Re: [Marxism] Re: Australian troops back in East Timor

[glparramatta <glparramatta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Louis Proyect wrote:

> I have no idea why you need to buttress your argument with such an 
> obscure reference. A much more useful example is the alliance between 
> the Soviet Union and Anglo-American imperialism during WWII. A workers 
> state is obligated to make a pact with the devil in order to defend 
> socialist property relations. But what does this have to do with East 
> Timor? As far as I know, the DSP did not hold state power in East 
> Timor. The issue is much more closely related to the one that divided 
> the US
> and Haitian left in 1994 over whether American Marines should have 
> been supported in a humanitarian intervention to rescue Aristide. I 
> believe that the correct position is to oppose any such rescues, 
> especially considering in this instance the sorry track record of US 
> "rescues" in the Caribbean and the trajectory of Aristide. When such 
> imperialist rescues take place in places like Haiti or East Timor, the 
> prognosis is extremely guarded.
>
> full: http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/marxism/2003w09/msg00012.htm
From http://www.dsp.org.au/links/back/issue14/14townsend.html

The immediate result of the decision to send the peacekeeping force was 
to put a stop to the slaughter of the vanguard of the Timorese 
liberation movement. This was the key gain, the importance of which 
cannot overestimated. It also led to the total withdrawal of Indonesian 
troops.

Secondly, the Australian mass movement set back Australian imperialism's 
key goal if only for a time of a strategic political and military 
alliance with the Indonesian regime and the power behind the throne, the 
Indonesian military.

It was a massive defeat for the Indonesian military. Gains for the 
democracy movement in Indonesia and the struggles in Aceh and West Papua 
have already been made in its wake.

East Timor will achieve formal independence. That too is a victory. Of 
course, Australian and Western imperialism have their own designs and 
will try to make the most of them. Certainly, an independent East Timor 
will be a neo-colony of imperialism, just as Papua New Guinea, Fiji and 
the Solomon Islands are, but that would have been the case whether 
Indonesia peacefully gave up East Timor or it remained part of Indonesia.

Australian and US imperialism will attempt to make the most of the 
setback that has been forced upon them. That simply means that the 
solidarity movement has a huge job to do to ensure that the East 
Timorese people have as much political room to move as possible.

The mass movement in Australia that forced the government to intervene, 
against its will, was motivated by a sympathy for the East Timorese 
people and an overwhelming support for their right to independence. It 
can be, and will be, mobilised again if Howard, Clinton and the UN 
betray that.

Did the mobilisation of more than 100,000 people in Australia, in the 
space of a week, outraged at Canberra's 24-year policy [of backing 
Indonesia's occupation of East Timor], make it easier or harder for 
Howard and the UN to renege on independence for East Timor? Does it make 
it easier or harder for the solidarity movement to mobilise those people 
again?

Even if the DSP's Australian critics prove to be right and Australian 
leftists have to fight harder at home as the rulers attempt to salvage 
something by arguing for greater austerity to pay for more military 
spending or pushing for more overseas military adventures, is that too 
high a price to pay for the revolutionary forces in East Timor escaping 
extermination and being allowed to return to the struggle instead of the 
certainty of having their forces destroyed? Is the struggle of workers 
in Australia and other imperialist countries weakened or strengthened by 
the survival of the liberation movement in East Timor?

The defeat of the Indonesian military in East Timor, and the undermining 
of the Australian government's alliance with it, have weakened it and 
made the prospects greater for a radical democratic revolution in 
Indonesia. Will that weaken or strengthen the movement in Australia?

[snip]


     Is it incorrect to call on the capitalist state to use force?
     <http://www.dsp.org.au/links/back/issue14/14townsend.html#CONTENTS>

Is it a principle that socialists should never call on capitalist states 
to use force? That socialists under no circumstances give support to UN 
peacekeeping forces?

