Bullimore / Kim Maree (COM)
Wed, 26 Jan 2000 17:22:45 -0800
Rob,
hi.. I did not mean to imply that Indonesia's scorched earth policy was
inititated 24 years prior (you are right in saying that its catalyst was
the referendum), what I was trying to say and obviously I did not do it to
clearly was that there had been an ongoing repression of the East Timorese
for 24 years which included murder and destruction, this was just
intensified to a scorched earth policy last year after the referendum.
I agree there is Australia is still well ensconced in its imperialist
role (something which of course GLW and the DSP are well aware of, and
will continue to campaign against). I'm not saying it put a stop to
imperialism, what I am saying is that it went against the imperialist
policies that had been established and it did put a bit of a spoke in the
relationship between Australia and Indonesia (if only for a little while).
I agree some of my arguements were a bit simplistic (and probably still
are), I have to admit I am still getting a hang of polemicising and I am
not as well versed in marxist theory as I would like to be - (give me a
couple more years or so though ....).
comradely,
Kim B
On Mon, 24 Jan 2000, Rob Schaap wrote:
> G'day Kim,
> >This is the case with East Timor ... UN
> >intervention went against 24 years of Indonesian and Australian
> >imperialist policy. Without it, Indonesia would have continued its
> >scorched earth policy of murder and destruction.
>
> Er, it was the materially unsupported referendum proposal that started the
> scorched earth policy of the Indonesians/militias, Kim! There WAS a time
> for armed peacekeepers, and that was when something approximating a peace
> pertained - before and during the vote! Habibie wasn't up to allowing
> that, of course (although, personally, he seemed all for it), and concerted
> foreign pressure (of the kind the US is happily exerting now) would have
> been necessary 18 months ago. Australian and UN intervention started the
> slaughter, for mine (and, I suspect, CNRT complicity, too - they didn't
> lift a finger to help their people when the chips were down, as a good bit
> of 'murder-of-the-innocents' footage was politically awfully useful - just
> a suspicion, mind).
>
> And Australia's imperialist policy has been impeded exactly how? We seem
> nicely ensconced in the chair, for mine. You know I didn't oppose
> intervention - but that was because I saw only one alternative future once
> the vote had been cast (for ET and Indonesia alike), and it promised to be
> far worse than imperialist rule from Canberra. It's still imperialist rule
> from Canberra though, innit?
>
> >But I guess that would have been okay, because then dogmatists could say
> >"well, isn't it terrible that the East Timorese were massacred, but at
> >least we stuck to our principles ..., we have a cut and dried absolutist
> >position that says no compromises with imperialism, to bad this meant that
> >any chance of working class revolution that may have exist will not occur
> >now because there is no working class because they have all been massacre.
> >But hey, we did stick to our 'on principle' objections".
>
> Here I agree with you and the GLW completely - but, as I think Bob's
> position is not usefully nuanced here, so do I think yours is lacking.
>
> Yours ever-compromisingly,
> Rob.
>
>
>
>
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