BY BOB AIKEN AND DOUG COOPER
SYDNEY, Australia-In a massive repudiation of nearly 24
years of Indonesian rule and months of terror by rightist
death squads, 78.5 percent of East Timorese voted for
independence in an August 30 referendum on East Timor's
future. As the Militant goes to press, the imperialist powers
are preparing for military intervention. The Australian
government has offered to lead an international force to East
Timor and provide 2,000 troops. U.S. secretary of state
Madeleine Albright is taking part in talks on the situation
with the foreign ministers of Australia, Britain, Canada,
Japan, and New Zealand.
United Nations Security Council president Peter van Walsum of the Netherlands stated September 8 that "if the security situation does not improve...the council will need to consider further action." If an occupying force is assembled, it will likely take place under the United Nations flag.
Economic sanctions against the Indonesian government, which rules East Timor, are also being discussed. These measures include the possible withdrawal of International Monetary Fund loans to the crisis-ridden country. Jakarta has rejected calls for "armed peacekeepers" and has declared martial law in the territory. It has pledged to reinforce the 20,000 soldiers and police it has stationed there.
To win support for possible military action, the imperialists are relying on the impact on public opinion of the reign of terror imposed by rightist East Timorese thugs organized in militias by a section of the Indonesian military officer caste. According to press reports up to 200,000 people have been forced to flee East Timor since the referendum results were announced September 4.
Observers say the capital, Dili, lies deserted and in ruins. The arson and massacres that have detonated this exodus are the handiwork of the forces that suffered a huge defeat at the ballot box at the end of August.
First opportunity ever to vote
"This is our chance to start as a new nation. It's like
being reborn," beamed 23-year-old Jairson Da Silva Rosa after
casting his vote in the Sydney suburb of Liverpool. Nine
polling centers were established in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth,
and Darwin to allow 12,000 East Timorese exiles in Australia
aged 17 and older to join some 440,000 others voting in East
Timor and elsewhere. The overall turnout was an estimated 98.6
percent.
"This is our first opportunity to vote in 450 years-from the Portuguese colonial era through the Indonesian occupation till now," activist Brian Da-Luz said, as he handed out campaign leaflets from the National Council of Timorese Resistance (CNRT), the proindependence umbrella organization, to hundreds lined up to vote in Liverpool.
In East Timor, referendum organizers in the UN-supervised self-determination poll were reportedly amazed that half the registered voters had queued by dawn at many of the 200 polling stations, with many in the countryside walking all night in their Sunday best to vote. The turnout and result came despite months of terror and intimidation as Indonesian police and military looked on. There are more than 10,000 Indonesian troops and 8,000 police currently occupying East Timor. Rightist activity was sharply curtailed on voting day, with only six polling centers shut, but picked up again immediately after.
May 5 UN agreement
Voters had to tick off an answer to one of two questions:
"Do you accept the proposed special autonomy for East Timor
within the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia?" or "Do
you reject the proposed special autonomy for East Timor,
leading to East Timor's separation from Indonesia?"
The governments of Indonesia and Portugal agreed May 5 in tripartite negotiations with UN officials to a three-phase timetable that may lead to independence for East Timor in three to four years. Phase I ran from May 5 until the vote. Phase II lasts until the Indonesian parliament meets, probably in November, to consider the referendum results. The parliament was the body that annexed East Timor in 1976 after Indonesian forces invaded and occupied the country in December 1975, overthrowing the new government headed by Fretilin, the national liberation movement that led the struggle against Portuguese colonial rule. Jakarta's pretext was imposing "peace" following a three-week civil war initiated by pro- Indonesian political forces.
Canberra was the only imperialist government to ever formally recognize the annexation, which until December 1998 it considered "irreversible." Should the parliament agree to respect the massive vote for independence and repeal the annexation, as Indonesian president B.J. Habibie has publicly pledged, East Timor will become a UN protectorate for three to four years before independence, according to the terms of the May 5 agreement.
