November-December 1999

Digging Through the Imperialist Connection In East Timor

East Timor is on fire. It is burning like a hell-hole. Indonesian-abetted militias are rampaging the cities and towns burning, looting and killing with impunity. Imperialist masters of the world are deep in thought about how to protect their economic, political, geo-political and mercantile interests in the continuing imbroglio, how to defend and continue their exploitation of South-East Asia, how to contain and channelise the emerging anarchic and dangerous situation in East Timor which is likely to engulf the whole of Indonesia and may start a chain of events, even rebellions, in the lucrative market and natural resource-rich land of tens of millions of the poor and the wretched who inhabit the 3,000-island archipelago. Rebellions and revolutions are the most fearful things the reactionaries despise and East Timor is another vivid example where the imperialists and local reactionaries have conspired and collaborated to extinguish the flame of revolt ever since the East Timorese started their struggle for liberation from centuries-old-rule of colonialism.

East Timor is a part of an island situated on the South-Eastern fringe of the Indonesian archipelago, about two hundred miles off Australia. Before the Portuguese came here, in 1511, its inhabitants were a peace-loving mixture of races of Indian, African, Chinese, Malay, Arab and, of course, of the local Atoni people, perhaps the descendants of the 5,00,000-year old Java man. Almost every family you come across, you will find Indian features in one of the members, African in another, and of a local in the third one, depicting centuries of intermixing of various races. Right upto the Indonesian annexation in 1976, 70% of the people believed in animism and the rest were Catholic Christians without any prejudices against each other. A mix of races and religions, ancient and modern. Portuguese colonialists only behaved as traders and merchants, shipping out sandalwood and other natural resources from East Timor. They least tried to disrupt the East Timorese civilisation and unlike their British counterparts in Australia and New Zealand never thought of permanently settling there. The little land of East Timor was divided into a number of kingdoms comprising a certain number of tribal groups which were divided into clans or village level units which bound them in a thread of kinship. The Portuguese maintained a small army there. When World War II broke out Portugal did not join any of the two warring blocks. Japan invaded the whole of Indonesia in 1942 and occupied it, including East Timor where Portuguese units did not resist the invaders nor were they forced to leave by the Japanese. The Japanese forces started building air fields there as a part of their preparations for further thrusts into neighbouring lands and especially Australia which had been settled by the British imperialists. Australia too landed its paratroops to thwart the Japanese attempts and started a guerrilla warfare against Japanese armies. In this way East Timor was dragged into the World War inspite of Portugal’s neutrality and became a battlefield for the warring imperialist armies. East Timorese, on their part, also fought against the Japanese invaders in order to resist mass scale evacuations forced by Japanese forces and pillaging of their land. Australian guerrilla forces and East Timorese fighters in this way fought a common enemy. Timorese fighters proved fiercer and more daring than the Australians and fought almost with their bare hands against the enemy. At the end of the war it was estimated that the East Timorese had lost about 60,000 of their men, thousands in massacres, while the Australian loss was not more than about a hundred men. At that time the population of East Timor was just about 6 lakh, i.e. about 10% lost their life in the war. Though the ending of war brought "independence" to Indonesia, the East Timorese did not opt for it and remained under the Portuguese when the Japanese and Australians left. Had they been conscious of it, they could have easily won it from the Portuguese as Portugal was a weak and backward colonial empire unable even to maintain itself, let alone maintain a colonial empire.

Most of the African colonies of Portugal were up in arms and were fighting for political independence in their own way. Armed struggles were going on in Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bisseau. A number of political organisations in Sao-Tome, Principe and Cape Verde Islands had been struggling against the Portuguese since the late fifties. Left far behind by its European counterparts and ex-competitors, Portugal was not in a position to defend its empire in the face of surging people’s movements and armed struggles in Africa, nor was it economically as advanced as the other imperialist powers. As a result of the battering it was receiving in Africa a crisis started developing in its society and especially, its armed forces. A wave of radicalism started sweeping through its armed forces and young and lower rank army officers revolted against the government in Lisbon, dethroned the military rulers bringing an end to the regime Salazar had established. The left-oriented Armed Forces Movement then declared that it will no longer maintain its colonies and will impart independence to them. All this happened in swift succession in April 1974. It was then that the idea of independence got its way into East Timor. And East Timor got awakened to it.

