Timor death count appears lower than initial estimates

[Chris Burford]

At 14:55 05/10/99 +1000, Angela wrote:
>Chris wrote:
>
>> I do not think this action can be analysed as directly in the service of
>imperialism even though imperialism will want a docile colony, and will
>patronise the East Timorese as much as NATO does the Albanians in Kosovo.<
>
>well, if you keep trying to use the model of global US imperialism it isn't
>directly instrumental.   there is, however, another way of looking at what
>has been happening: as the complex relation between, amongst other things:
>the asian financial crisis; the restitution of stable capitalist horizons
>in south asia which have as their target as much the redundant capitals as
>the insurgent workers; the limits (economic and political) on US hegemony
>in a situation where no other global armed hegemons have emerged...  if
>national liberation movements were an irritant in the organisation of
>global capitalist hegemony once upon a time, today they are little more
>than that which is 'allowed' and induced (largely as panics and as border
>control campaigns) because they afford a stabilisation of capitalist
>exploitation within certain regions.  this is why the character of the CNRT
>is important, as well as why roger is right to note that the destruction of
>those irreconcilable elements (not the catholics, perhaps, but certainly
>the old Fretilin, is a precondition of a so-called independent east timor.
>but, i happen to think this accords more closely with the period of
>transition to capitalism, the pre-WW1/WW2 period, and isn't for all that
>exceptional.

I agree that if we are to have a view that is not just simplistic and
propagandist we have to consider, as Angela illustrates, many complex
interactions. 

I think however the battle in international politics is increasingly about
what types of interventions are progressive, in what situation, rather than
whether intervention takes place at all. 

Leftists may call for non-intervention in a particular situation but I
would argue they must be aware that nevertheless intervention is going on
in countless other ways, economically if not politically or militarily. It
is a purist political position to suggest otherwise. No country is an
island now.

Chris Burford

London