[Marxism] Re: Australian troops back in East Timor

[Ben Courtice <benj2006@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Re the posts from Tom and Greg (excerpted below), I think they don't
present the whole story. First, as Clinton has already noted, the
propositions put by people like the Australian Financial Review reflect
what the Australian ruling class would *like* to get out of the Timor
intervention. That doesn't mean they wanted the intervention in the
first place. Nor does it mean that most Australians have been totally
sucked in. The protests here against the 2003 invasion of Iraq were
immense (up to a million nationally in a nation of 20 million). As far
as I know, the majority of public opinion is still against the
occupation of Iraq.

As to the interventions in the south pacific, these existed before the
1999 intervention in Timor. Does anyone remember the
Australian-sponsored war by the PNG defence forces against
Bougainville's independence movement? Or for that matter the ongoing
attitude of the Australian government to the Indonesian government's
occupation and colonisation of West Papua? Not to mention the Indonesian
occupation of East Timor and their Timor Gap oil deals with the (then
ALP) Australian government.

Australia would have pursued some form of intervention into PNG and the
Solomons, regardless. Bear in mind that the Solomons government invited
the RAMSI intervention, and only recently has there been obvious, open
discontent and protest against it.

In regard to these current interventions in the Solomons and
Timor-Leste, I think the Australian left must be prepared for a clear
call to get the troops out, as soon as it is clear they are unwelcome
there (which is already quite obvious in the case of the Solomons, but
as we have been discussing, not so in East Timor). In the meantime, we
ought to expose the interests and plans of the imperialist Australian
state to Australian and international audiences to ensure that the left
is not sucked into supporting imperialism under the guise of
"humanitarian" interventions.

The link I recently posted to the DSP's statement on Australian
imperialism <http://www.dsp.org.au/links/back/issue18/dsp.htm> provides
some background material but I encourage everyone to provide
contemporary material to flesh out the story. Of course all this is
equally applicable to NZ imperialism.

Ben Courtice

Tom O'Lincoln wrote:
At the time of the 1999 intervention, the Australian Financial Review
also editorialised: "The calls for action in Timor are ironic because
many of those who fostered the political climate in which the army was
run down were the loudest in demanding Australia intervene there. This
call to arms has, for the first time in decades, given broad legitimacy
to the proposition that Australia should be able to intervene militarily
outside its territory." (15 Sept 99)

So there is quite a bit of of evidence backing up what is surely common
sense: a popular military intervention abroad ? presenting itself as
liberation and not just accepted but DEMANDED by most of the left, from
the unions through to the DSP ? is going to legitimise militarism. It
would be strange if it didn?t.

Greg Adler wrote:
I would argue that amongst the "negative implications" of the
"successful" and left-sponsored intervention in East Timor in 1999 was
the strengthening of the Howard government's hand when it joined the
coalition of the killing in invading Iraq in 2003. It strenghthened and
legitimised Australian intervention in  Papua-New Guinea and the Solomon
Islands and has laid the basis for the latest intervention in East Timor.

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