East Timor's tragedy

Sickening though the violence in East Timor is, the unctuous self-righteousness of the West is worse. It was this that almost brought failure in Kosovo and it is this that is likely to lead to a bloodbath in East Timor. The East Timorese are no more than long-suffering pawns in the hands of a greedy, yet sanctimonious, West. Today the West pursues hegemony through commercial exploitation instead of the blatant colonialism of the past, but it still stands in harsh judgment of other cultures through continuing to espouse the patronizing and delusory concept of "the white man's burden".

The Portuguese, after exploiting East Timor with an iron fist for hundred of years, merely got on their high horse in order to salve their consciences when Indonesia filled the power vacuum in the abandoned territory. The Australians furthered their economic interests (oil) by recognizing that East Timor was part of Indonesia, while hypocritically giving hope and support to East Timorese seeking independence. Like the Portuguese, the Australians needed to be seen to occupy the high moral ground, in order to salve their consciences for the way they treated indigenous people. Britain and America, always with an eye on their economic growth and unemployment figures, happily provided the apparatus of war to the Indonesian military and, until recently, wined and dined now disgraced (if disgrace is a concept understood by the Indonesian elite) military officers with glee. Even the methods used by the Indonesian military in East Timor were taught to them by the West (e.g. Britain trained Indonesian pilots in simulators to strafe villages from the air) and is it not significant that Indonesia's current president is a dyed-in- the-wool Western-trained technocrat?

When before has so much Western attention and indignation been focused on the plight of so few non-Western people? When America annexed Hawaii? When India took Goa? When Morocco and Mauritania divided up the Western Sahara between them? No. when Iraq invaded Kuwait? Yes! There too we find that dangerous, but powerfully motivating combination of Western sanctimoniousness and avarice for oil.

One has to ask whether all the deaths during the occupation of East Timor by Indonesia would have occurred if the West had adopted a lower profile in its hypocritical dealings with Indonesia over the matter. If a peaceful solution of the problem had been the priority, rather than the mounting of Western high horses, pedestals and moral high ground, would it have been necessary for the Indonesian military to crack down so hard? Indeed, without Western, arms would it have been possible for it to crack down so hard?

Unfortunately, last year's Indonesian information has resulted in East Timorese becoming the pawns of not only the West, but Indonesia as well. With separatist movements gaining strength in the Western-exploited oil and mineral rich extremities of Indonesia, the Indonesian military or government (either or both, one can never be sure) now feels compelled to send a clear message to other provinces that might also wish to secede. That message is: think twice, because secession will be fraught with bloodshed. Having armed the prointegration militias in East Timor to the teeth, the province is all set to become a horrific example of what could happen elsewhere.

However, I predict that the West will continue to wield its ambivalent, indignant, unctuous, self-righteous, avaricious way in East Timor, but so completely out of its depth that its top priority will be evacuation to save its priceless Western lives when war rages unabated across the territory. I hope I am wrong, but if I am right let this big, black cloud's silver lining be an awareness by the West that the East Timor tragedy is almost entirely of the West's making.

FRANK RICHARDSON

Jakarta