As in every society different classes express their different interests through their political behaviour and political formations, in East Timor too, different classes formed their own political organisations to assert themselves. Independence from Portugal would lead to a situation where a new found power will open more avenues for certain classes and restrictions for others. This being the case, different class forces started putting their own agenda and manifestoes before the people. It may look strange that the East Timorese society did not have any political party before April 1974 while the whole world was seething with political activism right from the beginning of this century and, especially, after the second world war. Given the history of its people and the way Portuguese treated it one can understand the simplicity and peace loving character of its people, yet it will also explain the perserverence and the stamina such a people exhibit when put to extremes. Portugal, as well as many others, thought that East Timorese do not need any independence and/or it cannot become a viable state of its own. But the people of East Timor once rocked the world in 1976 and now again in 1999, attracting even a commoner's interest, and have forced all the major powers of the world to take not a casual notice of the situation there. The world and the major powers of the world have their own way of seeing things and pursue policies according to their own interests. Before we come to this point let us relieve the events as they unfolded right from the time of the formation of the first political groupings in 1974.

Formation of Political Parties and Conflicts

After the turmoil in Lisbon in April 1974 three political formations emerged in East Timor within a span of one month. The first party formed was called the Timorese Democratic Union (UDT). The UDT comprised of the elite class of colonial administrative officials and owners of coffee plantations. This political formation, true to its social base, did not stand for creating an independent country. As it was not evident that Portuguese will not be interested in maintaining any presence in East Timor, the UDT first called for a federation with Portugal. But later on it switched to independence. The second formation was launched by young petty-bourgeois nationalists who wanted some genuine economic reforms for the betterment of the East Timorese people. It was called the Timorese Social Democratic Association (ASDT). This was later converted into the Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor (FRETILIN). The third was, the Timorese Popular Democratic Association (Apodeti). The people who launched this formation had close ties with the people in West Timor. Its political slogan was for the integration with Indonesia.

As is clear from the name, FRETILIN itself did not have even the word liberation in it, as was the case in most of the liberation struggles raging in Africa in those days, and it became a popular catchword of all types of anti-imperialists and pseudo anti-imperialists. Yet FRETILIN was "accused" by the world bourgeois press and the imperialist government leaders as being communists. They were not. They were just genuine nationalists and genuine nationalism was what the imperialists had come to despise throughout their struggle against and in the tackling of the working class and people's movements in the colonies. The nationalism of the FRETILIN was bound to play a decisive role, as we shall see later, in determining the attitude of various imperialist and comprador governments of the world towards the problem of East Timor. However, Fretilin forces started organising the Timorese people at the grass root level awakening them to the idea of independence telling them, in opposition to the other two pro-Indonesisa and pro-Portugal political groupings, that "we are not potatoes to be sold to another country." The activists of Fretilin also launched literacy campaigns, built schools and hospitals and initiated different co-operative schemes. In this way it became a powerful mass movement which engulfed the whole of the countryside. In fact,the surging consciousness and the political awareness which had gripped the masses and the thousands of enthusiastic activists of Fretilin had very much to do with the upheavals in Portugal itself. The young officers of the Armed Forces Movement of Portugal were very vocal and unambiguous in condemning colonialism. Many had openly expressed themselves to be Communists and Socialists and wanted the Portuguese regime to change its ways. Portuguese society openly discussed the merits and demerits of their past fascist rulers and passed judgments. The students from East Timor who had come back after visiting the upheaval and turmoil in Portugal were very much influenced by all sorts of radical ideologies, joined the Fretilin infusing into it a revolutionary fervour and vigor. This was bound to raise eyebrows in the imperialist capitals and the reactionary governments of South-East Asia.

Obviously, as it was a national struggle and the men leading the Fretilin were of petty bourgeoise origin, and were influenced by all sorts of progressive ideologies from nationalism, revolutionary nationalism, bourgeois democracy, social democracy and of course, "socialism" of the Portugal Socialist Party and a vague brand of "Marxism", they, like many African Movements of the day,went through all kinds of experiments and practices.

