Fwd (GLW): EAST TIMOR: The Indonesian-Australian invasion

["Alan Bradley" <alanb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The following article appears in the current issue of Green Left Weekly
(http://www.greenleft.org.au):

EAST TIMOR: The Indonesian-Australian invasion
BY MAX LANE

Prime Minister John Howard's Coalition government has released foreign
affairs documents relating to the 1974-76 period in a cynical ploy to use
Australian people's outrage at the 1975 invasion and occupation of East
Timor to score points against the ?opposition? Labor Party. The documents
confirm what was obvious from the public actions and statements of then ALP
prime minister Gough Whitlam: the Australian government urged and
encouraged the Suharto dictatorship to invade East Timor.

In September 1974, in central Java, Whitlam told Suharto that East Timor
was ?too small to be independent?. The internal documents confirm that this
was government policy. ?I am in favour of incorporation but obeisance must
be made to self-determination?, one document quotes Whitlam as saying.

The legal front for the Indonesian military's black operations at the time,
the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), recognised this
stance in Whitlam's private secretary, Peter Wilenski. The centre was so
convinced of the Australian government's support that it immediately began
briefing the Australian embassy on its planned covert operations. Thus it
was that the embassy knew three days beforehand that Indonesian troops
would attack Balibo, where the five Australian journalists were killed.

The documents underline that all public references to self-determination in
East Timor were part of a pretence to this principle by the government, to
prevent ?argument in Australia? as one document described Whitlam's
concerns. This pretence was part of a greater pretence: that the Australian
government supported democracy in the region in general.

Like the previous Liberal governments, Whitlam's Labor government heaped
praise on Suharto and engaged in so-called batik shirt diplomacy. The
murder of 1 million Indonesian workers, peasants and left-wing activists in
1965 and 1966, during and after the military coup that brought Suharto to
power, was welcomed by both the Labor and Liberal political elites as a
blow against the threat of communism.

Whitlam's support for the incorporation of East Timor into Indonesia meant
support for East Timorese people living under the same dictatorship
conditions as Indonesia's workers and peasants. Whitlam knew that
?obeisance to self-determination? could only be a pretence given that he
was dealing with a military dictatorship with a horrendous record.

Liberal hypocrisy

Answering a question about the documents, Howard said that he wouldn't
comment on past governments' record, but asserted that his government had
an ?honourable? record. This is hypocritical on two counts.

First, Howard was a member of the opposition at the time of the invasion,
an opposition that enthusiastically supported the Whitlam government's
pro-dictatorship position. Later, Howard was a member of Malcolm Fraser's
Coalition government, the first government to declare de jure recognition
of the integration of East Timor into Indonesia. The Fraser government also
massively increased material aid to the Indonesian military throughout the
late 1970s, when it was engaged in its most savage operations against the
East Timorese guerilla resistance.

Secondly, Howard's own government was a no less enthusiastic supporter of
Suharto than Whitlam's, or Bob Hawke and Paul Keating's later Labor
governments. While Hawke raised the champagne glass to Suharto and
declared, ?Your people love you, Mr President? during his 1983 visit to
Jakarta, Howard described Suharto as a ?caring and sensitive leader?.

The Howard government continued previous governments' policy of holding
joint military exercises with Indonesia and training its military.

It was also the Howard government that wrote to Indonesia's President B.J.
Habibie (Suharto's successor) suggesting that he try to con the East
Timorese into dropping their resistance by promising a vaguely described
act of self-determination at some indefinite time in the future. When this
backfired and Habibie, afraid of having to finance the occupation of East
Timor for another 10 or 15 years and still lose it, called a referendum in
1999, the Howard government did its best to aid the pro-integration militia
in East Timor. It refused to apply any pressure on the Habibie government
to rein in the army and militia.

Howard and his foreign affairs minister Alexander Downer repeatedly assured
the Australian people that they could rely on the Indonesian military to do
the right thing in East Timor, even as the militia violence against East
Timorese independence supporters was being broadcast on television sets
worldwide. And it was the Howard government that refused to press Habibie
to allow the referendum process to be protected by an armed United Nations
force.

The Howard government stood by as the post-referendum violence exploded,
afraid of any confrontation with Jakarta. Only massive public anger at its
passivity in the face of these developments forced the government into a
frenzied lobbying of the United States to pressure Habibie into
surrendering East Timor to UN forces.

Continuity

Today, as Jakarta refuses to take any serious action against the persistent
militia violence in West and East Timor, Howard and Downer express their
confidence in President Abdurrahman Wahid's stated commitment to improving
the situation ? just as they did with Suharto and Habibie. But it has been
obvious for a long time that Wahid is not interested in subjugating the
militia in East Timor. He has made no statement during his tenure
criticising the militia atrocities and the situation in West Timor was not
even raised for discussion during the recent sitting of Indonesia's
People's Consultative Assembly.

The Howard government would know that Wahid is a member of the CSIS
advisory council and that Wahid appointed Yusus Wanandi, a key crony
businessperson and a central figure in the CSIS, to a top advisory role in
the government.

Wahid maintains close contact with the infamous General Benny Murdani, who
was in charge of the 1975 invasion of East Timor.

When Wahid visited East Timor before the referendum, the anti-independence
Aitarak militia provided the security outside his residence. His long-time
friend and vice-president, Megawati Sukarnoputri, has appointed the Aitarak
leader, Eurico Guterres, head of her party's youth organisation in West
Timor.

All Australian governments, Liberal and Labor, have been and remain
complicit in the oppression of East Timor. Any international war crimes
tribunal should not only haul Suharto and his military and political
cronies before it, but also Whitlam, Fraser, Hawke, Keating, Howard and all
the other Australian government accomplices to the crimes committed against
the East Timorese people.