Freedom of information?
On December 16, [ABC journalist] Geraldine Doogue interviewed an Australian National University lecturer about the situation in Aceh. Though Geraldine's questions were incisive and to the point, the answers were evasive without any possible negative implication, let alone statistics, or mention of what role Australia played in equipping and maintaining the Indonesian army.
This is not surprising as all previous interviews with ANU professors or lecturers were remarkably of the same policy — "we have to be friends" or in more realistic terms, let's not kill the fat pig (oil, mining, cheap labour, etc). However, at what price?
The billions of dollars Australia poured into that bottomless vat went at the cost of our underfunded education system, social security system, hospital system, country development, especially in Western Australia, Aboriginal youth training programs, etc.
The above could be repeated for Indonesia, as well as the thousands of people slaughtered by (the Australian-trained) Indonesian army!
While the ABC regularly reminds us of the German Holocaust after 60 years, the holocausts of our poor black neighbours seem to be of no concern whatsoever.
Josie Leeden
South Perth WA [Abridged.]
East Timor riots
The recent riots in East Timor had two fundamental causes: widespread corruption and profiteering.
In a recent communication from Barry and Michelle Wickes, of Aussie Boats for East Timor (ABET), it was pointed out that the Hello Mr supermarket, which was burned to the ground, very definitely put profits before people.
To its already inflated prices, the conversion from Australian to American dollars was made without any price adjustments. A consignment of wheat from China, instead of being doled out to starving people in Suai and Samai, was instead sold by government officials.
Barry and a Reuters reporter discovered an illegal logging operation, involving 5000 logs on the beach awaiting shipment and another 2000 hidden in the jungle. When the Reuters reporter started taking photographs his camera was smashed and he and Barry were threatened with a bashing.
While the ordinary people in East Timor languish in the economic doldrums, Prime Minister Alkatiri and his brother were putting the finishing touches to their new luxury houses, which the people burnt down.
NGOs like ABET have containers (costing $25 per day) piled up at Dili wharf which they are unable to open because the corrupt minister of customs has placed seals on them.
Any unauthorised attempts to open the containers bring down heavy fines. In one of ABET's containers, there are wheelchairs desperately needed for incapacitated young people; other containers contain essential humanitarian aid.
The poverty and corruption in East Timor represents a failure by the international community and particularly by Australia. White Shoe Brigade carpetbaggers moved into East Timor early. Some work closely with mates in the United Nations, following peacekeepers from war zone to war zone in order to get in first with their businesses.
For example, one entrepreneur set up expensive floating accommodation in Dili harbour. Last Christmas, while the expat community flocked onboard for champagne-flowing celebrations, the hungry and ragged were held back by armed troops.
Is it any surprise that those who have endured 400 years of colonial occupation and repression by Indonesia and Portugal, with 300,000 of their people slaughtered, should now kick conspicuous consumption in the teeth?
Gareth Smith
Byron Bay NSW
[Abridged.]
Dob in a terrorist
Whatever does the prime minister mean by the $25 million dob-in-a-terrorist campaign? He can't say dob what or dob whom, but no hoax calls about Muslims please. The 500 calls on the first day were a waste of time, like most police work, Mr Howard says. We are told not to be paranoid, but what else can we be?
Frank and fearless in condemning these weird fires in detention centres? The December 31 Financial Review, page 6, reveals that the Centre Emergency Response Teams at Woomera and Port Hedland raided sleeping detainees before dawn to separate families and this triggered protests. Strangely, that was not on the news. Just firecrackers.
As Mike Moore says in Stupid White Men, heightening community tension makes us fearful and obedient. Maybe we are just being softened up for the war of 2003.
Yvonne Francis
Nuclear Disarmament Party
Queanbeyan NSW
Socialist Alliance
Jeff Sparrow ("Write On", GLW 521) claims that because the left organisations affiliated to the Socialist Alliance (SA) continue to hold positions that have historically distinguished and divided them, it will be impossible for our unity to function. But we have already shown unity in action around elections, refugee rights and anti-war work, and around union work and are taking measures to develop this unity in action further.
Left unity does not develop from people proclaiming their abstract hope for it and waiting passively for others to change their entire political program. It develops from working together where we can agree and, through the closer collaborations arising from this, debating our differences in a comradely atmosphere.
Sparrow asks what the SA would do in a situation like the East Timor crisis of 1999. Perhaps we would do what we did to overcome lesser differences at our founding conference: have a debate, take a vote and act on the decision adopted by the majority! We'd recognise that the "losers" still have a right to try to convince the majority that its position is mistaken, but should not actively disrupt the alliance's effort to act on the position adopted by the majority of its members or elected delegates.
Of course, there is the possibility that issues will arise that are so divisive that they will damage or split the alliance, but do we give up now based on the chance that this may happen in the future?