America, and especially Indonesia and Australia got alarmed. They were fearful that Fretilin will convert East Timor into another base of communist insurgency. America was already facing the prospects of defeat in Indo-China. The impending victory of powerful revolutionary struggles in Vietnam and Cambodia was already being talked about and these struggles were exerting a ‘contagious’ influence world wide. At that time the Far-East and South-East Asia seemed to "finally" determine the fate of imperialism in Asia. For the imperialists and the reactionaries of the region a heavy hand was the need of the day to control the rising tide of upsurge in East Timor and drench it in blood,if need be. And here was a tested running dog at hand who could do it, the butcher regime of Suharto.

U.S. Running Dog Suharto Repeats 1965

As everybody is well aware, Suharto earned notoriety as a ruthless butcher when he arrived on the Indonesian scene in 1966 and an extremely corrupt and despotic ruler when he was forced to abdicate in early 1998. His thirty-two year-long rule was one of the most inglorious periods in the history of the Indonesian people. It was a vivid example of a phenomenon of "newly independent countries" going into the clutches of neo-colonialism and compradorism when these countries are run by a combine of feudalist and bureaucrat-capitalist classes (as in Asia), or by petty-bourgeois nationalist and tribal chieftains who stop halfway after getting power and don’t go for dismantling the colonial administrative, military and economic structures, thus turning independence into a sham and end up as tyrants for their own people and as servitors of imperialism. Suharto was an inevitable sequel to the "half-hearted nationalist" Sukarno who tried to get on to two boats at a time and paid with his life. When Suharto captured power in a CIA-engineered military coup d’etat in 1965 he ordered the killing of thousands of communist party rank and file, trade unionists, student and youth leaders, women activists and above all lakhs of peasants and agricultural labourers. John Pilger has written in his book "Distant Voices" that the US embassy in Jakarta had spent two years in preparing a hit list of about 5,000 people and it was given to the Indonesian army to execute [p.246]. And this was well before Suharto came on the scene. That was in Sukarno’s time. Suharto came to power when President Lynden B. Johnson had already ordered the strafing of North Vietnam with continuous bombing, in a bid to contain the communist guerrillas’ thrust into the South and the coup in Indonesia was a part of an over all strategy to contain communism in Asia and for the encirclement of Maoist China. Suharto acted at the behest of his imperialist masters by killing about a million people within months and got a pat on his back, a certificate from the Australians and Britishers as an "able" statesman, billions of dollars for himself and his cronies from the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and various imperialist governments, and armaments from America, Britain, France and Germany. He also opened up Indonesia’s rich natural resources for unbridled exploitation by western imperialists and Japan. Richard Nixon, while shamelessly showing his elation over the role Suharto had assumed for America, declared that "Indonesia with its rich and abundant natural resources was the biggest prize in South-East Asia." Of course, it was, and still is. They had found a ruthless running dog in South-East Asia and a great treasure of natural riches. A few billions of dollars of bribe (Suharto and his cronies pocketed more than 40 billion US dollars) was nothing as compared to the "biggest prize". And he was picked up again, this time for East Timor, to stop the "spread of communism" to secure the sea lanes in the Timor Gap, and to control one of the biggest oil reserves of the globe lying underneath the land and in the sea around East Timor. Perhaps not lesser a "prize" than Indonesia itself!

Let us get back to 1974. When Fretilin was formed in May 1974, one of the first tasks it took up was to feel the pulse of Indonesian rulers. Jose Ramos Horta, one of the founder members of Fretilin, called on the Indonesian foreign minister in Jakarta in June 1974. Ramos Horta later wrote in his book The Unfinished Saga of East Timor that Adam Malik had "whole-heartedly" assured him of his support for the right to self determination of East Timor. On the other hand the Indonesian regime convinced the ‘radical’ regime in Lisbon not to raise a cry when Indonesia annexes East Timor.

In September 1974, Adam Malik met Portugal’s foreign minister Maria Soares (later the ‘Socialist’ President of Portugal) and the latter gave his consent on behalf of his regime for the annexation of East Timor. For Indonesia the problem was clear now. Australia had already agreed to this when Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, considering an independent East Timor as a non-viable state, had given a clear signal to Indonesia to go for East Timor. The Melbourne Age wrote in its September 13,1974 issue that "Australia is expected to take a significant step in the next few weeks towards ensuring that the tiny enclave of East Timor becomes part of Indonesia. Australia and Indonesia are likely to make a joint approach to Portugal, urging that this is the only practical solution for its 450-year-old colony . . . Mr. Whitlam and President Suharto agreed last weekend that the best and most realistic future for East Timor was association with Indonesia." Thus the stage was set to invade and take over East Timor so that a "nonviable" country is integrated into a "viable" neighbour.

