Freedom Socialist Bulletin • Number 35 • Winter/Spring 2006
Colonial Masters
Howard's “failed states” doctrine
masks imperialist resource grab

It's remarkable how liberalism can completely blind otherwise savvy political activists to what the government is so obviously up to in this region. In the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea (PNG) and now Timor Leste (East Timor), Australian military and police are on the ground enforcing what would have been characterised in earlier decades as colonial takeovers. Rather than taking the time to analyse whose interests are being served, too many activists are prepared to cheer on the Australian Defence Forces (ADF) as it sets the groundwork for Australian interests to begin the plunder of another country.

While the unrest in both the Solomons and Timor Leste is a real cause for concern, given the already fragile state of the respective economies, nothing but the interests of Australian corporations is served by these expeditions. They are not about establishing law and order, but about making the Pacific safe for capitalism. PNG, the Solomons and Timor Leste are resource-rich places. The first two have an abundance of gold, nickel, copper and other metals. The latter has, of course, huge reserves of oil which Australia was forced, reluctantly, to split 50/50 with the island country, even though local companies wanted the lot. Now, it seems they'll get it, courtesy of an upheaval that bears all the hallmarks of foreign meddling.

There's no denying the social and economic problems facing many peoples in our neighbourhood. But there's no excuse for cheering on invaders. The question is to organise to get the troops out now. The peace movement rightly demands that troops be withdrawn from Iraq and Afghanistan. But there's a more subtle colonial war going on much closer to home, and it's up to the Australian working class to put a stop to it. What's happening in the Solomons and PNG is part of a concerted effort to make the Pacific safe for neoliberal capitalism. The presence of Australian troops and police in Timor Leste is an integral part of that project, marketed as the prevention of “failed states.”

The consequences of class collaboration. In 1999, when most of the socialist movement was backing the Howard Government's preparations to put boots on the ground after the East Timor referendum, we wrote: “working people must be totally opposed to UN forces, or any other imperialist troops, being stationed in East Timor after the ballot.” (Will East Timor be free at last? FSB #21 Winter/Spring 1999). Despite the bloody destruction by the Indonesian army, we stuck to that position. It was clear that the only role of an Australian occupying force would be to prevent, rather than enable, the establishment of a stable indigenous government.

Perhaps the war in Iraq and Afghanistan has reminded people of what an imperialist army jackbooting its way around another country is really about. Still, very few clear calls for the troops to be brought home have been heard. The fact is that what is happening in East Timor today indeed bears out our position. Sure, the Indonesians have a hell of a lot to answer for with their bloody occupation. But it was obvious from the outset that Timor Leste was vulnerable to imperialist takeover, that the UN was no friend of the East Timorese people, and that the Australian State was hanging out for an excuse to march in. The present situation owes more than a little to the fact that the independence solidarity movement ended up as cheerleaders for John Howard's first invasion.

Destabilisation of Timor Leste. The Australian newspaper is usually a good guide to government thinking, given that half of its neoliberal copy is reprinted Coalition press releases. So when its editors decided to go after ousted Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri, it was a sure bet that Howard's advisers had been busy “briefing” them on the Prime Minister's thinking. But the campaign had been going on for some time before that, as had the planning. There's no other explanation for the fact that 1,300 Australian troops and their equipment could be in Timor Leste 48 hours after the supposed “request” for intervention. It probably explains why Howard cut short his trip to Ireland. Operations involving so many armed personnel just don't happen overnight. Particularly in a military so incompetent that it loses the body of the first person officially killed in Iraq. It was clear, by the way, that the request was signed after the troops were on the streets of the capital, Dili. In every sense of the word, it is an invasion.

Demonisation. Speaking in an interview in late June, Alkatiri claims that foreign intervention had been going on for some time. This was confirmed by senior military officials who told New Matilda journalist, John Martinkus, that three separate approaches had been made to them by unnamed officials to lead a coup against Alkatiri in the last 18 months. In March, supposed ethnic tensions between parts of the army saw 600 soldiers desert and later dismissed. But the soldiers took their arms. On the 24th and 25th of May, there were attacks on army headquarters and Alkatiri called it a coup attempt. He and his Interior Minister, Rogerio Lobato, meantime, had apparently become involved in arming civilian militia for reasons that are not clear. In any case the fact of escalating destabilisation is inescapable. Alkatiri apparently has an arrogant imperious personal style, and this fact has been used to demonise him. Self-styled “Major” Alfredo Reinado, an Australian-trained lieutenant, who led the attack on the HQ that sparked the current unrest, referred to Alkatiri as “communist,” a laughable description of this pro-western supporter of World Bank-style neoliberalism.