Sparrow claims that the Democratic Socialist Party (DSP) has argued "that political differences between the socialist tendencies have vanished". Not true: What we have argued is that on the important issues of the day many of the old differences have become less of an impediment to collaboration. Indeed, Socialist Alternative (SAlt) has recognised the same fact in relation to one of alliance's affiliates — the International Socialist Organisation (ISO).
Sparrow says the "struggle" over the future of the SA between the DSP and the ISO has been "subterranean". But it's been published in GLW and on the SA web site. How much more public does it have to be!
He goes on to assert that the SA has been "unable to rally supporters for any of the recent anti-war or refugee demonstrations". Well, I can only speak for Hobart, and here, people have come up to me and other SA comrades at anti-war and refugee rights rallies to thank us for what we have done to build these protest actions.
Shua Garfield
Hobart
US-Australia alliance
One of the more curious reasons being given for Australia assisting in a US-led war on Iraq is the hope this will convince the US to aid Australia if we are attacked. This argument relies on the extremely dubious premise that America would help defend Australia if we support war, but would not if we don't.
Are we to back the US in every war it fights, no matter how unjust? Why not, instead, encourage nations to support just wars, but oppose unjust ones, ideally via a more democratic and powerful United Nations? This stance would exert pressure to produce better global outcomes, and, by this principle, if Australia were illegitimately attacked, other nations (including the US) would lend assistance if required.
We can't have one standard for Australia and a different standard for other countries. But if perceived national interest, not ethics, guides military action globally, many nations will side with anti-US forces, even on occasions when the US is right. Is this a state of affairs the pro-US lobby would endorse?
Brent Howard
Rydalmere NSW
North Korea
Once again the federal Labor Party appears to be trying to out do the Coalition parties as the most rabid supporter of the United States of America's war policies.
Hard on the heels of federal opposition leader Simon Crean's confirmation that there are conditions under which the federal ALP would support an attack on Iraq without United Nations Security Council approval, we have other federal ALP members engaging in a campaign of hysteria designed to whip up support for a bombing campaign against North Korea.
The allegation that North Korea represents a danger to Australia is laughable.
What are the weapons of mass destruction that Senator Crossin says North Korea has? If North Korea "has up to three nuclear warheads", as ALP foreign affairs spokesperson Kevin Rudd claims, why would it waste one on Darwin, at the extreme limit of their range? The dangerous bases for North Korea are in South Korea, Japan and Guam, followed by aircraft carriers.
America says it does not intend to invade North Korea but they appear to be going to bomb it into dust unless it becomes one more lackey state.
Col Friel
Alawa NT
No cricket with Zimbabwe
No cricket with Zimbabwe, say Messrs Howard and Downer. It has a shocking record on human rights!
Meanwhile, Australia's foreign policy is to support the government of Israel — a government that on a daily basis breaks international law, defies UN resolutions, disregards conventions on human rights, and the rights of the child. Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners and the targeting of non combatants are routinely ignored.
Australia supports a regime involved in ethnic cleansing by virtue of its policy of demolishing the homes of Palestinians who have committed no crime and of systematically destroying Palestinian infrastructure.
Australia supports this regime that has denied refugees, displaced 50 years ago, the right to return to their homes and furthermore steals those same homes and land for use by immigrant Jews; with an army whose killing record includes a disproportionate number of children killed with single shot(no accident).
Australia continues to support this government even as it ignores centuries of democratic principles of law — bombs entire neighbourhoods in order to kill one "suspect"; has a government policy of assassinating "suspects" and condones extra-judicial executions.
Bleeding-heart notions of justice, habeas corpus, presumption of innocence, rights to a trial, and basic human rights have no meaning for the indigenous people of Palestine nor it appears for those that support our government's policies on the issue. But, definitely, we should not play cricket with a regime that targets white farmers!
Peter Baker
Lindisfarne Tas
Protest now
I do not want to walk against the war on Iraq's people after it begins. I want to shout out now to preserve the peace. I want to join a "forward deployment" not to wage war, but to prevent the peace being broken.
I do not need body bags to reinforce my opinion.
I do not want the silence of the lambs to be followed by bleating bishops and protesting professionals crying "All we are saying, is give peace a chance".
I have peace now, and I want to protect it.
Even if Britain and the US gain UN Security Council endorsement for their invasion that will not make it morally right nor be an indication of approval of the peoples of the world.
We have to act now to prevent the war. We are five weeks or so away from the gravest political crisis since the end of the Cold War. Unless the UN inspectors do find something by the end of this month, there will not be even the flimsiest of pretexts when a war against Iraq is unleashed to enhance the wealth and power of oil-thirsty America led by George "Dubiously Elected" Bush. Doubt it is about oil? Ask Jack Straw (see Sydney Morning Herald, January 8).
Do not be like our prime minister who cries over war graves, but does nothing to prevent the outbreak of war.
Cliff Baxter From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, January 22, 2003.
Newtown NSW [Abridged]
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