This quiz on East Timor will:
1. Inform you
2. Surprise you
3. Enlighten you
4. All of the above

by Dennis Hans
Sept. 17, 1999

1. When the UN announced in May that Indonesia would provide "security" for the forthcoming referendum on independence for East Timor, this journalist sounded the alarm and put hard questions to Secretary General Kofi Annan about the morality and wisdom of putting a murderous fox in charge of the chicken coop.

1. plucky George Stephanopoulos of ABC
2. elder-statesman Tom Brokaw of NBC
3. relentless Mike Wallace of CBS
4. relative-unknown Amy Goodman of Pacifica Radio's "Democracy NOW!"

2. In 1975-76, as Indonesia invaded and occupied East Timor, slaughtering tens of thousands of Timorese with US arms (in violation of US law) and diplomatic support, the network news shows

1. gave ample air time to this significant story.
2. fulfilled their "watchdog" function with flair.
3. went overboard in their criticism of US policy in the heady, post-Watergate atmosphere.
4. looked the other way.

3. In December 1975, State Department correspondents aware of the bloody Indonesian invasion strongly identified with

1. the five Australian journalists killed by the invaders.
2. Timorese civilians massacred by the invaders.
3. resistance fighters who regrouped in the hills.
4. dashing Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who gave Indonesia the green light to invade.

4. In 1977, as the slaughter and war-induced famine approached genocidal proportions, The New York Times, whose motto is "All the News That's Fit to Print," published this many stories on East Timor.

1. 232
2. 71
3. 11
4. 0 (though one story on another topic devoted five lines to Timorese refugees in Portugal)

5. When Vice President Walter Mondale, representing the human-rights-conscious administration of Jimmy Carter, visited Indonesia in 1978, a time when its military was running dangerously low on weaponry to counter the insurgency and slaughter unarmed civilians, Mondale

1. delivered a stern lecture and cut the Suharto regime off cold.
2. reminded Suharto that the U.S. could legally provide arms only for self-defense, and that a war of aggression was not "self-defense."
3. went underground with Geraldo Rivera and Dan Rather to fight with the resistance.
4. gave Suharto everything he wanted.

6. Many anti-war types first learned about East Timor's plight and the indispensable US contribution from the 1979 book "The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism," by Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman, which garnered this many reviews in major mainstream US newspapers and magazines.

1. 21 2. 11 3. 3 4. 0

7. This group has labored for many years building grassroots support for East Timorese self-determination and pressuring the media to expose the U.S. role in Timor's plight.

1. the Democratic Leadership Council
2. the Christian Coalition
3. Ross Perot's Reform Party
4. the East Timor Action Network

8. In 1987, when José Ramos-Horta (who would win the Nobel Peace Prize in 1996) tried to arouse the conscience of the world with his book Funu: the Unfinished Saga of East Timor, he included an introduction by

1. David Brinkley, who was so moved by Ramos-Horta's words that he used his ABC pulpit to galvanize public opinion against US policy toward Indonesia.
2. George Will, ubiquitous and influential Washington Post columnist.
3. James Reston, legendary New York Times columnist.
4. Noam Chomsky, dissident intellectual who seems to be banned from the Times and the Post.

9. The journalist who throughout this decade has done the most to expose ongoing U.S. diplomatic, military and intelligence complicity in Indonesia's crimes in East Timor is

1. John McWethy of ABC.
2. Seth Mydans of The New York Times.
3. all of the establishment journalists put together.
4. Allan Nairn of The Nation magazine.

10. During the current crisis, Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan was mercilessly cross-examined by ___________________ about his 1975-76 role (as US ambassador to the UN) in blocking international efforts to force Indonesia out of East Timor.

1. Tim Russert on NBC's "Meet the Press"
2. Chris Matthews on CNBC's "Hardball"
3. Sam Donaldson and Cokie Roberts on ABC's "This Week"
4. no one

11. The fact that world opinion in September 1999 has forced world leaders to act to end the latest series of massacres suggests that if world opinion had been fully informed in 1975-76

1. it would have had no effect, so the media were right to suppress the story or report it from the perspective of the invaders.
2. it might have had some effect, but the Cold War was still raging so that any slaughter carried out by "our side" was justified.
3. it might have had some effect, but hard-hitting reporting by such Kissinger sycophants as Ted Koppel and the Kalb brothers would have made their life miserable, given their hero's explosive temper and penchant for holding grudges.
4. it would have produced tremendous pressure on world leaders to force Indonesia to stay out of the decolonization process in Portuguese Timor, which was none of Indonesia's business, thus averting a horrendous, completely unnecessary 24-year bloodbath.

If you answered anything other than "4" to any of these questions, you've missed my point. That's the bad news. The good news is you have a bright future in the establishment media, should such work interest you.

Dennis Hans is a satirist and pundit whose work has appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post and San Francisco Chronicle, among other outlets. He first wrote about East Timor in the Sept. 30, 1985 edition of Christianity & Crisis. Hans is an occasional adjunct professor of mass communications and American foreign policy at the University of South Florida.

Photo courtesty of East Timor Action Network