°Timor
Just under 1,500 Australian soldiers, to be followed by a contingent of police, are about to assume indefinite military control of East Timor. This, of course, follows a similar takeover of the Solomon Islands in what has become a process of extending Australia’s military borders through the Pacific as a means not to open the border in any other sense.
Such being the underlying definition of a ‘failed state‘ - an inability to assert an indivisible monopoly of violence and control the movements of the population.
Most of the troops are already on the ground and, in a sense, they already have taken control of Dili, East Timorese soldiers already being confined to barracks after the outbreak of fighting between rival political factions, some of whom were expelled en masse from the army itself.
The Australian Prime Minister announced that “There is a significant governance problem inside East Timor.” And, what passes for the Left, having overwhelmingly pursued ‘humanitarian military intervention’ in the past, as well as uncritically supporting ‘East Timorese sovereignty’ is in no position to comprehend current events, let alone respond to them.
It comes though as little surprise that East Timor, a creation of Portugese occupation, would be wracked by conflicts from the outset, given the stratifications produced by colonisation itself, such as those between East and West Timor, but not least, because the inauguration of ‘East Timorese sovereignty’ meant in reality the reinstatement of Portugese land titles, Portugese as the offical language, and so on.
Those who have suddenly discovered, or are surprised at the racialisation of the conflict between East and West Timorese seem to imagine that this has not always been the case, or that the very act of declaring sovereignty would not amplify the question of who does and does not belong, who is properly East Timorese, or not. I recall discussing some time ago, as did Wildcat, the restrictive definition of East Timorese citizenship being applied in the referendum, which would effectively disenfranchise those who had been living in East Timor since 1975 - although I can’t seem to locate a copy of what I wrote then. But I also recall that I was routinely denounced at the time for being insufficiently supportive of the mission of ’saving black people from themselves’ - ironically, the ostensible virtues and success of which are the theme of a mini-series currently being screened by the national broadcaster, the ABC.
In any case, Prime Minister Alkatiri, with strong links to the current Portugese Socialist Government, has been fighting it out with Xanana Gusmao and Jose Ramos Horta, both of whom are much closer to the Australian Government, for control of resources, the army and, not least, oil reserves in the Timor Sea. But, these remain the most overt lines of conflicts between East Timorese elites, and likely not exhaustive as an explanation of all of the fighting or all the politics on the ground.
Reliable information is, however, difficult to come across, vectored as it so often is through the Vatican, the Portugese Government, the Australian Government and their proxies in East Timor.
Oil and the containment of past and potential ‘refugee problem’ (given Australia’s proximity) explains successive Australian Government interventions and meddling.
On the S. Islands situation, it really is very hard to guess what is going on there. The government is really (in) a state of virtuality, or rather superimposed virtualities,because whilst the Australians delude their own illusions, thinking that they are in control of the place whilst announcing that it is all a ’support mission’, the reality is that if you stray too far from Honiara there really isn’t that much of a concrete state to speak of. The government in power in Honiaria is ostensibly connected to the Social Credit people who propose, amongst other things, the abolition of commercial banks and raising wages. But like I say, this might as well be taking place inside EverQuest for all that people in SI care or know.
But there is no question about it, the Australian government effectively runs one of the (non)things that passes for a state there; only there are other competing and only slightly less unreal projects around. B’ville is even more incredible. Have you seen that? There is a guy holed up there who has started his own World Bank.
TCO [May 29, 2006 @ 2:33 pm]