[Marxism] Re: Australian and NZ intervention in East Timor

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Ruff 'n' tuff Clinton F. quotes me as saying:
FF: "Sometimes you do not have the power to do the right thing, you have
to
make a fundamental concession..."

CF: In fact it was the Australian government that was forced to make
this
concession, not the solidarity movement.

First of all it was not the solidarity movement that made the concession
but the government and a majority at least of East Timorese.  If in fact
the solidarity movement was setting policy for the Freitilin and the
people of East Timor, the struggle for independence there has run into
even heavier sledding than I thought.

But he also insist that the Australian government was "forced" to send
the troops.  Apparently their own imperialist interests only entered the
question insofar as they felt they had absolutely no choice but to take
the side of the liberation struggle.a

And now the people of East Timor have succeeded AGAIN in FORCING the
foreign troops to come to the country, this time to handle what appear
to be internal disputes no doubt manipulated by Australia and Indonesia.


With this much success in FORCING Australian troops to  "stabilize" the
independent nation -- FORCING them to play the role unwillingly that
Cuban troops played so enthusiastically in Angola -- perhaps the next
step should be to demand that Australia be FORCED to establish an air or
naval base.  Shouldn't we demand a long-term commitment to defending the
independence of East Timor against its enemies (and are they really ONLY
Indonesia?).

The whole course in East Timor highlights the way Indonesia's
irredentist posture has helped Australian imperialism strengthen its
regional position, thus weakening the Indonesian peoples' position as
well as that of East Timor.  The task is not to hail the repeated
occupations by the regional imperialist power which is being sponsored
by Washington as a junior partner with special rights in the South
Pacific/Asian region, but to help forge the situation in which the
people of East Timor and Indonesia, too, can escape from this trap.

The biggest contributions we can make today are our demand for all
occupation forces -- US first of all -- to leave Iraq --and solidarity
with the liberation struggles in Latin America.  We should certainly not
criticize the Freitilin leaders, some of whom are now being purged for
their independence of Australia/NZ, but we should certainly not do our
bit to drive them deeper into the trap they were forced into and, in the
present world lineup, will find it very difficult to get out of --
including because of the social conflicts this dependency feeds and
deepens -- even without our encouraging them to stick with dependency.

Your Jim Craven quote seems irrelevant in this case.  I am trying to
discuss like a cofighter.  If you need to answer like a bully that is
your problem, not Craven's.
Fred Feldman


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