Socialists every day demand that the capitalist state and its armed 
wings act to implement laws, or carry out police actions, that are in 
the objective interests of the working class and the oppressed.

In situations where the organised and mobilised working class cannot as 
yet carry out these tasks, calling on capitalist governments to do so 
can expose the capitalist state's unwillingness or inability to act in 
the interests of the working class or, if it is forced to make 
concessions in the face of mass working-class activity, achieve gains 
that are objectively in the interests of the working class.

When socialists call for bosses who flout workplace health and safety 
laws to be jailed for murder or assault, or when we demand that the 
owners of polluting companies be prosecuted, we are calling on the state 
to use force. When socialists demand that cops and screws responsible 
for Aboriginal deaths in custody be prosecuted and convicted, we are 
calling on the capitalist state to use force. When we demand that the 
police track down and jail racist murderers or enforce laws against 
rape, we are advocating the use of force by the capitalist state.

In the US, the civil rights movement called for the sending of federal 
troops to the southern states to enforce civil rights laws. US 
socialists supported the call, as US Solidarity activist Barry Sheppard 
explained in a posting to the "Solidarity List" on the internet on 
September 17:

   ``An analogy that I think is useful was the demand the SWP
   [Socialist Workers Party] raised in relation to the fight of Blacks
   in the South against the Jim Crow [apartheid] system, when they were
   met with massive violence by [state] police forces and vigilantes.

   ``We called on the federal government to send troops to defend
   Blacks under attack by mobs and the armed forces of the Southern
   states. We also championed the idea that Blacks had the right to arm
   themselves in self-defense from these attacks. Sometimes we combined
   these demands, as in the Battle of Birmingham in 1963, when Blacks
   began to arm and defend their meetings, and we called on the federal
   government to arm and deputize Blacks in the face of the violence of
   the racists.

   ``The fact was that the Black people were not prepared or able to
   defend themselves on the scale necessary. Neither, as we have seen,
   are the East Timorese.

   ``When federal troops were used in the desegregation battle, it was
   with great reluctance and foot-dragging by Washington. But whenever
   they were forced to do this, the racists were beaten back, and
   Blacks were emboldened to fight harder. By demanding federal troops,
   we also were exposing the reluctance of Washington to intervene in
   defense of what most Americans considered to be a just cause.

   ``At no time did our position mean we were "sowing illusions" in the
   federal government, or did we ever give it political support. Quite
   the opposite. We exposed the complicity of Washington with the
   Southern establishment at every turn.''

The analogy was raised in a separate discussion on the "Marxism List" on 
the internet on September 18 by another former member of the US SWP:

   ``Despite many misgivings about how these comrades have formulated
   their demands, it must be recognized that the Australian DSP is, in
   the most essential matter, correct. They are supporting the just
   struggle of the people of East Timor for self-determination and
   independence. Right now part of that struggle is the fight for an
   international imperialist peace-keeping force, just as a month ago
   part of it was the fight for an imperialist-organized referendum,
   and the DSP is triply right in not abstaining from these battles …

   ``It is not the "fault" of the people of East Timor that, thanks to
   the blood of millions of martyrs the world over, international
   imperialist institutions such as the UN have been forced to
   recognize, at least formally, the right of oppressed nations to
   self-determination. It is not a "betrayal" for the people of East
   Timor to use this formal concession as a lever to pry out the
   Indonesian invaders from their homeland. It is not "treason" to
   demand that these imperialist world bodies back up their
   hypocritical "respect" for the right of the East Timorese to
   self-determination and independence with something more weighty than
   resolutions and crocodile tears.

   ``To denounce their demand for blue helmets is just as ultraleft as
   the position of sectarians in the United States who denounced Black
   community demands that the "bourgeois imperialist" police forces
   and, if it comes to it, the "bourgeois imperialist" army yes the
   same bourgeois imperialist army that raped Vietnam and put down the
   ghetto rebellions in 1968, and that just pulverized Belgrade be
   deployed to protect the Black community against racist thuggery and
   terror.

