[Marxism] DSP's position on Timor-Leste crisis

[Peter Boyle <peterb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

[These rough notes are an informal attempt to describe the developing 
position of the DSP on the current situation in East Timor (Timor-Leste, 
is its official name). It is developing position because the situation 
is complicated, murky and changing day-by-day. There is great difficulty 
getting information out of the country and within East Timor most people 
can't get information about what is going on in the next suburb! Rumours 
(often distorted by growing inter-communal conflict and a campaigning 
Australian media) rule. Tens of thousands have fled their homes and left 
the city for the poorly serviced countryside. We have tried to stay in 
touch with a range of progressive activists but often this is only 
possible through SMS text messages and the odd expensive phone calls. 
Email contact is not easily accessible to these activists today. 
Criticisms and suggestions are welcome.]

As the readers of Green Left Weekly, would have surmised, the DSP's 
position on the current Australian military intervention into East Timor 
is not like that in 1999. Then, we campaigned for an intervention 
because it would advance the national liberation struggle, with the 
re-establishment of political independence. That intervention was 
critical to victory for the East Timorese national liberation movement. 
No two ways about it. It was an intervention forced upon the Australian 
government and it went against two and a half decades of bi-partisan 
Australian government support for the Indonesian occupation of East 
Timor. However, the current military intervention marks a setback of 
that independence struggle. How much of a setback will only become clear 
over time.

When the Australian government unilaterally pre-positioned significant 
military forces off the coast of East Timor in April, the DSP and others 
in the movement condemned what appeared to be an intimidatory exercise 
held during a congress of the ruling Fretilin party, where the Prime 
Minister Mari Alkatiri. See 
<http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2006/668/668p21b.htm>

However, the current foreign military intervention (by army and police 
forces from Australia, New Zealand, Portugal and Malaysia) was at the 
invitation of the Timor-Leste government and appears to have the support 
of the full political spectrum in the country, including the Timorese 
Socialist Party (PST). Basically these various forces support foreign 
intervention to forestall a slide into a fratricidal civil war, in the 
fracturing of the armed forces and the total collapse of the police in 
the capital Dili.

The DSP is not campaigning for “troops out” demand at this stage. No 
leading activist in the solidarity movement has called for such a 
campaign. We may have to campaign for “troops out” as the situation 
develops further, and the left should be politically prepared for such a 
switch, should these forces be used to suppress the ET people or to take 
away their right to a government of their own choosing.

There is no doubt that the very presence of the Australian and other 
foreign troops can be used as leverage against the Timor-Leste 
government and in response that government has sought to 
internationalise the foreign intervention, making the initial request to 
Australia, Portugal, NZ and Malaysia but more recently writing to the UN 
“to immediately establish a United Nations police force in Timor-Leste 
to maintain law and order in Dili and other parts of the country as 
necessary and re-establish confidence amongst the people, until the 
Timorese police (PNTL) has undergone reorganization and restructuring so 
that it can act as an independent and professional law enforcement 
agency”. The letter asked for the UN police force to stay for at least a 
year, until the 2007 national elections were completed. (See 
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GreenLeft_discussion/message/30556?l=1>)

In the UN Security Council, Australia argued against this police force 
being put formally under UN-control, and this should be condemned, but 
at this stage we should not campaign for "troops out".

Australian imperialism’s purpose in this intervention is to maintain 
order in the region in its role as regional “sheriff” to the major 
imperialist powers, defending the general interests of imperialism and 
capitalism as well as the direct interests of Australian big business in 
the region. Australian interference in East Timor has been ongoing and 
has not just begun with the latest intervention. A classified ADF minute 
to the then Chief of the Defence Force and other senior Defence staff 
dated May 10, 2001, leaked to the The Bulletin states this plainly: "The 
first objective ... is to pursue Australia’s broad strategic interests 
in East Timor, namely denial, access and influence. The strategic 
interest of denial seeks to ensure that no foreign power gains an 
unacceptable level of access to East Timor, and is coupled with the 
complementary objective of seeking access to East Timor for Australia, 
in particular the ADF. Australia’s strategic interests can also be 
protected and pursued more effectively if Australia maintains some 
degree of influence over East Timor’s decision-making."

As socialists in Australia, we have to combat a grossly racist and 
imperialist propaganda campaign that is being waged by the big business 
media. This is a campaign for the removal of the elected government of 
Timor Leste, a campaign to blame the Timorese people for the social 
crisis and poverty forced on it by 21st century capitalism, and a 
campaign to excuse the criminal support of Liberal and Labor governments 
for the brutal Indonesian occupation of that country for two and a half 
decades. Australia is deeply culpable for the current crisis. Apart from 
stealing oil and gas income from ET, the Australian government has 
played an active role alongside the UN, IMF and World Bank in pressing 
neo-liberal advice on ET government. For example, it has discouraged the 
rehabilitation of rice growing and opposed the processing of coffee 
beans in ET. These are the sort of policies that have kept the majority 
of ET population in dire poverty and frustration. In addition, it has 
played a major role in training and organising the ET police. We 
counterpose an alternative policy of solidarity: return stolen ET oil 
revenues, pay reparations for years of support for Indonesian 
occupation, Cuban-style people's aid organization of people to people 
aid. (Note while Cuba has 60 doctors in East Timor and has 600 Timorese 
students on medical scholarships in Cuba, Australia offers a measley 30 
university scholarships a year to Timorese)

However, as socialists we also need to confront the fact that the 
factional breaking up of the ET armed forces, police and governing 
political leadership is a consequence of the demobilization of the 
heroic national liberation movement that developed in the years under 
Indonesian occupation. There was an alternative course based on popular 
mobilization around addressing the immediate needs of the mass of ET 
people (mobilisations for literacy, health, rural development, as well 
as for justice and independence). However, the leadership of the 
national liberation abandoned this course, before 1999, and opted to 
work within a bureaucratic state-building framework under the close 
supervision of the UN.

The exact composition and political agendas of the various factions in 
this break up are still not clear. However, the various components of 
the historic leadership of the national liberation movement, including 
President Xanana Gusmao (ex-Fretilin), PM Alkatiri (Fretilin) and 
Foreign and (now) Defence Minister Jose Ramos-Horta (ex-Fretilin) now in 
conflict all share responsibility for the crisis. They were willing 
partners to imperialism in the attempted, but now failing, bureaucratic 
construction of a capitalist neo-colonial state.

Australian imperialism clearly would prefer an alternative to the 
Alkatiri led FRETILIN government and a section of the Australian ruling 
class is publicly campaigning against Alkatiri. The reasons for this 
range from an ideological hostility to a view that Alkatiri is a 
negative factor in maintaining stability for the process of building a 
capitalist state.

Alkatiri is being red-baited ( see 
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GreenLeft_discussion/message/30546?l=1>) 
but while he is economic nationalist he is not a communist. The PST 
along with other opposition parties has faced repression from the 
Fretilin government. See:
<http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2005/622/622p20.htm>
<http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2005/645/645p23c.htm>
<http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2006/669/669p3.htm>

Socialists unconditionally support the struggle of oppressed nations for 
self-determination. While we have criticisms of the course of the 
liberation movement and the Fretilin-led government, we defend the right 
of the East Timorese to have an independent state and a government of 
their own choosing -- not one dictated by Australian or other 
imperialist powers.

Peter Boyle










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