G'day Thaxists,
My thoughtlets on this unbelievably sad business from a post I initially
sent elsewhere, in case we might wanna talk about it here:
G'day all,
>Can someone tell me why the Indonesians (with power) _want_ East Timor?
I think Jim formulates the above sentence very well. Not only because we
all know there's a danger here of demonising a couple of hundred million
people, but because Indonesia is coming apart at the seams. This latter is
as evident within the military as it is everywhere from Sumatra to West
Irian.
Some of the shooting in East Timor, for instance, is by Indonesian regulars
at other Indonesian regulars. Nobody knows which side Wiranto (the CinC)
is on, and nobody knows whether he's on General Tanjung's side (the other
ranking general staffer). Nobody knows if either is on Habibie's side.
And, whilst I'd be very surprised if Habibie hadn't hoped quietly to remove
East Timor from his long list of disasters-in-waiting, I'm not even sure if
he hasn't had to rethink this for party-political reasons (Habibie is close
to losing the presidential race in Djakarta, and now that his main, but not
only, rival, Megawati Sukarnoputri has come out for a quick
foreign-supervised withdrawal of Indonesian sovereignty, Habibie may be
tempted to seize the brand-differentiation offered him and go on a
'national unity' ticket (this would only be tempting if he felt the balance
of the military was with him - as many have established lucrative holdings
in East Timorese plantations and various rackets, this is possible).
'National Unity', implicit all through the long-standing official ideology
of *Panca Sila* (the five points of Indonesianness), is well internalised
throughout the political culture of much of the country (especially in Java
- the most decisive bit), and I've yet to meet an Indonesian (and I meet
many) who is not astonished by Chomskian rreadings of the '75/'76 invasion
(they'd always been convinced it was an act of 'integration' at East
Timorese request, opposed only by a few Communist Fretelin trouble-makers.
So Habibie has a significant part of the culture with which to resonate if
he chooses to go this route.
Me, I'd go a step further. I think the (inconclusive and drawn-out)
Indonesian election has convinced many big boys in the military that
liberal democracy ain't gonna cut it in Indonesia (only 'guided democracy'
can keep 17000 islands, many ethnic groups and so many significant minority
religions together). They're anticipating the possibility of, or the
'need' for, a military take-over (the military has ever been inculcated
with the an identity based on ideas
technocratic/warrior-class/noblesse-oblige etc), and are positioning
themselves, vis likely internal rivals, ahead of time. Much of this is
playing out in East Timor right now, I reckon.
If one bloke gets the credit for simply cleansing East Timor (and hence the
problem), he has a status which might resonate very nicely with a lot of
prevalent sentiment, anyway. So would a bloke who successfully foils his
plan, perhaps. My guess is that a throne in Djakarta is perceived as up
for grabs, and that this is what all the hellish carnage in East Timor's
basically about.
As for what we can do about it. Well, I'm not sure there's anything that
meets the basic requirement of doability. Oz and US have busily painted
themselves into a corner on this one for a quarter of a century - our
initial treachery killed 250000 of 'em, and a clumsy attempt to put our
consciousnesses right (hardly a noble motive anyway) could see the rest of
'em in the ground by November.
Japan has a point when it questions the efficacy of cutting off aid. The
millions who've been doing it so tough since the ravages of late '97, could
begin to starve. Indonesia's almost inevitable trajectory to the dustbin
of history would be hastened and its potential for desperate belligerence
multiplied. The whole region stands to pay a big price.
And if we don't threaten ostracisation, we leave ourselves with the idea of
going in mob-handed. Well, what happened in Kosovo when we did that? We
bloody recognised Indonesian sovereignty in 1976, and if we go in without
UN auspices, we invade a neighbour 200 million strong. Oz has two
battalions at the ready - good for bushfires and hurricanes - good for
peace-keeping - but absolutely no good against 30000 Indonesian regulars if
the latter are at all united and resolute. We'd be massacred unless we
used our airpower, and then we'd be on the way to total war. If we go in
under UN auspices (to take the 'invasion' curse off it), and with at least
ten thousand allies (to counter the militias alone - never mind those
regulars who are antagonistic), we'd get into the towns, but there are few
civilians left in the towns already. What would we do? Go into the jungle
after the enemy? We tried that in Vietnam, and we collected the silver
medal for our trouble. What's more, we had the US on-side that time (or
rather we were on Unca Sam's side). I'm not at all sure we have Unca Sam
on our side this time! Certainly, Indonesia looms big in Unca Sam's
regional policy strategy - perhaps bigger than poor li'l Oz. And history
shows that the Yank electorate will wear a million dead non-whites a little
more comfortably than 2500 dead whites. Anyway, Clinton told Howard to go
fuck himself when the latter rang up for a little material support on
Monday.
Nope, we effectively killed the East Timorese, if not in '75/'76, in August
of this year - when we decided to back the referendum without providing the
material conditions it was always gonna need (everyone in East Timor -
independent and integrationist alike - had been telling us this for
months). We paved the road to hell with bad intentions in 1975, and now
our good intentions have marched a whole population all the way up it.
It's all down to Habibie and the little question of what options/relevance
he really has, I'm afraid.
We've already done our bit ...
Cheers,
Rob.
--- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
