bi-national organization that offers experiential educational seminars along the border focusing on the issues of global economics, militarization, immigration, and popular resistance to oppression and violence. He is also a founder and board member of La'o Hamutuk, the East Timor Institute for Reconstruction Monitoring and Analysis.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bound to become a classic, July 6, 2005

By 

William Eastbrook (Melbourne, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Not-So-Distant Horror: Mass Violence In East Timor (Paperback)

This beautifully written book tells the painful and inspiring story of East Timor's struggle for freedom and justice, while powerfully and convincingly situating it in the larger international context. In doing so, Nevins bridges the perceived distance between East Timor's suffering and places like Washington, Canberra, and London. He thus exposes the ugly underside of Western governments' foreign policies abroad and teaches us much about the workings of international relations, international legal mechanisms, and empire. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in matters of human rights, international relations, mass violence, and global justice.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fascinating study of US and other "great power' machinations, November 16, 2005

By 

Yannis Cosmadopoulos "yannis" (San Francisco, ca) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Not-So-Distant Horror: Mass Violence In East Timor (Paperback)

Though written by an academic in his 30s, this book is refreshingly free of the jargon that tends to drag down the style, or lack thereof, of so many books from university presses these days. Perhaps this is partly because the author spent a fair amount of time in East Timor throughout the 1990s (including a stint as a UN-accredited monitor of the ballot process that led to the Aug.30, 1999 vote for independence from the US-backed Indonesian military occupation) and is therefore not at a lofty, dispassionate remove from his subject. But Nevins is extremely thorough and did much research to put together this history of the lead up to and aftermath of the 1999 scorched earth campaign in East Timor.

I found this book to be a fascinating study of US and other "great power' machinations. As an activist who focuses more on US foreign policy in the Middle East, I'm also less familiar with the region of the world this book covers, so I learned quite a bit reading it. I will be recommending it to colleagues who volunteer with United for Peace and Justice and American Friends Service Committee, in fact I hope to get my progressive book discussion group to take it up.

Nevins does a masterful job of weaving together telling details that add up to paint a damning picture of the West's collusion with Indonesian military atrocities, and he gets to the heart of central questions that should concern anyone who would like to see US foreign policy come a bit closer to living up to its professed ideals of embracing freedom and democracy, by actually supporting accountability and justice.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A comprehensive book on recent East Timor history, October 16, 2005

By 

yippee1999 "yippee1999" (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: A Not-So-Distant Horror: Mass Violence In East Timor (Paperback)

This is a follow-up to some other books written by Joseph Nevins on East Timor. I found this book to be even better than his previously-written books, and a bit of an easier read. In it, he talks about the complicity of many of the world powers in helping to create East Timor's sad recent history. Nevins also talks about what has been happening in East Timor since its new-found independence. I would highly recommend this book to anybody interested in world politics/history, or people looking to expand their horizons and learn about a little-known country.