   ``The Australian DSP is absolutely right in supporting this demand
   of the independence movement, just as the US SWP was absolutely
   right when it supported Black community demands that federal troops
   be sent to Boston in the mid-1970s. Those who criticize them on the
   basis of "principle" need to explain why the same principle does not
   prevent them from demanding "armed intervention" and "the use of
   force" against racist thugs within their own states.''

[snip]

An avenue for imperialist retreat 
<http://www.dsp.org.au/links/back/issue14/14townsend.html#CONTENTS>

Yet despite the undoubted dominance of the US, the UN continues to be an 
arena of struggle between contending international interests, 
principally Western imperialism on the one hand and the Third World on 
the other. This is especially so at the level of the General Assembly, 
but on a few occasions it is also reflected in the Security Council.

At certain points, the pressure of mass struggle in the Third World 
combined with mass popular opinion in the West has forced US imperialism 
to retreat. Just as the UN is used by imperialism when it launches 
offensives, that body has often been the mechanism Washington uses to 
disguise its backdowns or to allow its Third World proxies to save face.

Namibia

A very similar situation to that of East Timor took place in Namibia a 
decade ago. Weakened by the successes of the anti-apartheid struggle in 
South Africa and the decisive defeat of the South African army's 
invasion of neighbouring Angola by the combined forces of Cuban 
internationalist volunteers, the Angolan army and the guerillas of the 
South West African People's Organisation (SWAPO), the 
US-imperialist-backed apartheid regime in South Africa was forced to 
agree to Namibia's independence. In the US and Europe, a mass 
anti-apartheid movement was at its peak.

In July 1988, representatives of Angola, Cuba and SWAPO on one side and 
South Africa on the other agreed that South Africa would reduce its 
troops in Namibia to 1500 prior to a UN-monitored constituent assembly 
election in November 1989, leading to an independent Namibian state in 
March 1990. In return, revolutionary Cuba agreed to withdraw its 
volunteers from Angola.

In August 1988, the UN Security Council approved a resolution 
authorising an armed UN force of 4650 troops from Australia, Denmark, 
Finland, Malaysia and Britain to supervise elections for the constituent 
assembly which would draft independent Namibia's constitution.

The UN Transitional Assistance Group (UNTAG), established under UN 
Security Council resolution 435, was originally to have been 
7500-strong. Washington argued that it be slashed to 3000. Following 
objections from the Non-Aligned movement, the African front-line states, 
SWAPO and others, the compromise of 4650 was agreed on.

The anti-apartheid movement and revolutionary socialists did not 
denounce the UN force as a "betrayal", nor did they declare that forcing 
imperialism to retreat and allow Namibia's formal independence was not 
an advance. Socialists did not call for the UN forces' withdrawal. 
Socialists did not argue that the deployment of a UN force in these 
circumstances sowed illusions in imperialism's or the UN's 
"humanitarianism".

Such a position would have played into the hands of apartheid South 
Africa and US imperialism. Imperialism's goal was for SWAPO to be as 
politically weak as possible in an independent Namibia.

Socialists opposed US efforts to reduce the UN force and exposed every 
instance of UN inaction in the face of Pretoria's attempts to use 
violence and dirty tricks to sabotage SWAPO's attempts to win a 
two-thirds majority in the constituent assembly. Socialists condemned 
Pretoria's manoeuvre of integrating 3000 members of the dreaded Koevoet, 
a death-squad "counterinsurgency" unit, into the police force, which was 
charged under resolution 435 with maintaining law and order.

Socialists condemned UNTAG's slowness in deploying troops and its 
failure to confront i.e. they demanded that the UN use force against 
South African troops and police who killed hundreds of SWAPO fighters 
and supporters in the first weeks of the transition process.