Divisions among rulers
The unbreakable spirit of resistance by East Timor's
workers and peasants reflected in decades of armed struggle,
mass mobilizations, and now in the vote has caused divisions
over the last year among Indonesia's rulers and forced a
change in course by U.S. imperialism and smaller imperialist
powers like Australia and New Zealand. The Portuguese
government, headed by the Socialist Party for much of the last
25 years, has long postured as an ally of the freedom
struggle.
Indonesia's more than two-year-old economic crisis forced the rulers to jettison the 32-year authoritarian rule of President Suharto in May 1998. Suharto was replaced by Habibie, his vice president, who will govern until the parliament chooses a replacement coming out of the June 1999 Indonesian election.
Habibie's decision to permit a referendum has not been universally supported among the rulers in Jakarta. Sections of the ruling class, in particular part of the military officer caste who are capitalists in their own right, fear the consequences of allowing East Timor to become independent in the face of growing instability and separatist movements in Aceh and West Papua (Irian Jaya). Others, with Habibie in the lead, have decided they must jettison East Timor to restabilize their rule in the world's fourth most populous nation.
Jakarta has come under increasing pressure on East Timor from various imperialist powers who have become more and more alarmed at the growing political instability.
Leading up to the referendum, Stanley Roth, U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asia and the Pacific, told the National Press Club in Canberra August 26, "It won't be business as usual.... They [the Indonesian government] will pay a price if this is not managed well.
Hamish McDonald, foreign editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, opined August 7, "By all means, keep up the moral pressure on Jakarta, and keep up the threats that World Bank and International Monetary Fund finance, military equipment and so on might be hard to justify if it allows a bloodbath in Timor."
Australian foreign minister Alexander Downer met with presidential front-runner and bourgeois opposition leader Megawati Sukarnoputri July 28, who immediately shifted her position that East Timor could not separate from Indonesia. In a July 29 speech, she stated that while still opposing independence, if elected president she too would recognize a proindependence vote.
Timorese respond to rightist terror
In the immediate aftermath of the August 30 vote, rightist
gangs went on the rampage, burning dozens of houses and
setting up roadblocks in Dili, and in three northwest towns,
Maliana, Liquica, and Gleno. Four Timorese employed by the UN
were among those killed, with a further six missing.
The leaders of the anti-independence militias are closely tied to Indonesian military officers, who supply them and direct their activities.
Many members are unemployed youth or thugs attracted by the pay. Others have been press-ganged under threat of beatings or death.
The gangs have massacred an estimated 400 people since they were unleashed in January, burned hundreds of homes, and created tens of thousands of refugees, but proved inadequate to the task of preventing a massive vote for independence. These outfits have often clashed with Timorese workers, farmers, and youth defending their neighborhoods and villages.
On July 16, the first day of voter registration, for instance, hundreds of villagers turned out to enroll in Liquica in defiance of the BMP militia, which has killed dozens of people in the district. In Salesa the same day villagers repulsed an attack by local thugs, killing one. On August 27 villagers in Memo, near Maliana, expecting an attack, rang warning bells as 300 rightists escorted by Indonesian police approached. They armed themselves with rocks, spears, machetes, and swords and repulsed the attack.
Throughout the voter registration period, and during the two-week campaign prior to the ballot, UN representatives repeatedly called on the Indonesian police - the main repressive force in East Timor for the last quarter century - to restore law and order in face of the rightist campaign. UN secretary-general Kofi Annan twice postponed the vote.
Mass mobilizations
The relationship of forces on the ground was also shown by
massive turnouts at proindependence rallies. Some 5,000 people
attended the August 15 opening of the National Council of
Timorese Resistance campaign offices in Dili. The offices were
attacked and sacked by the Aitarak militia forces August 26 as
Indonesian police stood by.
Hundreds of university students returned to East Timor from Indonesia to mobilize support for independence.