The imperialist logic of "nonviability" has helped it from the very beginning of colonialism. The ‘civilized’ societies of Europe ‘had to colonize’ America, Australia, Africa and Asia because the people there were lesser humans and thus not fit for living the way they lived. That is why the Europeans "had to" exterminate them en-mass, raise settlements, trade them off as slaves, plunder their lands for the "progress" of the ‘civilized world’ and after centuries of domination and oppression if they were to rise up to take the destiny in their own hands they were to be told that "you are not fit to rule yourself, it is unviable", "your countries are unviable, accept the means we devise for you, or here is hell for you."

Sukarno was not viable because he did not "fully" abide by their dictates. Viable Suharto was brought in a "putsch" to secure the "biggest prize" of thousands of billions of dollars, for an insignificant amount of bribe. This security of economic interests would not have come without the instrument of political domination, hence the coup d’etat of 1965 was carried to establish this domination. The same imperialist threat of non-viability was looming large now over the East Timorese because there was a danger of East Timor going the ‘communist way’. And "communism" meant a threat to the very existence of imperialism. Fretilin was accused of being communist throughout the world bourgeois press. Imperialist capitals were waiting for the moment when the ultimate will happen. One of Suharto’s cronies General Benny Murdani assured the Australian Ambassador Richard Woolcot that when Indonesia decides to launch the full-scale invasion of East Timor, Australia would get "not less than two hour’s notice". This was later disclosed by the National Times, Sydney, in May 30 and June 6, 1982 in The Timor Papers which were monitoring reports of the Central Intelligence Agency of the USA that had been leaked. Woolcot sent a cable to his government in Canberra, that when the invasion happens the Australian Government should take an ambiguous stand. He suggested clearly what to say in that situation. "Australia cannot condone the use of force in Timor, nor could we accept the principle that a country can intervene in a neighbouring territory of concern, however, .... at the same time we concede that Indonesia .... could not be expected to take lightly a breakdown in law and order in Portuguese Timor." This recommendation of the Australian Ambassador to his government was one of the classical examples of Imperialist diplomacy, of deception and complicity in the crime which was going to be committed in East Timor. This farce of the Australian Government was also exposed in "The Timor Papers".

Indonesia was waiting for an appropriate opportunity to give the word ‘Go’ to its armed marauders. I quote Pilger, who had quoted The Timor Paper in the same book: "On September 17, 1975 the CIA reported, ‘Jakarta is now sending guerrilla units into the Portuguese half of the island in order to engage Fretilin forces, encourage pro-Indonesian elements, and provoke incidents that would provide the Indonesians with an excuse to invade..." The forces of darkness were working hand in glove with the forces that run the affairs of the world today. These things have been repeated time and again on the world scene by the very same powers. For imperialism there is no dearth of such bullying dogs who are always ready to leap upon the victims their masters point to. These Masters sometimes point out from behind the scenes, and sometime themselves come to the forefront to lead the operation as was witnessed in the gulf in 1991, in Grenada, in Panama, in.... the list is very long.

In the meantime, November comes. The Portuguese have almost deserted the land. They are busy back home tackling their own problems. The administration is virtually in the hands of Fretilin. Only, there is no formal announcement. Here, in these circumstances, Fretilin opts for the unilateral declaration of independence. It is done on November 28, 1975. People rejoice and celebrate. Across the border, the Indonesian authorities decide that the time for diplomacy is over. It is time to give the word ‘GO’. Indonesian troops start pouring into East Timor. Tension grips the whole country. The newly established East Timorese government organises some evacuations in the capital city Dili. Indonesian authorities decide to launch the full scale invasion on December 5.

But wait! The imperialist chieftain from America, President Gerald Ford is to arrive on the same day for the final inspection of the whole operation. Invasion is postponed. Ford lands in Jakarta along with his notorious aide Henry Kissinger, who has on his hands the blood of the Vietnamese people. Preparations are okayed. And as his aircraft takes off on December 7, the inevitable happens. Killing, shooting, burning starts.

