16.09.1999

Freedom for East Timor - even if imperialism intervenes

Yesterday it was Kosova, today East Timor. Once again, the theoretical coherence and commitment to principle of organisations on the left are tested in the face of mass oppression and the intervention of the ‘international community’ (ie, imperialism) in the struggle of a persecuted people for liberation. At the heart of both issues are fundamental questions of democracy and revolution.

In some respects, the parallels are striking.  On the one hand, we have an oppressor - for Serbia, read Indonesia - wracked by internal political turmoil, where the forces of reaction and militarism are determined to uphold the ‘territorial integrity’ of a state only held together by the threat and use of mass violence and terror. On the other hand, we have an oppressed national group - for the Kosovars, read the East Timorese - who aspire to self-determination and independence. In both cases, the forces of imperialism, faced with the need to secure the stability that is an essential prerequisite for continued capitalist exploitation and the furtherance of their geo-political objectives, deploy the hypocritical rhetoric of ‘humanitarianism’ and ‘peace-keeping’ to cover their real purposes.

Whether we are talking about Nato - an ostensibly defensive military alliance that in actuality exists to further imperialism’s ambitions towards truly global hegemony - or the United Nations - another surrogate body for capital - the objective reality is the same: both are in essence controlled by the big powers exclusively in their particular interests. As we shall see, there is such theoretical poverty among some sections of the left that, while Nato is justly condemned, the UN is perversely regarded as in some sense a legitimate body, that can justifiably be called upon to act as a gendarmerie for the whole of the ‘civilised’ international community.

Of course, the comparison between Serbia and Indonesia is by no means exact. In the former case, as we found during the Balkan war, some left groups, such as the CPB, the SLP and NCP, were so mired in a perverted version of Marxism that they supported the national chauvinist regime of Milosevic, supposedly because it was presiding over a ‘former workers’ state’, one which in some mystical way still embodied in death the ideals of socialism. Either way, Serbia, as ‘the enemy of our enemy’, had to be defended.

Not even these troglodytes can say the same for Indonesia. This vast archipelago, covering four time zones and comprising more than 17,000 islands, has for decades been a bulwark of reaction. When Kemusu Suharto took over Indonesia in 1965, imperialism acquiesced in his bloody coup - half a million communists were butchered. When the Suharto dictatorship brutally invaded East Timor in December 1975, the west was happy to turn a blind eye. Their only concern then, as now, was to ensure that Indonesia remained safe and stable for exploitation. Hence the unremitting and highly profitable flow of weaponry to Jakarta, much of it used in the suppression of dissent, not least in East Timor, where, over the years, hundreds of thousands have been killed with arms supplied by the west. Hence the billions of dollars in loan capital supplied by the IMF.

So long as the Suharto regime remained in place, imperialism could leave the primary responsibility for the region in the hands of its junior partner - Australia, the only state which accepted the legality of Indonesia’s annexation of East Timor. Given Australia’s enormous economic and financial stake in the region, especially its oil and mineral interests, and its cosy relationship with the Indonesian army, including the training of army units in ‘counter-insurgency’ techniques - ie, the brutal suppression of dissent - such a policy was entirely appropriate. The fall of Suharto and the advent of BJ Habibie, however, created a fundamentally different and potentially dangerous scenario for imperialism. Habibie’s decision to lift restraints on the press, to free some political prisoners and, most of all, to initiate moves towards a ballot on independence for East Timor - all of these steps evidently taken against the wishes of the military - opened up a Pandora’s box of instability, and a serious dilemma for the imperialists. Self-determination and independence for East Timor would inspire others - for example, Aceh and Irian Jaya, both rich in oil and minerals - to follow the same path.

This problem became acute when the results of the August 30 referendum became known last week. On one side, there was the Scylla of almost universal condemnation for standing idly by while the entire East Timor population was either liquidated or driven into exile by Jakarta-backed militia death squads; on the other, the Charybdis of being obliged by the pressure of world opinion into undertaking some form of military intervention, with all its associated strategic political risks for imperialism’s interests in the region. A fudge was inevitable, and that is what Jakarta’s ‘invitation’ to UN peace-keeping forces represents.

