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Gary MacLennan wrote:
> Thank you for this post. I went to a small demonstration outside the Aust
> Gov headquarters here in Brisbane today. What is going on now in E. Timor
> is truly shocking. There is anouther demonstration planned for Friday. So
> far the Christians have taken the running, and I am sorry to say that the
> Left is largely powerless. Still in Sydney and Meobourne something might
> happen within the next few days.
Yes, it is shocking in the extreme. Though we don't have much reliable information on what is going on, two things seem to be certain. There is generalized arson and looting of pro-independentist neighborhoods in many East-Timorese cities, conducted by the militias in cooperation with the indonesian special forces KOPASSUS (who arrived last week and were supposed to restore law and order). Now martial law has been declared in the territory but if it is to be enforced by the forces currently on the ground, this could mean still more trouble for the populations.
A more puzzling development is that the indonesian forces are apparently forcefully deporting tens of thousands of east-timorese to the western part of the island. At least that's how this has been presented here by the press. The indonesian army says it is merely relocating some of its own nationals and pro-indonesian timorese, at their request and for their own security. Many indonesian nationals (that is, indonesian citizens who have trans-migrated to East Timor form other islands) who could afford the passage by ship or airplane, have in fact been leaving East Timor for some time now, with their belongings, expecting troubles after independence.
There are some reports of mass killings, but no strong evidence so far. Public buildings have been destroyed. The main danger, however, seems to be famine for the hundreds of thousands of people who have abandoned the cities for the hills, running for their lives.
The forces of FALINTIL (the independentist guerilla) are camped on the hills, with very strict orders to stay quiet and not respond to provocations. There are, however, reports that they are facing a drastic shortage of food and other supplies, as well as the encirclement and harassment by integrationist militias and the indonesian army.
It's very hard to guess what exactly is happening and what's its design, if any. This could be a mere explosion of fear and frustration by some desperate people, supported by the rebellion of some units under the command of military hard-liners who feel betrayed by their political leaders. This could also be something much more ominous: the beginning of execution of a so called plan B of the indonesian military hard-liners, with the design of uprooting once and for all the sources of independentist rebellion in the territory, while taking hostage a substantial part of the population. Either way, the best possible outcome of this brutal episode would be if it were to signal the death throes of indonesian militarism and the fascist Pancasila ideology. There are unconfirmed reports of some clashes, with real exchange of fire, between Suhartoist and more liberal minded military units on duty in East Timor. In Jakarta, the students are again on the streets protesting against the violence and the sending of more troops to the territory.
The cause of east-timorese independence is a national consensus in Portugal and has been gaining a vast network of support word-wide. I do support the right of the east-timorese to exercise auto-determination, ever more so now that their will has been clearly stated in that direction. However, I guard myself from excessive romanticizing of this cause. The blunt truth is that there are no clear indigenous roots for east-timorese nationalism. They are more accurately situated in the cultural legacy and even the basic social structures - the catholic church, intellectuals of portuguese expression, some distinguished families, some tribal leaders - over which centuries of portuguese colonialism (with its characteristic laziness and neglect) have rested. There is something obscene in the way the portuguese bourgeoisie gets carried away by the struggle of the east-timorese people. It is very obviously something profoundly (and unexpectedly) flattering for its ego. It makes it sigh with barely desguised colonialist nostalgia.
Of course, this grotesque show of bourgeois "idealism" should not be enough to make us turn our backs on a people fighting bravely against an odious regime. I would be much happier, however, if the struggle of the east-timorese people against military brutality would be more closely integrated in the democratic and popular movement in Indonesia, which is fully supportive of it. Hopefully, it will be instrumental in the build up for a second breath of the indonesian revolution.
João Paulo Monteiro
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Demands for UN and other Western 'peacekeeping' in East Timor are undermining that country's chances of real independence, says Philip Ferguson*
A few minutes before I sat down to write this commentary I was in a cafe at Canterbury University, here in Christchurch, New Zealand. A liberal-leftish person with whom I'm on a nodding acquaintance was sitting at the same table looking at the world news section of the Christchurch 'Press'. He commented to me how awful the situation is in East Timor and asked, "What's the point of having a UN-supervised referendum if there is no UN back-up to enforce it?" and went on to suggest that the sooner the NZ government sent forces there the better. Many solidarity activists here and in Australia are making the same call for intervention.
Calls for greater UN intervention and for police and/or military personnel to be sent to East Timor from other Western states is also rife. In Canada, for instance, a recent convention of the New Democratic party (Canadian Labour) passed a resolution calling on the Canadian government to get involved in 'peacekeeping' in East Timor and help work towards bringing to justice those responsible for committing crimes against the East Timorese. I have also just received a press statement from the largest radical left party in Australia, which is demanding that Canberra ask the UN to ask for Australian troops and these then be sent in.
The growing clamour for foreign intervention is buttressed by reports coming out of the East Timorese capital, Dili. According to a Reuters report in the media in New Zealand on September 7 hundreds of decapitated heads have appeared on sticks lining the roads of Dili, as the anti-independence militias run riot. The evacuation of aid workers has created a similar impression that things are totally out of control.
Yet all this seems quite strange, when you stand back and think about it a bit. To put things into perspective, the militias, although certainly armed and encouraged by the Indonesian Army, are a small rag-tag force with next to zero military capacity. They represent a relatively small minority of people in East Timor, since 78.5 percent voted for independence, as opposed to autonomy, last week. The armed wing of Fretilin, the independence movement, has greater numbers and more experienced forces at its disposal. Fretilin could mop up the militias in a few days.
In the 'old days' of the 1970s and 1980s the cry of solidarity activists was for Indonesian withdrawal and Western hands off. This seems an eminently sensible approach today, yet it is scarcely heard at all. Instead what is happening is the concoction of a crisis which is not only leading to unnecessary loss of life here and now, but is undermining any chance the small country has for real independence.