Till February 1976, 60,000 are killed. Suharto repeats 1966. The land of a peace loving people is drenched in blood. And, this is just the beginning. Many a mini bloodbath are yet to happen before the Major Bloodbath of 1999.

The death toll by 1999 surpassed 2,00,000. In East Timor, Indonesian forces created a chain of Mai Lais as the American mercernaries did in Vietnam. Whole villages were destroyed and their populations exterminated. After the 1975 invasion, an Indonesian military officer said of the killings, "when you cleanse a field you kill all the snakes within it, young and old, big and small." That was as clear an acceptance of the massacres committed. And, as clear an indictment of the Indonesian forces.

The continuing gory of carnage in and around Dili forced UNAMET staff and the Nobel Prize Laureate Bishop Carlos Belo to leave their places, escorted and surrounded by Indonesian Security forces. They left behind thousands of terrified protection seekers in the compounds of both the buildings surrounded by pro-Indonesian militias and the Indonesian Military. The evacuated staff and the Bishop were unable to tell what would become of those whom they left behind. There is a silence on the face of the evacuated. Neither God nor the United Nations have an answer. Neither are they of any help here. You don’t have to see to believe. It is quite understandable. East Timor is in flames everywhere. Cities, towns and villages alike. Tens of thousands who have crossed into West Timor are witness to the atrocities and their magnitude. From 1976 to 1999 there was no U.N. or the Bishop in East Timor. Both walked in only a few weeks before for the ‘peaceful transition’, which infact, is never that peaceful.

One continues to pay the price, when it comes ‘peacefully’. The UN knows it and the Vatican knows it, yet when they want red to be known as green, they manage it. After a few months no statesman of the civilized world, or the media, or the UN, or the Vatican will ever talk about Dili as a ‘Ghost City’. Nor will anybody from the World Community talk or try to unearth the "mass graves" of Suharto’s slaughters. The world will only be reminded of the Gulag or Cambodia of Pol Pot’s times, time and again. Ideological preferences forbid them to talk about Lon Nol, Samoza, Pinochet, Marcos, Suhato, Mobutu and above all, about some Trueman, or Bush, or Clinton. . . . . the list will never end. All these "honourable and revered" men belong to a specific genre and realpolitic protects them, and the Pope proffesses Baptisma. However, we have to know what these revered men do when they play their part of the game in a context like East Timor.

“The International Community’s” Role

After the end of the ‘cold war’, and in this new "era of hot wars against the world people" a new catch-word has entered into the consciousness of the people : "The International Community", pushed down by the Murdochs of the media. But what does this mean ? When you go through the press releases of different organisations, the governments of the world and UN beriefings, you come to know that the "International Community" is nothing but the United States of America and the horde of imperialist powers it leads. First, we heard it during the Gulf War, then during the Kosovo-Serbian crisis and a little bit during the Kargil conflict back home. Now East Timor has again brought it on the agenda.

Before coming to the present phase of the conflict we will first go back a little and try to know what this "International Community" did when President Suharto repeated 1965 in East Timor in 1975 after being given the signal to ‘Go Ahead’.

When President Ford was asked to comment on the Indonesian invasion and the consequent bloodbath, he evaded an answer. His press secretary’s single sentence, "the President always deplores violence, wherever it occurs," speaks volumes about the hypocrisy of an imperialist. Imperialist brigands were all support for Suharto. Now, after destroying the ‘communist menace’ in East Timor, American armaments started directly reaching East Timor instead of through Java. This was disclosed by CIA operation officer, C. Philip Lichty, who also disclosed that President Ford was very much aware of everything as reports were regularly sent to him. For Japan now, the oil route from the Mid-East would be free from any headache. The Australian government was the first to hail this annexation. Australian Prime Minister, Malcom Fraser, after addressing the Indonesian Parliament in October 1976 told reporters that the "Austrlian Government acknowledges the merger of East Timor into Indonesia." He considered that it would be better to strike a deal with Indonesia rather than with Portugal or an independent East Timor to exploit oil on and around East Timor. And at last they struck a treaty with Indonesia in 1988. This treaty, The Timor Gap Treaty, gave an Australian company right to explore and exploit land and off-shore oil which would ensure Australia about seven billion barrels of oil or billions of dollars. And the Australians once again praised Suharto as an "able Statesman" and a "moderate" politician.

