AUT: WSW article on East Timor/Indonesia

["rc-am" <rcollins@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

[some notes: megawati's ascension in indonesia may well be conditional
upon accepting general wiranto as deputy (as reports so far of a deal
between megawati and the military indicate); those eligible to vote in
the referendum were those registered with the UN to do so (there are no
estimates of how this tallies with population numbers as whole, ie., how
many out of the total population voted, and i am unclear about the final
conditions on who could and could not vote from the population; the
militia are not (as the article below assumes) running amok, but are
systematically organised and deployed (and not simply sponsored) by the
military, as the documents found by the UN make clear; and lastly, but
by no means least, the student left in jakarta has been battling police,
more resolutely perhaps than the east timorese have either/both been
able to or allowed to by the falantil leadership in recent weeks.  this
has much to do with the sheer fire-power of the indonesian army and
police presence, but just as much to do with the changes that have
occured in the last year within fretilin/falantil and in particular the
exiled east timorese communities: the old factions of east timor
(appodeti, the pro-integration faction; fretilin, etc) went through a
realignment and joined into one umbrella group (falantil) which now
includes more than the social democratic fretilin of the 1970s/80s.
this also explains why all falantil can seem to do now is call for
australian/UN intervention, and why this strategy is exclusive of any
other, including one in which the east timorese themselves are granted
the ability to defend themselves.]

Angela
_________

World Socialist Web Site http://www.wsws.org
After vote for secession

Western powers accelerate plans for military intervention in Timor

By Mike Head
4 September 1999

Western powers are bringing forward plans for military intervention in
the Indonesian-occupied former Portuguese colony of East Timor following
today's release of the results of last Monday's United
Nations-supervised ballot on secession.

The votes showed 78.5 percent support for independence. According to the
UN, 432,287 people, or 98.6 percent of eligible voters, took part, with
344,580 rejecting Indonesia's alternative autonomy scheme.

The US, Portugal, Australia, New Zealand and possibly other powers have
contingency plans to quickly send troops to the island, with or without
Indonesia's agreement. They are preparing to do so under the guise of
protecting the East Timorese people from Jakarta-backed militia death
squads, which are running amok.

Since Monday's vote, rampaging gangs have slain at least three local UN
employees, together with secession supporters. Journalists and UN staff
have been beaten and threatened at gunpoint. Militia roadblocks have
cordoned off entire areas in the territory's west. Witnesses have seen
members of the Indonesian military's elite Kopassus (Special Forces)
collaborating with the thugs.

Sections of the Habibie regime in Indonesia, particularly the top
military officers with extensive business interests in East Timor, are
undoubtedly fomenting the violence. By some reports, Indonesian generals
and their local supporters are intent on partitioning the territory,
tying the western half to Indonesian West Timor.

Others in Indonesian ruling circles, including opposition figurehead
Megawati Sukarnoputri, are known to be anxious to stop a breakaway from
encouraging similar moves across the Indonesian archipelago,
particularly in resource-rich provinces such as Aceh, Riau and West
Irian (West Papua).

One purpose of the bloodshed and mayhem since Monday seems to be to
intimidate people in those provinces.

But the governments now so anxious to send troops to East Timor
represent the same forces that supported and participated in the
oppression of the East Timorese masses for decades - first under
Portuguese rule (which extended for 400 years) and then Indonesian
military occupation. As a
consequence, terrible poverty afflicts the Timorese people - 80 percent
of the 800,000 population live at a subsistence level, per capita income
is less than $300 a year and illiteracy rates exceed 35 percent.

Governments and leading media outlets in North America, Europe, East
Asia and Australasia are preparing public opinion for large-scale troop
movements in the name of humanitarianism and peacekeeping. Headlines in
Australian and New Zealand newspapers refer to "anarchy", "bloodshed"
and "violence". The Sydney Morning Herald and the Auckland Weekend
Herald this morning advocate the dispatch of a Kosovo-style force, led
by Australia and New Zealand, without waiting for a full UN operation.
Yet, as in Kosovo, the military preparations are marked by sharp
tensions over which country or countries will dominate the "peace" force
and hence the economy of the proposed statelet.

