It is written by a former "employer" and good friend of mine (Jose Ramos Horta) and in a way takes up the theme that I mentioned in relation to the comments made by students at my university regarding their approval of the US invasion to arrest Noreiga and engage in regime change.
Jose has many friends in allies in the US and that friendship was instrumental in obtaining the victory of the Timorese. But of course during the Cold War (as he explains in the article) he and his people were victims of proxy US power.
Following the themes that Thomas and I have been trying to provoke ssome discussion of here (the war, a response, the creation of a leaflet etc) and my passing on of the remark made that Manuel critiqued (i.e. a war is good because it smooths the surface of Empire and allows us to move to the next stage)- how can one face such arguments as that made by for example Jose that war relived their suffering.
Obviously one is that the people of Timor may now have "human rights" in the neo liberal sense. But they do not have social justice - their material standard of living is arguably worse than it was under Infdonesia. They have 90% unemployed and any abiility for them on independence to set a locally relevant economic policy was taken away from them by the UN transitional administration and handed over box and dice to the IMF and the World bank. Hence their now independent soveriegn state has no real power to deal with their economic crisis, the dislocation of the rural economy and the massive unemployment and social unrest outside of the policies imposed by Washington.
All this was the price of independence - independence within the new imperial order. It is the fate of Afghanistan I am sure, Kosovo as well and no doubt will be Iraq´.
Maybe a focus or the focus could be argued to move so that we include and politicise not only the war but the post war regime and its end of inclusion in their empire.
Maybe "not a war in our name" is an immediate reaction to the immediate horror of the current post modern thirty years war to come, and maybe we
could be thinking along the lines of "not their empire but our counter empire". That needs work but I think you understand where I am coming from.
Over to you guys help me out. I have not crtiqued the article just tried to introduce it and put it into context.
here is the Jose Ramos Horta piece
martin
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/25/opinion/25HORT.html
War for Peace? It Worked in My Country By JOSÉ RAMOS-HORTA February 25, 2003
DILI, East Timor I often find myself counting how many of us are left in this world. One recent morning my two surviving brothers and I had coffee together. And I found myself counting again. We were seven brothers and five sisters, another large family in this tiny Catholic country.
One brother died when he was a baby. Antonio, our oldest brother, died in 1992 of lack of medical care. Three other siblings were murdered in our country's long conflict with Indonesia. One, a younger sister, Maria Ortencia, died on Dec. 19, 1978, killed by a rocket fired from a OV-10 Bronco aircraft, which the United States had sold to Indonesia. She was buried on a majestic mountaintop and her grave was tended by the humble people of the area for 20 years.
Early in September of last year, I went through the heart-wrenching process of unearthing the improvised grave of our sister, whom I last saw when she was 18. As her body was exhumed, I noticed that the back of her head and one side of her face had been blown off. She must have died instantly. We reburied our sister in the cemetery in the capital, Dili. Two other siblings who were killed, our brothers Nuno and Guilherme, were executed by Indonesian soldiers in 1977. With little information on the area where they were killed and disposed of, we have no hope of recovering their bodies for a dignified burial.
There is hardly a family in my country that has not lost a loved one. Many families were entirely wiped out during the decades of occupation by Indonesia and the war of resistance against it. The United States and other Western nations contributed to this tragedy. Some bear a direct responsibility because they helped Indonesia by providing military aid. Others were accomplices through indifference and silence. But all redeemed themselves. In 1999, a global peacekeeping force helped East Timor secure its independence and protect its people. It is now a free nation.
But I still acutely remember the suffering and misery brought about by war. It would certainly be a better world if war were not necessary. Yet I also remember the desperation and anger I felt when the rest of the world chose to ignore the tragedy that was drowning my people. We begged a foreign power to free us from oppression, by force if necessary.
So I follow with some consternation the debate on Iraq in the United Nations Security Council and in NATO. I am unimpressed by the grandstanding of certain European leaders. Their actions undermine the only truly effective means of pressure on the Iraqi dictator: the threat of the use of force.
Critics of the United States give no credit to the Bush administration's aggressive strategy, even though it is the real reason that Iraq has allowed weapons inspectors to return and why Baghdad is cooperating a bit more, if it indeed is at all.
The antiwar demonstrations are truly noble. I know that differences of opinion and public debate over issues like war and peace are vital. We enjoy the right to demonstrate and express opinions today because East Timor is an independent democracy — something we didn't have during a 25-year reign of terror. Fortunately for all of us, the age of globalization has meant that citizens have a greater say in almost every major issue.
But if the antiwar movement dissuades the United States and its allies from going to war with Iraq, it will have contributed to the peace of the dead. Saddam Hussein will emerge victorious and ever more defiant. What has been accomplished so far will unravel. Containment is doomed to fail. We cannot forget that despots protected by their own elaborate security apparatus are still able to make decisions.
Saddam Hussein has dragged his people into at least two wars. He has used chemical weapons on them. He has killed hundreds of thousands of people and tortured and oppressed countless others. So why, in all of these demonstrations, did I not see one single banner or hear one speech calling for the end of human rights abuses in Iraq, the removal of the dictator and freedom for the Iraqis and the Kurdish people? If we are going to demonstrate and exert pressure, shouldn't it be focused on the real villain, with the goal of getting him to surrender his weapons of mass destruction and resign from power? To neglect this reality, in favor of simplistic and irrational anti-Americanism, is obfuscating the true debate on war and peace.
I agree that the Bush administration must give more time to the weapons inspectors to fulfill their mandate. The United States is an unchallenged world power and will survive its enemies. It can afford to be a little more patient. Kofi Annan, the secretary general of the United Nations, has proved himself to be a strong mediator and no friend of dictators. He and a group of world leaders should use this time to persuade Saddam Hussein to resign and go into exile. In turn, Saddam Hussein could be credited with preventing another war and sparing his people. But even this approach will not work without the continued threat of force.
Abandoning such a threat would be perilous. Yes, the antiwar movement would be able to claim its own victory in preventing a war. But it would have to accept that it also helped keep a ruthless dictator in power and explain itself to the tens of thousands of his victims.
History has shown that the use of force is often the necessary price of liberation. A respected Kosovar intellectual once told me how he felt when the world finally interceded in his country: "I am a pacifist. But I was happy, I felt liberated, when I saw NATO bombs falling."
José Ramos-Horta, East Timor's minister of foreign affairs and cooperation, shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1996.