The Australian newspaper took up this theme in a June 27 editorial, which thundered about Marxist revolutionary politics. Alkatiri's Fretilin party was by now itself in the sights of the destabilisation campaign. Meanwhile the pragmatic Foreign Minister, José Ramos Horta, was busy playing the statesman, while blatantly angling for Alkatiri's job. He and Xanana Gusmao parted ways with Fretilin in the early '90s, so perhaps one would be forgiven for thinking that they are acceptable to The Australian and its government sources. Gusmao, the longtime leader of the military struggle against Indonesia, is all but worshipped by the people of Timor Leste. His role in the present strife is unclear, although an anonymous Australian resident claimed in the online journal Crikey.com.au that his actions in relation to Alkatiri amounted to an unconstitutional coup d'état.

Perhaps Gusmao had smelt the breeze. Already the Australian media had resurrected the label “terrorist” in reference to him. But if he thought he could curry favour with the Australians by turning on the Prime Minister after an ABC Four Corners program, which reeked of Howard Government backgrounding, he was wrong. As was Ramos Horta. Despite a jolly time watching the World Cup with his friend, the Australian ambassador Margaret Twomey, he's targetted as well as his former wife, Ana Pessoa, a potential Prime Minister. According to The Australian, the Timorese “elite” conducts business entirely in Portuguese and, as such, are “less popular at home than abroad.” Apparently a more acceptable leadership group would speak the local Tetun language. After slamming all of the current leaders of Timor Leste, The Australian concludes, “Australian troops and police should stay to help one of the world's youngest nations to emerge from what is proving a difficult infancy.”

As clear a call for the installation of a tame, pro-Australian “government” as could be.

Howard's fiefdom. Winston Churchill, a former British Prime Minister, once observed that nations did not have friends, only interests. This is an unusually candid description of capitalist diplomacy. It also explains entirely why, under the command of John Howard, the Australian armed forces are so busy at present. U.S. President Bush probably didn't mean to give the game away, but he did after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. In anointing Howard as his “deputy sheriff” in the Pacific, Bush told this region that there had been a new carve-up of the world. Like the old Roman Emperors, Bush rewarded his loyal ally with a kingdom of his own. There was the small matter of providing a contribution to his Excellency's Middle East, but beyond that, Howard could do what he wanted in his principality.

Howard wasn't slow in stamping his authority. Nauru is a prison island that would starve to death without Australian money. That was an easy conquest. Then there was the “assistance mission” to PNG, which had a setback when imperial arrogance provoked a backlash. Local politicians were unhappy about Australian police having complete immunity from local laws. It was a little too like what they had to put up with in colonial days. Little worry, though. A little bribery here, a little blackmail there and Australian officers now effectively control the PNG army, which is being disarmed. Australian police are back on the streets, and Australian officials supervise the treasury. In no time it'll be as if independence never happened in 1975.

Colonialism 101. The Solomon Islands incursion was almost a dress rehearsal for Timor Leste. Somebody stirred up a fight between the ethnic Malaitan inhabitants of the capital, Honiara and the Guadalcanalans on whose traditional lands the capital stood. Shops were looted and burnt, a few people were killed and Australian business interests threatened. Local politicians had their arms twisted and “invited” an international force in to “restore law and order.” Notice the pattern? Dangerous weapons, including traditional bows and arrows, spears and ancient rifles were confiscated. A few show trials of militia leaders (tribal leaders who posed a threat to the tame government) were held. A nice English copper was recruited to run the police, and Australian officials were thoughtfully provided to run the treasury. When the time came, Australian mining companies could move in to strip the Islands of their mineral deposits. In the meantime, the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI) could look after things, like a 21st century version of the East India Company.

