>The demand that the US cease military aid has been long advanced by those
>who have been involved in the solidarity with the East Timorese. Here's a
>message from one such person:
>
>> Subj: A Message from East Timor
>> Date: 9/5/99 9:37:45 AM Eastern Daylight Time
>> From: JohnM85747
>>
>> John's Message from East Timor
Good. Obviously progressive people in the UK also campaign against the UK arms sales to Indonesia.
but John's call goes on
>> Call the White House comment line at 202-456-1414. Urge President
>>Clinton to immediately suspend all further military and financial aid to
>>Indonesia until the military and paramilitary violence is stopped. The
>>U.S. must show strong support for East Timor's democratic decision to
>>break away from Indonesia.
This calls on US and other citizens to campaign not just against military aid but against financial aid. To campaign against financial aid means the politics of bankrupting Indonesia's foreign exchanges. It logically means not just using all of US hegemonic influence to delay the next conditional tranche IMF aid, whenever that is due, but to recall all outstanding IMF and other loans immediately.
This demand has the the capacity to smash the economy of Indonesia, which has already been severely battered by the 1998 crisis. Although it sounds neutral and reasonable in the face of what is frankly now a war against the civilian population of East Timor, in the most abstract form it coldly asserts the power of US led global capital over the millions of people of the Indonesian archipelago. It has the capacity to cause as many deaths as that of the Indonesian armed forces in their campaign against the East Timorese.
I am glad Angela put the counter-case to the calls from the Australian Socialist Party. I think there is not indeed one pure position in any of this. It is necessary to see the highly complex contradictions and then try to support the most progressive option.
I am in favour of economic intervention. As people know I am also in favour of attacking US and western domination of the financial power structures of the world. If they do pull the rug from under Indonesia in this way, without any gesture to democratising and internationalising these power structures, they will polarise large sections of Asian society against them including the national bourgeoisie.
While I think we must support what is progressive in the global campaign for democratic rights this absolutely must be linked now with campaigning for democratisation of global economic power. That is why, whether people want to ridicule individual proposals, it is vital there is a source of global revenue, independent of the generosity of the governments of any major capitalist power This fund must be made available for the more equitable development of the world with bids judged against certain open criteria. These should include practical measures and standards for managing conflicts with the least possible use of force, as well as economic and cultural development on a regional basis.
Whatever the wishes of the East Timorese now in exercising their right to self-determination, the long term reality is that they need autonomy in what is a much larger economic unit. They need an inflow of development capital just as west Timor does, and other neighbourging territories.
It is as absurd to think in the long term it will develop economically independently from Indonesia, as it is for the Malvinas Islands to develop separately from South America.
Chris Burford
London