There is, of course, another respect in which the parallel we spoke about above does not apply: whereas the aspiration of the Kosovars to self-determination and independence, though clear to everybody, has yet formally to be tested in a democratic referendum, the situation in East Timor is completely different. On August 30, some 98.6% of the population went to the polls, of whom 78.5% voted for full independence, as opposed to Habibie’s preferred option of greater ‘autonomy’. Nobody, therefore, can claim that the people of East Timor have not spoken decisively. Nobody can claim that the Fretilin liberation fighters - in some respects the equivalent of the KLA in Kosova - are not waging a struggle based on a real mandate.

This, then, is the background against which we as communists and revolutionary socialists must take our stand. What of the positions adopted by the British left? First, let us take the CPB, as represented in the pages of the Morning Star - a paper which during the Kosova conflict came out against the Leninist principle of self-determination of peoples (eg, the Kosovars and East Timorese). Self-determination could only be exercised by recognised states (eg, Yugoslavia and Indonesia). When it comes to Indonesia and East Timor, we look for analysis, but not surprisingly find only moral outrage, and a naive appeal to the United Nations, whose credibility, the paper warns us, is at stake if it does not intervene to stop the slaughter and “carry through the process of self-determination that it organised for the whole population of East Timor” (September 7). In an editorial entitled ‘Betrayal of the people’, the paper castigates foreign secretary Robin Cook for having betrayed us by failing to live up to New Labour’s promises of an “ethical foreign policy”.

What kind of Marxist is it that could believe for one moment that there could ever be anything remotely “ethical” in the foreign policy of an imperialist country like Britain, a country that has effectively supported Indonesia’s terroristic suppression of the East Timor people for more than 24 years? What kind of Marxist is it that can place any faith whatsoever in the promises of a bourgeois politician? Maybe the paper was thinking of Cook’s assurance, given before the last election, that “Labour will not permit the sale of arms to regimes that might use them for internal repression or international aggression”. Fine words, but Labour’s deeds tell another story. By the end of 1998, less than 18 months after it came to power, the Labour government had approved more than 90 contracts for the sale of arms to Indonesia, contracts backed by taxpayers’ money under the export credit guarantee scheme, just in case ‘our’ merchants of death fail to receive payment for their lethal wares.

The reality of Labour’s ‘ethics’ was made clear earlier this week, when, with the greatest reluctance and in the face of the most determined opposition from the ministry of defence, the Blair government finally agreed (even after the United States had already led the way) to suspend arms exports to Indonesia in the light of the current mass violence in East Timor. The ‘ethical’ Mr Cook would have us believe, through reports from ‘sources’ close to him, that the suspension places him “where he wanted to be after personal unhappiness at cabinet resistance to his own private view” (The Guardian September 13). We can presumably expect the Morning Star to express its appreciation of this courageous stand by ‘our’ foreign secretary.

The Morning Star’s coverage of East Timor is marked by a depressing lack of real politics, confining itself to a reiteration of the position taken by the CPB’s industrial organiser, Kevin Halpin, at a session of the party’s political committee, which “condemned the continuing violence ... and called on the United Nations to use all means at its disposal to protect the people of East Timor and ensure a peaceful transition to their long-awaited independence” (September 6). It is a sad prospect indeed, and evidence of dire theoretical poverty, when so-called communists call on the UN - with its appalling record - to be the guarantor of peace and democracy anywhere. Of course, the Morning Star is not alone in placing its faith in this organ of the big powers.