Portugal is still recognised by the UN and all Western powers except
Australia as the sovereign power in East Timor. This week it demanded
the early dispatch of UN troops, with itself playing a leading role.
When the UN Security Council met on Thursday and condemned this week's
violence, Antonio Monteiro, Portugal's Ambassador to the UN, urged the
Security Council to speed up plans for a major peacekeeping presence. In
a radio interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on
Friday,
Monteiro went further, saying the UN Security Council should act
"regardless" of any objections by Indonesia.  Last week at a meeting in
Lisbon, UN and Portuguese officials gave their Indonesian counterparts a
draft UN plan to send as many as 15,000 troops if the poll resulted in
an independence vote. Jakarta promptly accused Portugal of seeking to
resume control of the territory. The head of its
delegation to the tripartite talks, Nughrobo Wisnumurti, declared that
Indonesia would resist the arrival of foreign soldiers. His country was
"not Kosovo," he said. Portuguese Foreign Minister Jaime Gama felt
compelled to issue a formal denial of any intention to stake a new claim
on East Timor.

In a move to head off external intervention, Indonesian Foreign Minister
Ali Alatas on Thursday announced that Indonesian troops had been asked
to help police provide security. An additional 1,400 crack troops have
been mobilised today. Jakarta opposes a UN force being deployed before
the
scheduled November meeting of the Indonesian MPR (national assembly) to
consider the referendum outcome.  At the same time, thousands of
Indonesian administrators and other personnel are being evacuated from
East Timor, a sign that the territory is being abandoned to the militia.
On Wednesday night a large passenger ship entered the harbour at Dili,
the territory's capital, loaded passengers and cargo and departed at
5.30 am Thursday, reportedly carrying 2,000 people. Hours later two
Indonesian military Hercules aircraft flew in hundreds more police and
then evacuated Indonesian journalists and personnel.

Leading commercial news organs such as Time magazine in the US and the
Australian Financial Review have seized upon these departures, and the
militia violence, to argue that the Indonesian government is effectively
abandoning the territory. "After years of stubborn determination,
Indonesia now wants to wash its hands of the mess it's created in East
Timor," declared Time on Thursday, under the headline: "East Timor: Time
to Send in the United Nations?"

Mounting warnings of troop involvement.

Interviewed on Australian television on Thursday, US Assistant Secretary
of State Stanley Roth gave the Habibie regime the Clinton
administration's clearest warning yet of military intervention. Calling
the actions of the Indonesian police and military "unacceptable," he
said: "They can't say they don't want the international community to
come in with peacekeepers if they're not going to provide the security
themselves. Either they're going to have to produce or the international
community will have to consider additional steps." Roth refused to rule
out the option of armed troops being sent without Indonesian consent.
Roth's threat followed a letter last weekend from US President Bill
Clinton to his Indonesian counterpart, B.J. Habibie. Clinton warned that
US relations with Indonesia would be seriously damaged if mass violence
erupted after the UN vote. One senior US official told the New York
Times the letter was "very tough". Another official said Clinton had
implicitly threatened to cut off international loans and aid to
Indonesia via the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, where
the US has de facto veto power.  On Thursday New Zealand Foreign Affairs
Minister Don McKinnon revealed something of the plans under discussion
by Australia and New Zealand. He
spoke of a non-UN force that could include Australia, New Zealand,
Japan, the US and members of the Association of South East Asian
Nations.  "Like-minded countries" could decide not to wait for a UN
mandate if "absolute chaos" developed in East Timor, he said. McKinnon
commented that the chances of getting a UN mandate were low because "it
would be seen as interference in the affairs of another country".

