Re: AUT: Timor

[Montyneill@xxxxxxx]

Steve suggests, following Angela, that the solution -- or, perhaps, the best
we can now do -- is to help refugees. No doubt, they should be helped. It is,
of course, a recognition of the magnitude of the defeat -- as was/is the NATO
war against Yugoslavia. If I may be allowed a moment of satire (?), the
logical parallel to Yugoslavia is that the US should now be bombing Jakarta.
Indeed, there is vastly more justification than the US/NATO could ever muster
re: Kosova. <Of course,> they should be bombing the electric stations, water
pumping stations, etc, if the parallel proceeded. But I assume this list
knows well that these stories are about capitalist control, as led by the US
state in service to transnationals.

As for John Roosa's post and Angela and Steve's responses to it: I am unsure
just what would be worse if the UN really did intervene and really did save
lives and really did allow people to return, rather than live indefinitely as
refugees. I do not believe much good will come of the UN intervention, but if
they intervene, the question is, how are we worse off? Below, I suggest we
are in some ways -- but whether we put our political logic ahead of potential
(and only potential) humanitarianism is a hard question.

I did not join a call for intervention. I did join in the demands to the US
state to cut military ties, cut IMF loans, cut support for investments, etc.
Such demands are at least somewhat consistent with anti-capitalist politics,
in a way that demands for intervention by the UN or other states cannot be. I
do not believe, however, that the power of those who would support E Timorese
is such that any such demands on the US state would be used other than
manipulatively -- a few symbolic actions, some under-the-table reassurances
to the Indonesian military state, much PR and Clinton's vaunted sympathetic
clucking. Nonetheless, it is against military aid, etc., and such should
always be opposed.

Efforts to expose the history of the US in this story are of some value,
since attention is now focused on E Timor.

So then what? E Timor, as Yugoslavia, presents issues of the ways in which
the US state and others effectively call on the proponents of human rights --
mostly the left, such as it is -- to support military interventions which
strengthen transnational capital and weaken any remaining autonomy of the
left. There are I think real differences between the two situations, so we
should not organize simple parallels in our thinking -- but this issue of
interventions does cut across both. In E Timor it even has some legitimacy if
one accedes any legitimacy to the UN, to the fact that E Timor was recognized
almost universally as an occupied territory, etc. But, still, the UN is a
tool first of transnational capital and a few mostly united dominant states,
esp. the US. Anyway, it seems to me one task is to help think through the
politics of intervention and how human rights are used as a card by its worst
violators.

It is also worth pointing out that not everyone facing severe repression in
their struggles calls for intervention by capitalist states or the UN. The
zapatistas do not, they call for solidarity from people. It is a different
politics.

I do not know a great deal of the background on this, so perhaps others can
elucidate this if I am in error or leaving out critical points. It seems to
me [and in part this presentation comes from a discussion the other day with
some other folks in the Midnight Notes Collective, tho I don't want them
responsible for any of my errors, etc] that the E Timorese leadership
organized a situation that guaranteed an attempted massacre, while insisting
on non-violence in response. They thus organized a situation in which they
expected their success to be implemented either through the accession to the
vote of the Indonesian military state or from the actions of the UN or other
outside forces. That is, they organized a defeat, if we believe calling on
capitalist entities is a defeat, and they did not organize an alternative.
Apparently this may be in part because of the way Indonesian state justified
its intervention in 1975, a civil war, and they did not want to provide again
such a justification. There is a logic here, but it seems to me that after a
day or so, given the massive support in the election, activity of
self-defense would not have been perceived as unreasonable. Perhaps the
foreign powers would have moved even more quickly to intervene if there had
been an armed defense. In any event, it seems a disastrous political
calculation was made. It is one thing to try but to lose, to even be forced
to call on one's enemies for protection (as one might call on the police in
some circumstances), but a rather another to have organized the need to call
on the enemies. Doing so puts the anti-capitalist or pro-human rights people
and groups in the position of weakening the possibilities of developing
autonomous politics because to save lives we are expected to join in the call
for the intervention. And it is of course not unreasonable on a personal and
human level to do so.

Can there be lessons from this that others can learn from? In face of these
defeats and the constant divisions among the left as choices are made to
support interventions of one sort or another, can we clarify these politics
in a way that does not simply dismiss the struggles of those who end up
requesting intervention but addresses the issues critically, in hopes of
helping to (re)build anti-capitalism.

Monty Neill


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