The question arises as to why this should be so. On one level, it can be seen as a gut reaction to the sheer horror of events in East Timor - a pity the CPB showed not an ounce of empathy for the similar sufferings of the Kosovars. On the contrary, it denounced the KLA and defended as a matter of so-called principle - a ‘principle’ of their own invention - non-imperialist Yugoslavia against imperialism. Be that as it may, the CPB’s position on East Timor/Indonesia demonstrates a singular failure to understand even the basics of a Marxist approach. True democracy and freedom are not gifts that can be bestowed by some benign force from on high (least of all by the likes of the UN). They are the outcome of revolutionary struggle from below, a struggle for human self-liberation by the oppressed working class. While we share with all civilised people a sense of revulsion at the deeds of the death squads in East Timor, we recognise that only revolution - beginning above all in the urban heartlands of Indonesia - can destroy the whole rotten underlying structure of capitalism that always has and always will breed such violence.

If we turn to the SWP’s Socialist Worker for some insight into the East Timor conflict, we find a mixed picture. The paper rightly points out Australia’s role as a key supporter of dictatorship in Indonesia. It correctly calls for a ban on all arms exports. But at the centre of a deeply confused article by Paul Foot - written before Indonesia acceded to a UN peace-keeping presence in East Timor - we find what amounts to a call for the imperialist powers to make war on Indonesia. Sarcastically pointing to the “new leftist warmongers” who defended Nato’s bombing of Serbia (a conflict over which the SWP adopted a stance of hand-wringing social pacifism), Foot now seems to be criticising the same “leftist warmongers” for not adopting a similarly bellicose approach in the present case. According to his logic, since “the situation in East Timor is far worse than it ever was in Kosovo”, the west should be bombing Jakarta and preparing to launch an invasion.

Of course, if imperialism did make a ‘forced entry’ into East Timor, what would the SWP and other such leftists say? To be consistent, after their miserable stance on Kosova, logically the left would have to defend ‘non-imperialist’ Indonesia against imperialism and denounce Fretilin for calling for outside intervention. The demand for independence for East Timor would go, dismissed as a “diversion” or a slogan in “support” of imperialism. Such are the results of anti-imperialism shorn of democracy.

Foot, for his part naively, then goes on to explain to us in schoolmasterly fashion the reason why imperialism will not “risk their massively expensive armed forces” - remember, this is before the UN intervention force was announced - in East Timor, namely that “our rulers’ criterion when assessing whether or not to go to war is simple and constant: how will it affect their wealth and power?” Hence, the Gulf War was about oil; the Balkan war was about the need to deal with “unrest and instability” (Socialist Worker September 11). Since, according to Foot, the situation in East Timor represents no threat to imperialist interests in the region, they will not intervene. What we have here, in essence, is a smug and rather condescending sermon about the double standards and hypocrisy of the imperialists. Questions of democracy and revolution are unaddressed in the blinding insights of one of the SWP’s leading figures.

By contrast, the approach taken by the Socialist Party is much more encouraging. Kerry Morgan - again writing before Indonesia’s acceptance of UN troops - urges readers to place no confidence in the efficacy of foreign armed intervention and rightly points to the UN’s dismal record as a ‘peace-keeper’. Quoting from a statement issued by the Committee for a Workers International, The Socialist outlines what it calls “a real alternative in the form of a socialist programme”. The statement demands maximum international solidarity with the people of East Timor. It calls for the immediate withdrawal of all Indonesian troops and the immediate implementation of the independence decision, and goes on to say that,

“The workers’ movement internationally must find ways of assisting local defence forces of East Timorese fighters to arm themselves to crush the counterrevolutionary militias. These forces would have to be under the control of elected committees of the working and poor people of East Timor. We give full support to the East Timorese and other oppressed people’s struggle within Indonesia for total self-determination. The movement needs to guarantee the rights of all minorities within a socialist independent East Timor and to spread the struggle for socialism through appeals to the workers and poor of neighbouring countries and South East Asia as a whole” (my emphasis, September 10).

Apart from the sloppy confusion between minimum and maximum formulations there is nothing in this statement with which we disagree. It represents exactly the principled position which the CPGB, as consistent revolutionary democrats, took towards the struggle of the Kosovars for self-determination and independence from Serbia. We take the same approach to East Timor and call on all comrades to support it.

Michael Malkin