The Australian government quickly distanced itself from McKinnon's
statement, in line with Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer's
insistence earlier in the week that Canberra had no intention of "going
to war" with Indonesia. The Howard government has previously said it
would only consider an unarmed UN police and military liaison force in
the period between the UN ballot and the November MPR session.  However,
on Thursday Downer shifted ground. He told federal parliament that
Australia was prepared to take part in a military operation "at whatever
level is felt appropriate," provided it was sanctioned by the Indonesian
and Portuguese governments and the UN.  On the same day, Defence
Minister John Moore paid a very public visit to an air force base in the
Northern Territory to inspect the readiness of combat troops, Black Hawk
helicopter crews and SAS forces, who are on alert for East Timor. Both
the opposition Labor Party and the Australian Democrats, who hold the
balance of votes in the Australian Senate, condemned the government for
not moving faster.   Like New Zealand's McKinnon, the Canadian Foreign
Minister made an unexpected announcement on Thursday. Lloyd Axworthy
said his officials had contacted the US, Australia and New Zealand as a
first step to
organising a special meeting on East Timor at the Asia-Pacific Economic
Cooperation (APEC) ministerial meeting in Auckland on September 12 and
13.

Not to be left out, Japan's foreign ministry responded to McKinnon's
statement by asserting that a sudden worsening of the situation could
not be ruled out. Singapore's pro-government Straits Times daily also
stepped into the ring, urging Habibie to accept a UN force "much as
Jakarta dislikes the idea".

For three decades these governments supported the Suharto military junta
in Indonesia - from its bloody coup of 1965 to its collapse last year.
They all backed the invasion of East Timor in 1975 and the suppression
of East Timorese resistance at the cost of an estimated 200,000 lives.
But now, with Suharto gone and his handpicked successor Habibie unable
to contain the country's economic and social crisis, they are moving
aggressively to assert their own business and strategic interests - even
if it could mean hastening the breakup of Indonesia.

East Timorese "independence"

Intervention by the capitalist powers will have nothing to do with
protecting the rights of the East Timorese workers, poor farmers and
youth, let alone uplifting their living conditions. Nor will so-called
East Timorese independence provide any genuine liberation to the people.
The leaders of the proposed mini-state will be handmaidens for one or
another major power and its multinationals.   At present, the leadership
of the National Council for Timorese Resistance (CNRT) is doing
everything it can to facilitate military intervention.  CNRT leader Jose
Alexandre "Xanana" Gusmao this week again called for the rapid
deployment of troops. He also reiterated a pledge to contain unrest.
Although still under Indonesian house arrest, he gave interviews to Time
and Asiaweek to emphasise that a government headed by himself would
"stabilise the situation under the auspices of the United Nations"
Time)
and "keep political, social and economic stability, and respect all
laws" ( Asiaweek).  As a token of his commitment, Gusmao arranged for an
independence supporter who had been accused of involvement in the death
of a militiaman to hand himself over to the Indonesian police. He urged
all youth supporting independence not to respond to militia attacks. He
further called for a reconciliation conference with the pro-Indonesia
thugs and business owners.

Recognising the value of Gusmao's services, the Australian government
and others urged the Indonesian regime to bring forward their plans to
release him on September 15. The Australian Financial Review editorial
said it would be "useful" for Indonesia to "release Gusmao quickly so he
can
appeal for calm when the results [of the UN ballot] are known".  Another
CNRT leader, Manuel Carrascalao, said a free East Timor would support
breakaway movements throughout Indonesia, not just in Aceh and West
Papua. This vow may be designed to attract the support of governments
and companies interested in encouraging breakaways in oil and
mineral-rich regions.

Carrascalao's brother Mario, a former Indonesian-appointed governor of
East Timor, echoed plans already outlined by Gusmao and his
international spokesman Jose Ramos Horta for an economy based on the
exploitation by transnationals of the territory's substantial off-shore
oil and natural gas, plus coffee plantations. Mario Carrascalao spoke of
earning revenues through casinos and tourism.

Such is the dead-end of "national liberation" in the final months of the
20th century. East Timor is a tiny half-island whose impoverished people
will be subordinated by aspiring entrepreneurs to the plundering
operations of multinationals. It will be a "model" for similar statelets
in the event of the Balkanisation of Indonesia. Neither Indonesian rule
nor transforming East Timor into a profit-generating enclave offer a way
forward for the East Timorese masses.

Copyright 1998-99
World Socialist Web Site
------------------------------------------------





     --- from list aut-op-sy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---