[Marxism] Australia builds its empire

["James Daly" <james.irldaly@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Australia builds its empire

By John Pilger

06/23/06 "ICH" -- -- In my 1994 film Death of a Nation there is a
scene on board an aircraft flying between northern Australia and the
island of Timor. A party is in progress; two men in suits are toasting
each other in champagne. "This is an historically unique moment,"
effuses Gareth Evans, Australia's foreign affairs minister, "that is
truly uniquely historical." He and his Indonesian counterpart, Ali
Alatas, were celebrating the signing of the Timor Gap Treaty, which
would allow Australia to exploit the oil and gas reserves in the
seabed off East Timor. The ultimate prize, as Evans put it, was
"zillions" of dollars.

Australia's collusion, wrote Professor Roger Clark, a world authority
on the law of the sea, "is like acquiring stuff from a thief . . . the
fact is that they have neither historical, nor legal, nor moral claim
to East Timor and its resources". Beneath them lay a tiny nation then
suffering one of the most brutal occupations of the 20th century.
Enforced starvation and murder had extinguished a quarter of the
population: 180,000 people. Proportionally, this was a carnage greater
than that in Cambodia under Pol Pot. The United Nations Truth
Commission, which has examined more than 1,000 official documents,
reported in January that western governments shared responsibility for
the genocide; for its part, Australia trained Indonesia's Gestapo,
known as Kopassus, and its politicians and leading journalists
disported themselves before the dictator Su-harto, described by the
CIA as a mass murderer.

These days Australia likes to present itself as a helpful, generous
neighbour of East Timor, after public opinion forced the government of
John Howard to lead a UN peacekeeping force six years ago. East Timor
is now an independent state, thanks to the courage of its people and a
tenacious resistance led by the liberation movement Fretilin, which in
2001 swept to political power in the first democratic elections. In
regional elections last year, 80 per cent of votes went to Fretilin,
led by Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri, a convinced "economic
nationalist", who opposes privatisation and interference by the World
Bank. A secular Muslim in a largely Roman Catholic country, he is,
above all, an anti-imperialist who has stood up to the bullying
demands of the Howard government for an undue share of the oil and gas
spoils of the Timor Gap.

On 28 April last, a section of the East Timorese army mutinied,
ostensibly over pay. An eyewitness, Australian radio reporter Maryann
Keady, disclosed that American and Australian officials were involved.
On 7 May, Alkatiri described the riots as an attempted coup and said
that "foreigners and outsiders" were trying to divide the nation. A
leaked Australian Defence Force document has since revealed that
Australia's "first objective" in East Timor is to "seek access" for
the Australian military so that it can exercise "influence over East
Timor's decision-making". A Bushite "neo-con" could not have put it
better.

The opportunity for "influence" arose on 31 May, when the Howard
government accepted an "invitation" by the East Timorese president,
Xanana Gusmão, and foreign minister, José Ramos Horta - who oppose
Alkatiri's nationalism - to send troops to Dili, the capital. This was
accompanied by "our boys to the rescue" reporting in the Australian
press, together with a smear campaign against Alkatiri as a "corrupt
dictator". Paul Kelly, a former editor-in-chief of Rupert Murdoch's
Australian, wrote: "This is a highly political intervention . . .
Australia is operating as a regional power or a political hegemon that
shapes security and political outcomes." Translation: Australia, like
its mentor in Washington, has a divine right to change another
country's government. Don Watson, a speechwriter for the former prime
minister Paul Keating, the most notorious Suharto apologist, wrote,
incredibly: "Life under a murderous occupation might be better than
life in a failed state . . ."

Arriving with a force of 2,000, an Australian brigadier flew by
helicopter straight to the headquarters of the rebel leader, Major
Alfredo Reinado - not to arrest him for attempting to overthrow a
democratically elected prime minister but to greet him warmly. Like
other rebels, Reinado had been trained in Canberra.

John Howard is said to be pleased with his title of George W Bush's
"deputy sheriff" in the South Pacific. He recently sent troops to a
rebellion in the Solomon Islands, and imperial opportunities beckon in
Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and other small island nations. The sheriff
will approve.

http://www.johnpilger.com

This article first appeared in the New Statesman.

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