STRAIGHT FACTS STATEMENT
ON EAST TIMOR CRISIS
Straight Facts calls on working people, the
workingclass movement, and the class-struggle left to
oppose the occupation of the South Pacific region of
East Timor by a so-called "international peacekeeping
force", a move currently in process under the
sponsorship of the imperialist-dominated United
Nations.
This elementary opposition to imperialist intervention
stands in stark contrast to a chorus of overt and
outright calls for such intervention from the reformist
left. On Sunday, here in Austin, Texas, for example,
a group calling itself the "NOWAR Collective"
demonstrated in praise of the United Nations-
sponsored imperialist occupation, railing that (quote)
"international peacekeepers are urgently needed ...."
\ NOWAR PR - Sunday East Timor Action 99-09-11\
In effect, these "No War" pacifists are begging for the
application of deadly military force by some of the
most murderous imperialist powers on the planet,
whose hands already are awash in the fresh blood of
the people of Yugoslavia and Iraq. These savage
killers are expected to come to the "aid" of the East
Timorese population?
Another prime example is a statement issued by the
Socialist Party of Timor (or PST) dated 9 September
1999, and circulated also by the Democratic Socialist
Party of Australia. This statement, wagging a finger
of reprimand at the Indonesian National Army (or TNI)
and Police (or POLRI), includes "demands" for the
following:
>>
1. That the UN and international community take firm,
speedy and
effective measures to force Indonesia, the TNI and
POLRI to withdraw
from East Timor and disband the militias;
2. To carry out economic and diplomatic sanctions
against Indonesia if
the violence and massacres continue;
3. To carry out the UN ultimatum to send an
International Peacekeeping
Force because the 48 hours have passed without any
improvement in the
situation, instead the killings are more rampant and
there are more
refugees flooding across the border and the
infrastructure of East Timor
is being subjected to total paralysis;
<<
This call for military action and possibly "economic
and diplomatic sanctions" by the "UN and
international community" – and similar "pleas" for UN
action by liberal, social-democratic, and pacifist
groups – are open calls for imperialist intervention –
with its accompanying repression – against the
semicolonial nations of Indonesia and Indonesian-
occupied East Timor. Such calls – giving a "left"
cover to imperialist repression – must be repudiated
and condemned by working people, the workingclass
movement, and the class-struggle left.
It is not inconceivable that, in some cases, the source
of such craven "demands" is the US Central
Intelligence Agency itself.
Imperialist intrigues and manipulations – first and
foremost, by United States imperialism, the most
dangerous terrorist force on earth – have set up the
current situation, including providing cover for the
initial Indonesian seizure of East Timor nearly a
quarter of a century ago, as well as bestowing
ongoing aid for Indonesia's military and forces of
policestate repression. Over a longer term, economic
exploitation and manipulation – carried out both
strategically, through the dominance of American and
other big imperialist powers in world markets, as well
as more directly, through the behests of the
imperialist-controlled International Monetary Fund, or
IMF – have maintained the savage misery which
engulfs the working people and oppressed masses of
these countries.
For Washington, Indonesia's takeover of East Timor
in 1975 represented a convenient consolidation of
neocolonial administration under a subservient Pacific
Rim regime nicely compliant with the interests of
American imperialism and the profitability needs of
US corporations. Now, with economic distress
fanning the self-determination desires of the East
Timorese population into an uproar of social unrest,
Washington is jockeying for an outcome to its best
advantage – such as some kind of carefully
controlled, nominal "independence" – and portraying
itself as a righteous "defender" of the East Timorese
people. It's this desire to control the dynamics of
"independence" that underlies the recent UN-
supervised "independence" referendum, and now the
move to occupy East Timor by an imperialist force of
self-styled "peacekeepers".
The real solution for the people and East Timor, as
well as for the working people and masses of
Indonesia, lies with a social revolution led by the
working class. It's in the context of such a social
revolution that the self-determination of the East
Timorese people, and their liberation, can be truly
achieved. Imperialist intervention undoubtedly is also
being undertaken with an eye to forestalling any
development of class struggle in such a direction.
As capitalist economic, social, and political crisis
continues to develop in this region, what is
desperately needed is the forging of revolutionary
vanguard combat parties, carrying forward the
Bolshevist program for workingclass state power and
socialist revolution, to provide guidance and
leadership for raising the consciousness of the
working class, to pursue revolutionary class struggle,
and to provide a leadership with the resolve to carry
through the conquest of state power by the working
class. Straight Facts continues to recognize the
program of the International Communist League, or
Spartacists, as the authentic continuation of such a
Bolshevist program.
This is the alternative which deserves support of the
working class and of the class-struggle left.
Imperialist occupation – for which liberals, pacifists,
and some self-styled "socialists" have been clamoring
– means a continuation of the exploitation and overall
misery inflicted on the people of East Timor.
Instead, Straight Facts says:
Imperialist/UN hands off East Timor and Indonesia!
Liberate East Timor, and Indonesia, through
workingclass revolution!
Straight Facts 99/09/12
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