East Timor
As the massacres continue, it's "business as usual" with the butchers of the Indonesian regime.
Ever since the Indonesian military invaded East Timor in 1975, there has been a wall of silence around the horrific repression there. The major powers in the region- Australia for example, chose to ignore the plight of the East Timorese. With the exception of the libertarian socialist Noam Chomsky and rare journalists like John Pilger, the world press chose to ignore East Timor. A recent cartoon sums up the situation- a map of the world with only East Timor named, and 'Amnesia' placed on every other state.
At least 200,000 people have been butchered in East Timor in the last 25 years and the total is mounting. In the meantime Indonesia has been supplied with arms and other materials and no pressure has been put on them to leave East Timor. Even in the midst of the violence the Blair government defended the sale of Hawk jets to Indonesia, even when they were taking intimidating flights over East Timor and defending the invitation of the Indonesian regime to the arms fair in Britain.
The present Indonesian regime was founded on the military coup that overthrew Sukarno and the massacre of half a million people in 1965. This was connived at by America's Central Intelligence Agency and US administration.
But is it a good thing that The United Nations is now intervening in East Timor? No. The whole history of the UN exposes it as a tool of American interests. In East Timor it is a cover for the Australian armed forces to increase their influence in the region. The express aim of the UN forces is to disarm not just the murderous militias armed and paid for by Indonesia, but any militias set up to protect the local population. Already the idea of partition of East Timor has been raised by some of the pro-Indonesian militias. Indeed, the UN might connive at this, using its armed forces to help this come about. For their part, the French government has been the most gung-ho in calling for armed intervention in East Timor. This is done not out of humanitarianism but because France has interests in the region and wants to upstage Australia.
Intervene
Indeed, the "four year transition period" put forward by the United Nations will mean that the secession of East Timor from Indonesia will be supervised by Australian military might. Australia will be that closer to Indonesia's borders, useful if friction between the two regional superpowers spirals into hostilities. If the Indonesian masses succeed in overthrowing the regime, then Australia and its Western allies will find it that much easier to intervene to put down revolution.
It might be easy to call for UN intervention in East Timor in the face of the horrific slaughter there. But any UN involvement is only to ensure a swift transition to democracy. This is what the US, Australia and the other Western powers want. Democracy is in their eyes a much better system for increasing the influence of the market in the whole of the Pacific basin, sending out messages to China and Burma.
The only real solution lies in the hands of the working class on an international level. In Indonesia itself it means increasing mass mobilisations to overthrow the genocidal regime. In East Timor it means the development of workers armed groups independent of the local nationalist forces. The East Timorese masses cannot place their trust in the nationalist forces organised in Fretilin. Round the world it means the boycott by dockers and transport workers of arms and military materiel to Indonesia and the development of mass movements to stop arms sales and political support to Indonesia. In Australia this has already started with the occupation by workers of Garuda- the Indonesian national airline.
Indonesia
In Indonesia itself, many struggles continue to remain ignored by the world media. Whilst East Timor is now in the media spotlight- after 25 years- the situation in Aceh and West Papua go unnoticed. In Aceh, the local people have a long history of struggle against both the Dutch colonialists and the Jakarta regime. The dire poverty of the mass of the population is highlighted by the exploitation of the large gas and oil reserves by the regime which is making a handsome- shouldn't that read ugly- profit. Terrible massacres carried out by the military have taken place with the connivance of the big oil companies like Mobil. This has been underlined by the discovery of many mass graves just after Suharto was toppled. Since then, a new wave of massacres has taken place. At the end of July 70 villagers were slaughtered, unleashing a 2-day general strike right through Aceh. Other struggles are taking place against the regime in West Papua, Ambon and other parts of Indonesia despite brutal repression.
When Suharto was overthrown by mass action on the streets, the old dictator was dumped for his sidekick Habibie.Various cosmetic reforms were promised, but these were only to ride out the economic crisis that had helped trigger the movement. The International Monetary Fund came riding to the help of the regime, not wanting instability in the region. The leaders of the opposition did a deal with Habibie to defuse the movement. The students, who had been heavily involved in the move to overthrow Suharto, again mobilised in November last year. Again the opposition groups headed off this movement.
This opposition is made of ruling class forces who want a share of the action in the regime, some of the power and wealth. They are organised in Islamist and secular nationalist groupings, sometimes in alliance. They have no intention of making any real change and will continue to back the military.
The mobilisations in recent weeks have shown that opposition on the streets is stronger than the regime expected. They can still go for a complete military take-over, but would probably prefer that the party of Megawati Sukarnoputri, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle come to power, in alliance with elements of the old regime. This, it is hoped, will finally defuse the resistance of both students and workers of town and countryside. Megawati has no intention of making any radical changes and is already making soothing noises to the IMF, supporting its suggested restructuring package and the by now usual round of further privatisations that we have seen around the world.
Either the military will maintain power, keeping Habibie as a puppet, or Megawati will take over. Either way, the masses of the population may well come out on the streets in increasing numbers. The possibility of revolution hangs in the air. Equally so does the chance of a complete military clampdown and massacres to rival those in 1965.