The background to this is the changing Western interests in the region, changes within the Indonesian elite and the demise of the left. On the one hand the Indonesian upper classes and the Western powers want to manage a transition to 'democracy' in the huge, sprawling archipelago. On the other hand, they are worried about Indonesia disintegrating: chronic underdevelopment has been a barrier to the development of an Indonesian nation and, instead, diverse population groups often continue to live in primitive conditions and be pitted against each other in the struggle to survive.
For the Indonesian regime, letting go of East Timor could be the prelude to losing a lot more. At the same time, the Western backers of the Indonesian rulers are no longer as enthusiastic about their rule in East Timor as they were over the past quarter century.
Back in 1974-5 the Portuguese revolution opened up the possibility of East Timor, which had been a colony of that European power, becoming independent, with a radical nationalist (Fretilin) government in power. This was not a scenario welcomed by Western powers or Indonesia. When Fretilin declared independence in December 1975, the Indonesian dicatorship, with the backing (or possibly urging) of Washington, and the support of Canberra and Wellington, invaded the small country of 500,000 people and imposed a brutal rule. US President Gerald Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger were in Jakarta just days before the invasion (Washington Post, November 9, 1979). Furthermore, about 90 percent of the weapons the Indonesian invaders used came from the USA.
In early 1976 an American State Department official told 'The Australian' newspaper, "in terms of the bilateral relations between the U.S. and Indonesia, we are more or less condoning the incursion into East Timor... The United States wants to keep its relations with Indonesia close and friendly" ('The Australian', January 22, 1976).
US ambassador to the UN Daniel Patrick Moynihan subsequently noted in his memoirs, "the Department of State desired that the United Nations prove utterly ineffective in whatever measures it undertook" to chastise the Indonesians or oppose the invasion. "This task was given to me and I carried it forward with no inconsiderable success."
In July 1976, following heavy fighting, Indonesia formally annexed East Timor, as its 27th province. The 'incursion' that the US was so keen on brought about the deaths of anywhere up to 200,000 people in this tiny country between 1975 and today.
Meanwhile, closer ties with the Indonesian regime were formed by successive Australian and New Zealand governments. Indeed, Canberra had not even blinked when five Australian journalists were among those killed by the invading Indonesian forces. Both countries also helped train Indonesian military personnel and make life difficult for Fretilin representatives and activists living either side of the Tasman. The US, too, continued to back the Indonesian dictatorship as a bulwark against radical nationalism and other left-wing movements in South East Asia. In the late 1970s, a period of especially vicious repression in East Timor, US President Jimmy Carter authorised substantial further weapons sales to Indonesia. Subsequent massacres of civilians in the occupied territory did nothing to dim Western support.
By the mid-1990s, however, Western attitudes to Indonesia were changing. The demise of 'communism' and the acceptance of 'market realism' by the region's powerful 'communist' parties and radical nationalists were rendering obsolete a number of longtime repressive client regimes. The Asian economic meltdown in late 1997/early 1998 showed the need for economic reform along lines prescribed in the West, but not necessarily agreed to among former clients and allies in the region who had done nicely for themselves out of systems of patronage and corruption or 'crony capitalism'. These former darlings of Washington - and Canberra and Wellington - suddenly found themselves under attack from Western governments and agencies such as the IMF and World Bank, as well as from growing internal movements demanding democratic rights.
Since Fretilin's politics have become suitably moderated over the past two decades, and 'communists' in the region are embracing the market these days, there is now little for the West, or Indonesia's own upper classes, to fear from an independent East Timor. Indeed, the fact that the UN is overseeing the process of independence means that the political and economic shape of the new country will be largely moulded by Western agencies. Indeed it is even difficult to see how this kind of 'independence' will give the East Timorese more real say over their society than the substantial degree of autonomy being offered by Djakarta.
In the meantime, the section of East Timorese who had been drawn into collaborating with the occupation, plus Indonesians sent to settle there in order to help turn independence supporters into a minority, are worried there will be a limited role in the new East Timor for such stooges of Djakarta. Their frustration has been vent on independence supporters, with a series of brutal attacks.
Yet, instead of the people of East Timor being allowed to sort things out
for themselves, they are being turned into yet another set of victims who
need 'intervention' - in this case by the 'peacekeeping' forces of 'caring
imperialism'. And, unfortunately, nowhere is the demand for this
intervention stronger than among supporters of East Timorese independence.
>From demanding 'Hands Off' by not only the Indonesians but also the Western
powers, they have now shifted to demanding 'Hands On'.
Calls for Western intervention mean that much of the old left has converted itself into a conduit for reworked Western interests in the 'new world order' and ceased any real opposition to our own rulers and their states.
In a world where imperialists are only too happy to intervene in the name of goodness and niceness, this seems a particularly dangerous approach. Australia and New Zealand, which would be likely to play major roles in such an intervention, have substantial vested interests in the region and a growing array of 'peacekeeping' missions in the Asia-Pacific area and other parts of the world. In fact, the politically correct 'anti-nuclear' Labour government of David Lange stepped up NZ military involvement in the Pacific to levels not seen since WW2. This trend has continued into the 1990s, as the NZ establishment delights in being the world's most moral and caring imperialists.
When babies are born, umbilical cords are quickly cut. In the case of 'independent' East Timor, however, it appears that an umbilical cord attached to the governments and agencies of the West is being wound around the poor newborn's neck. The demand for Western intervention in East Timor is serving to throttle genuine independence at birth.
* Philip Ferguson is a long-time anti-imperialist activist and a member of the NZ-based Radical Media Collective, which publishes 'revolution' magazine.