[DEBATE] : (Fwd) Pilger on E.Timor

[Patrick Bond]

http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2006-06/23pilger.cfm

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ZNet Commentary

East Timor: The Coup The World Missed June 23, 2006
By John Pilger

In my 1994 film Death of a Nation there is a scene on board an aircraft 
flying between northern Australia and the island of Timor. A party is in 
progress; two men in suits are toasting each other in champagne. "This 
is an historically unique moment," effuses Gareth Evans, Australia's 
foreign affairs minister, "that is truly uniquely historical." He and 
his Indonesian counterpart, Ali Alatas, were celebrating the signing of 
the Timor Gap Treaty, which would allow Australia to exploit the oil and 
gas reserves in the seabed off East Timor. The ultimate prize, as Evans 
put it, was "zillions" of dollars.

Australia's collusion, wrote Professor Roger Clark, a world authority on 
the law of the sea, "is like acquiring stuff from a thief . . . the fact 
is that they have neither historical, nor legal, nor moral claim to East 
Timor and its resources". Beneath them lay a tiny nation then suffering 
one of the most brutal occupations of the 20th century. Enforced 
starvation and murder had extinguished a quarter of the population: 
180,000 people. Proportionally, this was a carnage greater than that in 
Cambodia under Pol Pot. The United Nations Truth Commission, which has 
examined more than 1,000 official documents, reported in January that 
western governments shared responsibility for the genocide; for its 
part, Australia trained Indonesia's Gestapo, known as Kopassus, and its 
politicians and leading journalists disported themselves before the 
dictator Su-harto, described by the CIA as a mass murderer.

These days Australia likes to present itself as a helpful, generous 
neighbour of East Timor, after public opinion forced the government of 
John Howard to lead a UN peacekeeping force six years ago. East Timor is 
now an independent state, thanks to the courage of its people and a 
tenacious resistance led by the liberation movement Fretilin, which in 
2001 swept to political power in the first democratic elections. In 
regional elections last year, 80 per cent of votes went to Fretilin, led 
by Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri, a convinced "economic nationalist", who 
opposes privatisation and interference by the World Bank. A secular 
Muslim in a largely Roman Catholic country, he is, above all, an 
anti-imperialist who has stood up to the bullying demands of the Howard 
government for an undue share of the oil and gas spoils of the Timor Gap.

On 28 April last, a section of the East Timorese army mutinied, 
ostensibly over pay. An eyewitness, Australian radio reporter Maryann 
Keady, disclosed that American and Australian officials were involved. 
On 7 May, Alkatiri described the riots as an attempted coup and said 
that "foreigners and outsiders" were trying to divide the nation. A 
leaked Australian Defence Force document has since revealed that 
Australia's "first objective" in East Timor is to "seek access" for the 
Australian military so that it can exercise "influence over East Timor's 
decision-making". A Bushite "neo-con" could not have put it better.

The opportunity for "influence" arose on 31 May, when the Howard 
government accepted an "invitation" by the East Timorese president, 
Xanana Gusmão, and foreign minister, José Ramos Horta - who oppose 
Alkatiri's nationalism - to send troops to Dili, the capital. This was 
accompanied by "our boys to the rescue" reporting in the Australian 
press, together with a smear campaign against Alkatiri as a "corrupt 
dictator". Paul Kelly, a former editor-in-chief of Rupert Murdoch's 
Australian, wrote: "This is a highly political intervention . . . 
Australia is operating as a regional power or a political hegemon that 
shapes security and political outcomes." Translation: Australia, like 
its mentor in Washington, has a divine right to change another country's 
government. Don Watson, a speechwriter for the former prime minister 
Paul Keating, the most notorious Suharto apologist, wrote, incredibly: 
"Life under a murderous occupation might be better than life in a failed 
state . . ."

Arriving with a force of 2,000, an Australian brigadier flew by 
helicopter straight to the headquarters of the rebel leader, Major 
Alfredo Reinado - not to arrest him for attempting to overthrow a 
democratically elected prime minister but to greet him warmly. Like 
other rebels, Reinado had been trained in Canberra. John Howard is said 
to be pleased with his title of George W Bush's "deputy sheriff" in the 
South Pacific. He recently sent troops to a rebellion in the Solomon 
Islands, and imperial opportunities beckon in Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu 
and other small island nations. The sheriff will approve.