Recently I was at a conference on Women and Education in Melbourne, which
was addressed by a woman representative from Fretlin. The speaker told us
how grateful the East Timorese people were for the support of the
Australian public, that someone actually cared about what was happening
to them. She also acknowledged the that while Fretlin and Falintil were
aware of the imperialist nature of the UN, they had little choice but to
rely on them because they had little resources and their people were being
murdered.
It is fine to call for call for to disarm the militia's, for Indonesia
troops to withdraw etc, and for a workers revolution in East Timor.
However, in the current situtation the following has to be asked ... who
will disarm the militia's (certainly not the Indonesia forces), who will
get the Indonesian's to withdraw (certainly not the Indonesian regime) and
how can their be a worker's revolution in the current context when the
majority of workers have or are being murdered by the militia's and TNI.
As the Fretlin speaker pointed out, they had no choice but to call for the
UN to intervene. Their choice was either hold say no and watch the
slaughter continue or say yes and hope that it will stem the follow of the
genocide.
The UN will not bring independence for East Timor, but at the
moment it will stop the murder by the Militia and the TNI. What is the
point of left fighting for independence for East Timor, if in the end
there are no East Timorese people left because we sat by and said we can't
offer any immediate solutions to stop the genocide because the UN is an
imperialist organisation. Instead we can only offer you slogans and watch
you be murdered.
A pretty hollow victory for socialism, I would argue...
regards,
Kim B
PS - if anyone is interested in finding out the reason for why the DSP has
supported UN troops in, the last two-three editions of Green Left Weekly
has a number of indepth articles. They are available on the net.
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