The French Paper Le Monde reported in 1978 that France had struck a big deal with Indonesia concerning arms, armoured cars, tanks and counter-insurgency helicopters which would help Indonesia deal with the guerrilla forces in the mountainous interior of East Timor. At the time the deal was struck France also decided not to take any part in discussions about East Timor in the United Nations so as to avoid placing "Indonesia in an embarrassing position."

Similarly, when Britain's Labour government sold Hawker fighter aircraft and rapid-firing guns to Indonesia in the late seventies, it declared that there had not been many deaths in East Timor. One may call it a strange logic, but, it is the usual logic of a very seasoned merchant who trades in death. In fact Britain never thought that East Timor should be an independent entity. In July 1975 its ambassador in Jakarta, Sir John Archibald Ford had reported back to his government about the situation in East Timor expressing the opinion that, "The people of East Timor are in no condition to exercise the right to self-determination," and recommended to his foreign office in London that it was in Britain’s interest that Indonesia should "absorb the territory as soon as and as obtrusively as possible."

Another imperialist member of the ‘International Community’, Canada, in its bid to justify trading with Indonesia absolutely condoned it by declaring that, "groups opposed to Fretilin had asked Indonesia for the integration of East Timor and Timor is now an integral part of Indonesia."

Other sections of the "International Community" seldom speak, they just tow the line or remain aloof when not directly concerned. Third world governments, whenever in trouble, themselves appeal to the ‘International Community’ and seek their blessings or bribes through the World Bank or the IMF. Yes, immediate neighbours of Indonesia, comprising the ASEAN, supported Indonesian intervention and occupation of East Timor and never uttered a word about the slaughter. One could not, of course, have expected Pinochet or Indira Gandhi or Tito to speak against the annexation.

While talking about world reaction to Indonesia's expansionist behaviour we should remember here that India too had snatched Goa from the Portuguese, and then dismembered Pakistan (to control its market but the exercise did not achieve the desired results), and again, annexed Sikkim. Bhutan and Nepal always feel threatened, while the people of Kashmir and the North Eastern states have never considered themselves as Indians. We should also remember that infamous statement of Morarji Desai, when he was the Prime Minister of India, concerning the Naga and Mizo insurgency in the North-East, in which he had threatened to wipe out the whole ethnic populations if they continued to challenge India. So, on the whole the '‘International Community’ including India, supported Suharto’s invasion. When five days after the invasion, the Security Council of the UN met to discuss East Timor, another exercise in futility was witnessed. It reflected the working of the world body as an ineffective instrument when it takes up the cause of a victim who does not have the backing of the powerful, or you may say, the 'International Community.’

UN and East Timor

In the case of East Timor, and many many more, the UN behaved in tandem with the powers - that - be, in the overall context of an unjust social system, where powerful men set the tone, direct the proceedings, dictate the terms, influence the decisions and let the culprit go scot-free. A place where nobody understands the depth of the trauma of the victim and where his wails and appeals fall on deaf ears. East Timor was passing through a trauma, a victim of carnage, death and destruction. And the judges were stone-faced, however, clever and calculative. Participants of the UN Security Council’s meeting spoke according to their class character and voted according to their class interests. A resolution was passed in the Security Council which "deplored" the invasion and the bloodshed and "asked" Indonesia to withdraw its troops "without delay". The resolution was not unanimous. Japan, the biggest investor in Indonesia opposed the resolution. The US, Britain, Australia, Germany and France abstained. The ‘International Community’ knew before hand what was to happen and set the tone of the resolution. We have already dwelt on the post invasion deals of the ‘International Community’ with the Suharto regime. Fifteen days after the bloodbath had started and Indonesia was well entrenched and in complete control of East Timor, (and ten days after the first resolution) the Security Council met again and passed another resolution. This time it was unanimous, because the desired goal had been achieved and the regional interests of the ‘International Community’ had been safeguarded by Indonesian aggression. Hence there was now no hurdle in achieving unanimity, calling on "all states to respect the territorial integrity of East Timor" and ordering Indonesia to withdraw its troops "without delay." This "without delay" was to be delayed indefinitely and ended recently after twenty-three years. During these long years the Indonesian army has nearly decimated the Fretilin guerrillas, the cold war has come to an end, the New World Order has become the order of the day and, above all, Fretilin, is no longer considered as communist. The Security Council sat down last year to sort it out, thought a way out, and set in motion a process of "peaceful transition" to disentangle the Indonesian knot of autonomy for East Timor within Indonesia. The Security Council never mentioned the words "independence for East Timor." The August 30 ballot was, not to decide about the independence of East Timor. The appeasement towards Indonesia was explicit and un-officially talked about in the diplomatic corridors, that was echoed in the bourgeois press everywhere. From the way the post-August 30 scenario is developing, one is forced to admit that transition was not towards an independence in the real sense of the word. If it was really for independence, it could not have been peaceful. We don’t yet know what transpired and is still transpiring, behind the curtains in the "International Community’s" capitals and in Jakarta. What all we can do is attempt to understand the currently unfolding public behaviour of this Community of International brigands, while taking into account their past practices vis-a-vis East Timor and other areas of conflict. As far as the UN is concerned it cannot cross the limits set by this Community and has no locus standi of its own. It will just follow the course taken by the powerful as a willing instrument, as it has behaved during the Gulf invasion by American-led forces and in the Kosovo crisis as dictated by America and its allies.