International pressure by the anti-apartheid movement especially in the 
US, where outrage at the slackness of UNTAG was fuelled by press 
coverage of massacres forced the US to apply pressure to the South 
African-appointed administrator of Namibia, and in August 1989 Koevoet 
were confined to barracks for the duration of the election campaign.

SWAPO won an overwhelming victory in Namibia's November 7-11, 1989, 
constituent assembly elections. The remaining South African occupation 
forces withdrew a week later, and the UN troops left in April 1990. The 
creation of an independent Namibia, despite all the obstacles thrown in 
its path by the apartheid regime and Washington, was a massive defeat 
for Pretoria and an inspiration to the people in South Africa still 
struggling against apartheid.

South Africa and Israel

Similarly, it was the combination of the anti-apartheid struggle inside 
South Africa and the mass solidarity movement throughout the world in 
the 1980s that forced the UN Security Council to impose a range of arms 
and economic sanctions on Pretoria. The impact of those sanctions 
speeded the demise of apartheid.

Socialists did not respond by denouncing these concessions by 
imperialism. They campaigned for them to be enforced as major 
imperialist powers flouted them or turned a blind eye to widespread 
"sanctions busting" scams.

As of 1998, Israel was defying as many as 69 UN Security Council 
resolutions. At least 29 others had been vetoed by the US. The fact that 
69 resolutions were allowed to pass by Washington was a concession to 
the anti-imperialist sentiment in the Arab world and public opinion in 
the West.

Socialists did not simply ignore these resolutions' existence, but 
highlighted the hypocrisy of the failure of the UN to enforce them, in 
stark contrast to its actions in relation to Iraq, Libya and Iran.

Cuba

While it is not a perfect analogy, revolutionary socialists' attitude 
toward the UN can be likened to that toward bourgeois parliaments. Like 
parliament, which is thoroughly bourgeois, the UN is thoroughly 
imperialist. Should socialists then boycott it, declare it "politically 
obsolete"?

This is not the position taken by revolutionary Cuba. Cuba participates 
actively in the General Assembly to propagandise for socialism, to 
defend the Cuban revolution by mobilising opposition to the US blockade 
of the island, and to argue in favour of action that helps the oppressed 
and working majority of the world. Cuba does not call for the UN's 
abolition but for it to be transformed by the abolition of the veto 
power of the five permanent members and for its democratisation so that 
the Third World majority can control it.

Cuba's participation which inevitably requires it to call on the UN 
Security Council to act in the interests of oppressed exposes 
imperialism's hypocrisy and inaction. It also allows Cuba to exploit 
differences between its enemies and play them off against one another.

On November 9, the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly endorsed a 
resolution for the eighth successive year, and by a record 155-2 
majority (twelve abstentions), calling for an end to the forty-year US 
economic blockade. Only Israel voted with the US.

"Washington's friends and allies as well as its usual adversaries [such 
as Japan, Canada, Norway, Australia, and Finland on behalf of the 
European Union] supported the resolution, mainly because they consider 
their own sovereignty is infringed by the 'extra-territorial' effects of 
the embargo in punishing non-US companies that trade with Cuba", 
reported Reuters.

In situations where imperialism is forced to retreat in the face of 
struggle, Cuba's participation helps maximise the gains won by the 
oppressed as its role in Namibia's independence showed.

Cuba has no qualms about participating in the UN Security Council. At 
the time of the Gulf War, the only members of the Security Council to 
vote against the resolution that authorised the attack on Iraq were Cuba 
and Yemen.

Such an approach gives Cuba another avenue to exploit differences 
between our enemies. The fact that the 1998 US-British bombing campaign 
against Iraq was not undertaken with UN approval because of dissent 
within the Security Council notably France and that war against 
Yugoslavia was carried under the auspices of NATO, rather than the UN, 
indicates that even at the Security Council level, the US does not hold 
unbridled sway. The ability of Cuba to tactically influence decisions at 
that level can at least hamper imperialism's activities.




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