Meanwhile, a renewed eruption of student-led protests against the military's role in politics has rocked Jakarta and other Indonesian cities.
The first troops in the International Force for East Timor (Interfet) mandated by the UN Security Council landed in East Timor September 20.
A week later there were 3,700 foreign troops occupying Dili and Bacau, dominated by more than 2,500 from Australia. A fleet of warships stands offshore, with eight from the Australian navy, and one each from the United Kingdom and New Zealand. The Interfet occupation force is set to reach 7,500 troops.
Dubbed "Operation Stabilise," some troops from other imperialist powers, including New Zealand, France, Italy, Britain, and the United States have reinforced Interfet. More slowly, forces promised from semi-colonial countries in Asia are also being sent. After the first week, apart from the British Gurkhas, the only Asian soldiers on the ground were from the Philippines.
The United States has so far committed about 250 troops in logistics and intelligence, mostly stationed in Darwin in northern Australia, with an advance reconnaissance team of U.S. Marines already in East Timor. The head of the U.S. Pacific Command, Admiral Dennis Blair, has said he does not rule out U.S. ground troops should Australian officials in Canberra ask for further support "as the mission expands." The Australian commander of Interfet, Maj. Gen. Peter Cosgrove, has already ordered in additional combat troops ahead of scheduled logistical support forces.
Indonesian forces invaded East Timor, a former Portuguese colony, in 1975 to crush a short-lived independent government there (see article on facing page). On August 30 of this year, the East Timorese people voted resoundingly for independence in a UN-organized referendum. The announcement of the poll results September 4 was the signal for the occupying Indonesian military to launch two weeks of killing, burning, and looting by "militia" gangs against independence supporters. Most of the urban population fled into the countryside.
Having stood aside for the rightist terror to take effect both on the East Timorese people and on public opinion at home, political leaders in Washington, Canberra, and other capitalist powers then moved rapidly to intervene, mounting heavy political and financial pressure on the regime of Indonesian president B.J. Habibie. Jakarta was forced to give grudging assent as it was shouldered aside by the same powers that had previously backed the Indonesian military's brutal occupation.
Officially, the Indonesian military gave the Interfet soldiers "a cordial reception" as they arrived ashore at Dili, although later it was admitted that "tensions" were on the increase. Sporadic shooting by militia members and Indonesian troops has occurred, but the Interfet command has insisted that "so far, no shots have been exchanged."
Most of the Indonesian army in East Timor has been withdrawn two months ahead of schedule. Many of the departing Indonesian soldiers left behind looted and torched facilities. On September 27, Maj. Gen. Kiki Syahnakri, TNI [Indonesian Army] commander in the territory, formally handed over security control to Interfet. Less than 1,500 Indonesian soldiers and police remain to be "gradually withdrawn" as the military-dominated regime in Jakarta tries to save face at the imperialist takeover.
In an aggressive show of force, heavily armed Australian troops have expanded street patrols and house searches in Dili. Scores of arrests have been made of suspected members of militias, either to disarm them or to protect them from outraged groups of people who recognize them. Those detained, as specified in the UN rules of engagement, are then handed over to Indonesian police, who are reportedly setting them free.
In Bacau, East Timor's second largest city, crowds surrounded a UN team shouting "Viva!" Father Trans Antonio Pinto told reporters, "People ran to the hills to escape the militia but now they are coming back, although very few have come back [so far]. They are celebrating the withdrawal of the [Indonesian] military." Of the hundreds of thousands who fled the terror, tens of thousands have begun returning to burnt-out towns. In Dili, 3,000 people broke into Indonesian government warehouses September 22 taking rice, flour, and cooking oil before 30 Australian troops arrived to reinforce the Indonesian guards and disperse the crowd. Hungry groups of people trying to gain access to other food supplies were also repulsed by Interfet troops. Elsewhere, air drops of food to concentrations of displaced people have been resumed after days of delays. UN officials blamed the hold-up on Indonesian red tape requiring searches at Dili airport, but food flights from Darwin were displaced by military air traffic and journalists were given priority over medical workers.
The focus of potential armed conflict is now shifting to the border with West Timor. In the western half of the island, which has been part of Indonesia since that nation won independence in 1949, camps of up to 200,000 forcibly deported East Timorese are still dominated by armed pro-integration forces, whose bloody reprisals continue against independence supporters among the refugees. The reported movement of a big group of militia back across from West Timor is clearly a threat to "Operation Stabilise." These appear to have been reinforced by large numbers of East Timor-born or raised Indonesian army troops who have "defected" with their weapons.
At the same time, student protests have again erupted on the streets of Jakarta and other cities protesting laws giving sweeping powers to the military. On September 23, in the final days of the old Indonesian parliament put in place under the ousted Suharto government, new security laws were passed giving the military and police wide "emergency" powers of detention and restrictions on public assembly if "public security" is deemed at risk.
In response, demonstrations led by students numbering 10,000 in Jakarta, and thousands in cities elsewhere in Indonesia, took to the streets. Police and soldiers fired live rounds, rubber bullets, and tear gas canisters at the protesters. Seven people were killed and scores injured. In response, Indonesian president Habibie said September 24 that he would delay signing the laws.
Mass protests continued the next day in Medan, an industrial city of 1.2 million people in northern Sumatra, as well as in Manokwari, on Irian Jaya (West Papua), where two student protesters were killed. Further actions were initially called in protest over the killings and demanding the resignation of Habibie and General Wiranto, the head of the Indonesian military. Student leaders in Jakarta announced September 28 that the demonstrations would be postponed, however, to allow a "cooling off" period.
Among those urging the students to end their protests was Abdurraham Wahid, a bourgeois opposition figure and presidential hopeful who is associated with National Mandate Party leader Amien Rais. Wahid called on protesters not to disrupt the newly elected People's Representative Assembly, which will begin meeting October 1 and will select the Indonesian president in November.
Don Greenlees, the Jakarta correspondent for the daily Australian, gloated that Australian troops "landed in the shattered city of Dili with a moral conviction and the kind of wholehearted support from the Australian people that no departing army has enjoyed since 1939." The same article quotes Cameron Evans, a 29-year-old captain from Melbourne, saying, "This is a conflict that Australia not only has a responsibility but a duty to be involved in. It makes a big difference to the blokes to know they do have the support of the people at home; to know when we go home we are not pariahs."
This initial support for intervention plus the discussion over sustaining such a sizable troop commitment has provided Australia's rulers with the cover to launch a renewed militarization drive. Prime Minister John Howard was quoted in an interview in the September 28 Bulletin headlined "The Howard Doctrine," as saying that Canberra was a peacekeeping "deputy" in the region to the U.S. global policeman and that military spending would now have to come first
Military analyst Paul Dibb warned, "The problem with 4,500 deployed right now is that if there was a serious emergency in Papua New Guinea or the Solomons [Islands], we wouldn't have a lot left over to do that as well."
An urgent government review of the military will consider boosting the Army Reserve to support the "peacekeeping" operation, possibly by the reintroduction of the Ready Reserve, or increased full-time training for the Army Reserve. The Ready Reserve was a voluntary scheme where civilians spent a year in uniform and one month a year in military training thereafter. Prime Minister John Howard has not ruled out moves towards conscription. "We would always be willing to consider the introduction of national service if the national military and defense need of Australia required." he said.
Ron Poulsen is a member of the Maritime Union of Australia.
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