Re: Fwd (GLW): Did the East Timor intervention kill off `Vietnam syndrome'?

["Gorojovsky" <Gorojovsky@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

First of all, the reason why I am so interested in the East Timor debate:

I believe that this issue brings to the fore some basic questions concerning
the new scenario we Marxists have to deal with (and _thrive in_). We have a
dramatic and complex situation, where many threads get interwoven in an
apparently inextricable mess. It is our experience that these cases are the
most fruitful in lessons, whether sour or sweet.

The situation has, from my own point of view, a very serious theoretical side,
which I regret to say that Alan fails to see. I hope that on this posting I can
expose that theoretical interest. Since I am more of a practical Marxist
politician, theory is not always my strong side, so that "help me Karl".

En relación a Re: Fwd (GLW): Did the East Timor intervention ki,
el 30 Jan 01, a las 18:02, Alan Bradley dijo:

> The third position was the one I attempted to take, and which Gary
> Maclennan, the ISO, Socialist Alternative, and a whole bunch of the rest of 
> the
> Australian left attempted to take:  maintaining support for the East Timorese
> struggle while opposing the use of imperialist troops.  This position would 
> have
> been the "safest" option.  *If the DSP had taken it, none of this debate would
> have occurred.*

It depends on what is exactly meant by "maintaining support for the East
Timorese struggle while opposing the use of imperialist troops".  Nobody needs
to be a genius to realize that an _independent_ East Timor (such as some of the
leaders in the movement were looking for) was an impossibility unless under the
guarantee of both a sepoy regime in Djakarta and an imperialist presence to
which this sepoy regime would have caved in. Thus, support for the East Timores
struggle may -from the very onset- conceal support for the creation of an
imperialist enclave against Indonesia, _independently from th epolitical
character of the government in Djakarta_.

In my own opinion, the only revolutionary movement in East Timor would have
been one proclaiming _as a matter of principle_ that they were for union with
Indonesia, not for separation. The first example that comes to my mind is that
of the revolutionary José Artigas in the River Plate basin, during the 1810s.
Artigas was defeated, in the end, by a move that eventually ended up with a
"free East Timor" (independent Uruguay, a creation of George Canning's brain)
betweeen Argentina and Brazil. But while no revolutionary recognizes today
Canning's proposition as his / her own, the ideas advanced by Artigas (no
division of the River Plate unity, agrarian revolution in the whole of the
former Viceroyalty of the River Plate, extension of revolution to the Southern
provinces of the Brazilian slavocracy) are still the ones that preside over any
serious attempt at debating TODAY's Uruguay.

Yes, you may be defeated. If the wave of reaction is strong enough, you can be
defeated. This is the risk, and we must take it.  Revolutionary politics
sometimes reminds of Greek tragedies, where one cannot but do what one has to
do, and from the point of view of objectivity, one can't "win". But let us go
ahead...

>
> But there are problems with it, and the first of which is that it is a
> compromise and a fudge.  Within this general range can be found "tacit
> acceptors" of the use of Australian (and other) troops, who just aren't
> happy about it.  (This was pretty much where I was.)  You can also find
> those who don't really support the ET struggle at all, but pay lip-service
> to it.  (I won't attempt to give examples here, because it risks slandering
> people.)

Again, whenever you accept the use of imperialist troops, you can be certain
that you are supporting the worst way out of the problem. It is not a matter of
chance that this TINA position is shared by you and by the --Suhartist sepoy
military in Djakarta! The retreat of the Indonesian troops from East Timor
reminds me of the coup by Gral. Bignone, who kicked Galtieri out of government
in Argentina, 1982, because this stupid ignorant wanted to go on with the
fighting in the Malvinas, even though Meg Bloodihands had alredy let know that
she was considering H-bombing Córdoba. I would rather share with Galtieri's
only "mistake" than with Bignone's clarity of mind

>
> The other problem, the critical one, is that nobody was really able to come up
> with an adequate alternative.  Various demands were raised, but none of them
> really made sense.  (I studied them all very carefully, because I _wanted_ one
> that made sense.)

The only alternative that would make sense was not to Australians to find out.
It was the task of the East Timorese. If (and please note the _if_, since I
know little of this issue), from the very beginning of their movement, they
placed themselves against the unity of Indonesia, then they had placed
themselves in the line of keeping the colonial frontiers that Balkanized that
country. If so, then the conditions for their final "victory" would hardly be
different than the ones we are witnessing now.

>
> Without a viable option three, this loose bloc tended to break up into the
> other two.
>
> In my case, I just bit the bullet, and carried on supporting the East
> Timorese struggle under the new conditions.

I understand this. But what does it mean "to support the East Timorese
struggle"?  Sometimes, what the struggle needs is not solidarity, but the
courage to analyze the contradictions that our comrades (even if under
desperate conditions) have incurred into, and to understand how this sad and
obviously proimperialist final result was reaped. Could it not be this the E.T.
case?

The above implies that I absolutely DISAGREE with the following:

>
> In my opinion, there is no truely "principled" line.

Whenever we have imperialist troops on the ground we are facing a matter of
principle. This is the basic contradiction in the world today. Sorry that
Australian comrades were caught in this situation, but this is the truth.

> Denial of the
> legitimacy of the East Timorese struggle is absurd, sectarian, and
> historically one of class collaboration.

Yes, which does not imply what follows:

> Support of the ET struggle
> implies at least a temporary (tacit?) acceptance of the use of imperialist
> troops, *in this specific case*, and having to deal with the consequences

because, unlike Alan states,

> There IS  option three.

Option three is to reject -under any circumstances- imperialist intervention.
Supporting Australian invasion is siding with the sepoy military in Indonesia
against both the East Timorese and the rest of the Indonesian masses.

True E.Timorese revolutionaries were caught betweeen the Scylla of Australian
troops and the Carybdis of Indonesian troops. To believe that the first ones
would probably not be as bloody as the second ones (this is to be seen) is a
matter of shortsightedness. In the long range, they will prove to be more
bloodier than anything Indonesia could generate. I suggest, humbly, that an
alternative line would have been to oppose Australian intervention while at the
same time claiming for an "open gates" policy by Australia to save the East
Timorese revolutionaries, and give them an operating center in Australian
mainland. The duty of Leninists in such a case would have been to engage in a
debate on the good and wrong side of placing stress in "liberation" from
Indonesia, a "liberation" that could only be achieved the way it actually was.

Probably Australian and East Timorese comrades might profit by a deep knowledge
of the history of Simón Bolívar.

>
> Does this mean that the supporters of the ET struggle are necessarily going to
> be supporters of imperialist adventures in the future?  Well, I guess that
> depends on what is tactically advantageous to believe....

Not at all. I support the ET struggle _in principle_, but _only if it does not
side with imperialism against Indonesia_. This is not a tactical issue, this is
a matter of principle. If I did not believe that, I would not be writing on a
corner of the globe that I know so little about.



Néstor Miguel Gorojovsky
gorojovsky@xxxxxxxxxxxx