Letter: Why should Labour be true to East Timor? It wasn't last time aroun

Many thanks for your succinct article on East Timor. One is left wondering what all the fuss was about in September 1939 when Britain declared war on a military dictatorship which invaded small countries, committed genocide involving a fifth of the population of Poland and decimated the rest of Europe. Why did we do it? Think of the lucrative contracts which were missed. We could have supplied Spitfires to the Wehrmacht. ICI could have sold Zyclon B for the gas chambers.

Hugh O'Shaughnessy makes the point that the Indonesians have committed far greater atrocities than any which occurred in the former Yugoslavia, yet no one is held accountable. There are no arrest warrants outstanding in East Timor.

The West has blood on its hands over the appalling treatment of this small country and it is about time that the pathetic excuse of "jobs in the armaments factories before morality" is silenced. Only when the West acknowledges that morality comes before greed and United Nations troops are sent into East Timor will we be able to attempt to address our guilt.

RL Willott

Worcester