At 20:14 28/09/99 +1000, you wrote:
>G'day all,
>
>I hear Ambon has been isolated by the Indonesian authorities. No transport
>or public communications in or out. Just a bunch of well-armed troops,
>some very poorly armed Christian seccessionists, and lots of people whose
>views on the matter just aren't going to matter. The drawn-out
>angst-ridden denouement of the great Indonesian saga is at hand, I reckon.
>And we're gonna hear very little about it while East Timor is kept bubbling
>along. Which takes but a couple of killings here, a bit of burning there
The western media has played down the extent to which to young nationalist
Indonesians of muslim culture, the independence of East Timor must look
like Christian communalism leading to the disintegration of Indonesian
national identity.
The more fully democratic answer is the recognition of the right of nations
and national minorities to self-determination with a large measure of
self-government. It is a good sign that the student movement in Jakarta has
outfaced the military.
There is a three corner battle going on here between imperialism with a
policy of neo-liberalism and bourgeois democratic rights, the military with
a policy of comprador subservience to imperialism or bourgeois nationalism
in alliance with peasantry, thirdly democratic forces opposed to internal
repression and corruption. These last see the western solution at the
moment as a lesser evil than a reimposition of a right wing military backed
dictatorship. But they need to make their democracy more truly radical by
embracing the right of nations to self-determination politically, and
opposition to neo-liberalism economically. They need a sort of New
Democratic programme. To judge whether a relatively stable coalition can be
built of this nature we need to consider in the light of evidence from
within Indonesia.
Chris Burford
London.
--- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
