While Canada was voting against self-determination for East Timor, it was quietly helping to arm the Indonesian military which was slaughtering the population.
The most important way this happened was through exports to the US. Eighty percent of Canadian exports go to the United States. Many Canadian raw materials are used by the American war machine, and it has sent millions of dollars of military hardware to Indonesia.
But successive Canadian governments, Liberal and Tory, have also facilitated a direct arms trade between Canada and Indonesia.
Some of the facts are hard to obtain.
Defence Department officials claim that records for military exports ot Indonesia before 1988 were destroyed.
This is hard to believe.
The Canadian government is reputed to have the best statistics gathering machine in the world. Yet its records before 1988 have been "destroyed."
We do know that in 1986, seven Canadian companies and the Department of External Affairs were part of an Indonesia-hosted air show.
One company signed a $2 million contract during the show.
In 1985 Pratt & Whitney Canada signed a long-term contract with Indonesian aircraft manufacturer PT Nurtanio to 'co-produce' 100 Bell 412 helicopters.
In 1990 the Tory government authorized $3.7 million in military export permits to the country.
But in 1991, there was a terrible massacre in Dili. Public outcry forced the Tories to suspend military sales to Indonesia. Leading the charge in the campaign for East Timor were Jean Chrétien and Lloyd Axworthy, then in opposition.
In 1994, they were back in power, and the ban on exports was lifted.
The floodgates opened. In 1995, the Liberals authorized $362.4 million in military export permits, in 1996 $32.2 million and in 1997 $12.5 million.
On May 1, 1997, Indonesian and Canadian navy officals met on board the Canadian warship HMCS Vancouver when it docked in Surabaya, Indonesia, part of a six-nation tour of southeast Asia to promote military ties.
Information from the East Timor Alert Network