Current Phase

After the August '30 polling passed off peacefully UN officials and Clinton were all praise for the civil and military authorities in Jakarta. It was even a condonation of the dirty record of crimes committed by these very butchers and gross insult to the victims. The very next day pro-Indonesian militias, most of whom are actually members of the Indonesian armed forces, began their killing spree. The move was well planned and the day the election results were declared large scale killings and suppression was let loose. Why did Fretilin, which had won a massive majority vote, not anticipate the massacre and not make any preparations to face such an eventuality? The question is not out of context and we will return to it soon. However, the UN officials went into hiding in secure places and ultimately left the Timorese helpless and bewildered to face the new onslaught of those who had been praised by the UN for providing a "commendable security environment" a week ago.

As usually happens, after an orgy of death and destruction, an attempt is made to create public opinion before the Big Guns decide to intervene. Or else, everything is played down by the media, accompanied by a hushed silence on the part of the world masters, in a manner that allows the perpetrators to continue the way they like. Only, the overstepping of the boundaries of the political, economic and strategic interests of the masters is not allowed. When these boundaries are over-stepped then the Empire decides to strike, sometimes in the name of fighting the communist menace, at others, for "defending" democracy or human rights.

In East Timor's case America restrained itself and hinted-to Australia to take the initiative, as the latter has more strategic stakes in the region. Australia was ready to intervene with its "Alliance of the willing". The only hitch was that the world powers don’t want to antagonise Indonesia and are trying to bring her around in a peaceful manner. Moreover, if Yugoslavia or the Gulf is repeated in Indonesia there is a possibility that the whole of Indonesia may fall apart because there are many national groups which are fighting to establish their own independent states so as not to allow their national wealths to be squandered off by the Javanese whose leaders sell them cheap to the imperialists and, in the process, fill their own pockets with huge commissions. This would be a great loss for the West because of the high economic and strategic stakes. Also, it would throw up a new problem for the West to deal with, that of the emerging nationality problem within almost all the countries of Asia and Africa. Kosovo is already proving a thorny tangle to be resolved. Imperialism won’t like to trigger such a chain reaction throughout these countries. The governments of these countries are doing well to suppress the nationality aspirations in their own countries. Lesser the disorder the better for the New World Order. That is why they demand that "Indonesia should permit the peace keeping forces" to intervene. It is most likely that Indonesia will comply only after striking a deal with the West that Indonesia should continue to get its share of the exploits from East Timor after it gets its "independence". Xanana Gusmao has kept quiet after his release from prison soon after the poll results were declared. The ‘International Community’ itself is going to ‘sort out’ the problem and perhaps, he is waiting for the outcome. Otherwise everybody would have been expecting of him to speak on the recent developments affecting his own land in which he too has lost his near and dear ones including his father, as has been reported in the media. When the trail of death and destruction has engulfed the whole of East Timor, Xanana Gusmao is silent. This silence does not seem to be indicative of a gathering storm. There is a danger, as one can imagine from a sequence of events, that he may accept whatever he is offered. One expects of him to carry on his struggle for national liberation to the point of real liberation from all kinds of foreign exploitation and oppression. That is what "Nationalism" stands for. Without this, independence will turn into the type that exists in which the Indonesian masses themselves are being crushed today, and are desperately looking for a way out of their ‘tryst with destiny.’ A "tryst" which from 1949 onwards gave Indonesia its wavering Sukarno, a ruthless imperialist agent, Suharto, and a long line of Habibies and Wirantos who are the recent perpetrators of violence in East Timor and are continuing the sell out of their country’s riches for a few crumbs bringing misery, poverty, oppression and degradation for the great majority of its inhabitants. When the abettors, instigators and protectors of rulers like Suharto come to the Timorese as their ‘saviours’, it is high time the Fretilin and the East Timorese people do not forget their past, their tribulations, their ordeals and traumas which have resulted from the joint crimes of these very ‘saviours’ and their henchmen in Jakarta.