But there was a little problem. The government of the Solomons recognised Taiwan and not the People's Republic of China (PRC). The local Chinese businesspeople who, like their counterparts across the world, were about making a quiet dollar and living as harmoniously with their customers as possible. Was Taiwan considering directly exploiting the Solomons' resources (rather than buying them from Australian corporations), using the local Chinese as go-betweens? We'll never know, because earlier this year someone stirred up trouble again — this time, targetting the Chinese sector of Honiara. Shops and homes were set on fire. In went Australian and New Zealand troops, followed by planes chartered by the PRC, even though it has no diplomatic relations with the Solomons. Chinese refugees were then loaded onto planes and whisked off to China. Meanwhile opposition politicians planning a no-confidence motion against the pro-Australian Prime Minister were thrown in jail. The situation now stabilised; the Solomons are open for businesses friendly to Australia.

If this sounds convoluted and far-fetched, it's been standard colonial practice for two hundred years. Divide and conquer was the phrase used by the British colonisers. Internally, the Howard Government has been using the tactic for a decade. We know it as wedge politics. The difference is that in other places it has a more openly violent character, because the wedge is designed to destroy local authority.

It's about the oil. Timor Leste provided a bigger challenge. The resistance fighters who formed the new government had widespread respect among the local people and near-universal support among Australians. Whatever his faults, Alkatiri seems to have been a hardheaded negotiator in the dispute over the Timor Sea oilfields. He held out until public opinion in Australia forced the Howard regime to make concessions which still amount to a blatant theft of resources by the Australian State. But how to extract the oil? It was fairly clear in 2000, after the independence vote, that it would take years to get the oilfields running, and that the political leadership was hostile to Australian interests. Alkatiri and many other former exiles are far too close to the Portuguese for comfort. It's time for the Deputy to send in the posse!

The whispering campaign against Alkatiri started almost before the new country's flag reached the top of the flagpole in May 2002. By late 2004, he had become a “Marxist,” and then somebody began approaching military commanders with offers of support for a coup.

Who might this “somebody” be? The Portuguese? But Alkatiri and even Gusmao were close to them and moving closer. The Indonesian government? Perhaps, but Jakarta has enough to worry about with terrorist bombings, West Papua and Acheh, not to mention the tsunami and other natural disasters. Maybe some of the generals would like to settle scores, but Foreign Minister Alexander Downer is to be believed when he says that Indonesia has nothing to do with it. He, of all people, would know. Taking everything into account, there's only one beneficiary of the current turmoil in Timor Leste — Australian oil interests. The war in Iraq is a war for oil, and this current action is different only in the excuse and method of invasion. Sure, there'll be a UN “mandate” for the occupation. But it will only be a figleaf for the Australian occupation force.

Down with Australian Imperialism. The murderous disaster in Iraq is but one part of the expansionist policies of Australian capitalism. Meddling in the Pacific is a century-long tradition inherited from the British. As we wrote in 2000, “for the last 100 years, the voice of British Imperialism has spoken with an Australian accent and killed with an Australian gun.” (These Lands were Never Empty, FSB #23 Winter/Spring 2000). No matter what the excuse, no matter the motivations of individual soldiers, a military force in somebody else's country is there to promote market dominance by the invader State.

In the long term, the solution for Timor Leste and other struggling countries is to join in a Socialist Federation of South East Asia, where the wealth of this region is shared by all of its peoples. In the meantime, Australian corporations need to get their hands off Timor's oil. The Indonesian magnates and generals who so brutally plundered the island should be paying back the money, with interest, to rebuild the country and provide infrastructure to develop the oilfields. PNG can get along fine by itself, as can the Solomon Islanders, who should be free to trade with whomever they choose. As for Nauru, its heart cut out by Australian phosphate companies, the future is bleak. The solution is to offer all of its people Australian citizenship and provide for all of those who want to leave.

The working people of Australia have a duty to use our relative social strength to force the Howard Government, on behalf of its corporate sponsors, to cease its colonial expansion and its bloody partnership with the Washington terrorist gang. The people of Timor Leste have not fought for over a century for self-determination only to end up as wage slaves in an Australian client state. And the situation is similar elsewhere. The peoples of this part of the world have fought over and managed this part of the planet for thousands of years. They have no need for John Howard and his 21st century version of “the white man's burden.” Just as we have no need of corporate masters running our lives.

It's time, once again, to demand that every member of the ADF on active duty be recalled to barracks in Australia, now.

Peter Murray
 
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