G'day Dave,
You write:
>What do you mean "hang around"? The terms of the UN resolution
>requires the disarming of Falintil!
Well, 'peacekeepers' refute their brief in practice all the time (often
with their political leaders' tacit approval). I'd have preferred a bit of
honest lying, meself (ie. 'diplomacy'): the peacekeepers go in under public
orders to disarm everybody (so Habibie can let 'em in and so they don't
have to do anything honest like openly pick sides), don't try too hard to
divest Falintilists before the November ratification (the Ghurkas allowed a
garrison to keep theirs the other day - pity it got out, really), and then
let 'em (as the new sovereign provisional government) have their shooters
back, and hang around until East Timor has had an election.
Call me a sentimental old fool (well, actually I s'pose you do), but I did
dare hope this was the idea, if not on Cosgrove's part, on that of the
non-coms on the ground that matters.
>I spoke to a territorial soldier
>here who was all keen to sign up to go. His perspective was that the
>UN troops would be their for "ten years" to protect the new
>Gusmao/Horta government - i.e. Aussie's client state.
Well, let's face it. They were always going to be a client state. The
only issue was how much so and in what ways. This is the bit where Oz is
yet again acting against their own interests - 'we're' going for too much
too obviously. I reckon Howard is taking bigger risk than you allow. But
then he's not the sort of bloke who might have seen options and constraints
in a complex political/cultural environment - just arrogant, anglo-saxon,
neo-liberal 'right' and 'wrong'.
>He thought that
>part of the UN's role would be to train the E Timorese army. I told
>him that he was 25 years too late. If you think that the UN are
>going to allow any real independence fighters to remained armed, and
>then get out, you have big illusions.
I share those illusions, Dave. Falintil won't hand over their best bits,
and no-one's about to make 'em. It'll be seen to be done, but it won't
actually be done. Same as with the KLA and for the same reasons. The UN
is not up to it. Sure, Falintil hasn't enough, but if they get the chance
to organise themselves in Dili, then I'm sure alternative sources can be
found to supplement the arsenal.
>Aussie workers sound just as chauvinist as kiwi workers.
The Australian workers' movement (such as it is) has been pretty consistent
in its indignation at the way East Timor was treated by our governments -
even at Labor conferences during Labor administrations. We're
chauvinistic, but we have some romantic ties to the East Timorese (going
back to WW2) and no small portion of guilt.
>The UN mission in E Timor is being painted up here as akin to the
>Rugby World Cup, America's Cup, and the Olympics, all wrapped
>into one, with massive hakas performed for the TV cameras etc.
>Defending democracy is so politically correct. Even the union support
>for E T is to get their governments to send peacekeeping troops
>to defend 'human rights', cutting across any Aussie or Kiwi class
>afilliation with the E Timorese freedom fighters and the Indonesian
>masses.
Well, there's still room for the Indonesian workers to play a decisive
hand, but I reckon things there are beginning to settle along theological
rather than class lines. Rais and Wahid are pushing that line (the former
got his promotion to house-chair), and Megawati's PDI liberals and the PRD
social democrats are left rather flapping in the wind.
>In reality these are imperialist troops (or in NZ's case of a
>bloated semi-colony) prepared to back up the Indonesian military if
>it can't keep the lid on the upsurge of mass struggles. The cross
>class backing they are generating at home now will serve the
>imperialists well if it comes to that.
I don't think for a minute we'll see Kiwi soldiers siding with Indonesian
troops against East Timorese (it'd be political suicide back home) - and I
don't reckon we'll see a Kiwi in Ambon or Aceh either. Perhaps, a while
hence, in West Irian, though - that one is very close to the public agenda,
in Australia, anyway.
>Who's the "we" that "went in"? This is the language of nationalism and
>not >class
Whatever ...
>This is the language of
>nationalism and not class. Another way of putting this is that
>upward of 300,000 people are dead because Aussie and Kiwi workers did
>not oppose the rotten jackal servility with which their successive
>bourgeois governments sucked up to the Yanks and Indonesian
>dictators. By going in, as you put it, the bourgeosie are
>trying to excuse their rotten role by claiming some redemption for
>"our" past by "our" present actions.
I agree absolutely. I'm just not as sure as you that dodgy motivations are
what's gonna be decisive here. The road to (an exceedingly modest) heaven
might well be paved by bad intentions ...
>Its high time that we chucked
>this whole history of bloody complicity and "our" western racist
>moral superiority which we now see paraded daily on the media, for
>workers class solidarity with the Timorese and Indonesian masses.
John Howard's paternalistic blurtings didn't go over all that well here.
Diplomatically disastrous to the north - but even an overall negative here,
I reckon.
>This means opposing the UN troops. I agree no hot pursuit. But the UN
>troops should get out not only of W Timor but of E Timor now.
Not yet. Falintil needs time more than it needs shooters right now. Get
what's left of the population back into its towns. Help 'em institute some
popularly legitimate institutions (an elected government, for a start).
And then get out. Let's face it, Falintil wants us there - there'll be
squabbles later, when mebbe Fretelin might want us out, and then we should
go. If we go now, there are more than enough 'integrationists' to repeat
the outrages of the last few weeks. If Falintil really thought it could
have beaten them, I think it would have done it a fortnight ago.
>Arm the Falintil.
They probably won't get any Ozzie guns, but an organised East Timorese
government would find the channels through which to get some Chinese
Kalashnikovs, if I'm any judge. That's the thing, I reckon, *keep 'our'
beaks in there long enough for them to organise themselves* - and then
point at the cost and point at the fact East Timnor is no longer a troubled
part of another state (both good arguments from mainstream points of view),
and pile the pressure on for withdrawal.
The main problem with all this is not western would-bes trying to get the
brownie points that go with shooting a few wogs (too risky a play, I
reckon), but the ascending self-consciously theocratic alternative to
secular militarism in Djakarta. There's a wild card!
Whatever happens, it'll all happen long before the western left attains any
immediate relevance in the mix. All we can do is time our demands
appropriately, I reckon - that and oppose rearming on our respective
polities' part.
Cheers,
Rob.
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