Nobody knows for how long the travails of the East Timorese will continue as bigger vultures are in the waiting to descend on their country. These vultures have already carved out big chunks of natural resources of the country through their servitors in Indonesia. Old masters are again preparing for a victorious end game. For Fretilin the struggle has to be launched on all fronts — ideological, political, military and economic — to be won. It is not without reason that they have been caught unawares at two crucial junctures of their struggle for independence. Fretilin had pinned too much hope on the United Nations. This dependence increased after Xanana Gusmao was arrested in 1993. Inspite of a widespread mass base and great popularity, Fretilin suffered military defeats at the hands of the powerful Indonesian Army fully backed by the imperialists. Correct lessons had to be drawn to convert defeats into victories, but it started sliding downwards on to the path of depending more and more on diplomacy, like the PLO, under the auspices of UN. This is a more dangerous trap than directly tackling the diplomatic and political moves of the enemy forces (imperialists included). This trap paves the way for not one but a series of tragedies in today’s New World Order where the ‘International Community’ is riding rough-shod over the people, creates a ‘World Opinion’ (through the media Moguls and a wide range of NGO’s including the UN’s Human Rights Watch group) and moves on to centre stage either peacefully or forcefully ‘settle’ the issue, as the situation demands. The Indian press has contributed its own share in this strategy of the Fourth Estate of imperialism. It has neither exposed the anti-East Timorese stance of its own government nor of that of the imperialist machinations, past and present. The same has been the case with free lance columnists. Their attitude towards Kashmir or the North East or East Timor suffers from the same pro-imperialist or national chauvinistic myopia greatly influencing the ideas of the people, determining their behaviour and preparing them to digest whatever imperialist governments or their own ruling classes say on these issues.

Distinguish Friends From Foes

Fretilin must distinguish between enemies and friends and carry forward the cause for which hundreds of thousands of its people and warriors have laid down their lives. Facing Kangaroo Court in 1993 Xanana Gusmao, while acknowledging military defeat at the hands of a superior and powerful enemy, defied death saying : "As a political prisoner in the hands of the occupiers of my country, it is of no consequence at all to me if they pass a death sentence here today. They are killing my people and I am not worth more than their heroic struggle ....."

Of course, true sentiments of a brave revolutionary!

Last year, in June 1998, Fretilin’s External delegation made a statement before the decolonisation Committee of the UN in which it praised America for "helping" East Timor in the UN efforts, equated Gusmao with Nelson Mandela in terms of popularity and talked positively of political changes in South Africa, Palestine and Yugoslavia. All these things raise questions about the approach that Fretilin suffers from. Today, when America or the UN acquire a major role in some conflict it must put the revolutionaries on guard, let alone themselves call for it. The road to America invariably leads to surrender and imperialist domination; the Palestine struggle testifies to it. Nelson Mandela has not fared any better than other ‘nationalist’ leaders of liberation movements who succumbed to imperialism. Mandela abandoned all the measures he had promised to take up after the end of apartheid. He did nothing to change the economic system Azania inherited from South Africa. Yasser Arafat had turned the palestine guerrilla fighters into cops to serve the interests of his imperialist masters, suppressing the Palestinian revolution and legitimising Israel.

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