Over August 19-20 up to 10,000 people took part in celebrations of the anniversary of Falantil, held in the mountains at Waimori. Falantil is the guerrilla army that has waged an armed struggle against the Indonesian occupation. It has maintained a cease-fire since early 1999 with many of its fighters regrouped in mountain camps.
In Dili August 25, more than 10,000 poured into the streets in a huge, jubilant rally, despite appeals from some independence leaders against mass gatherings for fear of provoking anti-independence gangs. "They have come out to say that we are still here, that we will not be intimidated," CNRT leader David Ximenes said. "We have fought for our freedom and now they have to give it to us," he told the crowd.
The following day at least five people were killed in an Aitarak rampage that included attacks on foreign journalists. Proindependence youth in many neighborhoods stood up to the heavily armed thugs, killing at least one.
Imperialist intervention
Military preparations for imperialist intervention have
also deepened. Australian army forces have been placed on
standby, ready to intervene on the pretext of evacuating
Australian citizens. A British warship in the region, the HMS
Glasgow, is on alert.
Imperialist pressure has intensified on the Indonesian government to permit a large "peacekeeping" force in East Timor under the UN flag in the aftermath of the referendum result.
Intervention independent of the UN by Australian, New Zealand, Japanese, and U.S. forces-ignoring the diplomatic formalities of obtaining Indonesian government agreement-has also been posed. Donald McKinnon, the New Zealand foreign minister, called September 1 for such intervention by "like- minded" countries if the situation deteriorated. Australian defense minister John Moore said that while Canberra was prepared for evacuations, "Troops from Australia will not go in unless it's at the invitation of the United Nations with the sanction of Indonesia."
Some 7,000 US troops are currently engaged in joint exercises with the Australian Defence Force (ADF) in north Queensland.
A report that contingency planning by the U.S. Pacific Command includes, as one option, sending 15,000 U.S. troops to East Timor, in "extreme circumstances," on the pretext of stopping large-scale violence by the rightist groups, was leaked to the Australian press August 10.
Washington responded that it has "no plans to send US forces to East Timor, independently of the UN." But U.S. assistant secretary of state Roth said September 2, "At this point, we would have to consider all the different options depending on the situation on the ground; depending on the position of the Indonesian government."
UN forces in Phase II are due to be bolstered with an increase of military liaison officers from 50 to 350, with civilian police numbers increased by 460 to over 730. Plans for a UN force of up to 15,000 troops, ostensibly for Phase III after the parliament meets in Jakarta, are also being put in place.
Australian forces are on standby to play a central role in such a force. The Australian army has assembled its largest combat-ready military force since the Vietnam war. It now has two brigades on "28-day preparedness" notice, with significant units on higher alert.
Fourteen Blackhawk helicopters recently arrived at Tindall airbase, near Katherine in the Northern Territory, fitted with long-range fuel tanks that enable them to fly nonstop to Dili. They are on "30-minute standby," along with hundreds of soldiers. The 3rd Brigade, based in Townsville, Queensland, has over 3,000 troops, and the new ready response unit, the Darwin-based 1st Brigade, has 325 armored vehicles. With 2,100 troops in Darwin, the brigade also has artillery and parachute regiments based in Sydney.
Most supporters of East Timorese independence around the world favor intervention. They have taken their lead from CNRT leaders including the imprisoned Xanana Gusmao. CNRT representative in Australia Joao Carrascalao said September 2, the Indonesians "will try to destroy the country as much as they can and only the deployment of an international peacekeeping force will deter them."
Meanwhile, CNRT leader Jose Ramos-Horta is in the United States to ask the World Bank and Congress to impose comprehensive sanctions on Indonesia, whose workers and peasants continue to reel under the impact of the devastating economic crisis.
While the imperialist powers hope to restrain proindependence fighters and organize an orderly transition, the situation remains highly volatile. East Timor's toilers have placed themselves in a stronger position to have the last word.
Bob Aiken is a member of the Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union. Doug Cooper is a member of the Maritime Union of Australia.