Antony Loewenstein

East Timor’s Prime Minster, Mari Alkatiri, has resigned, but the story behind the country’s recent turmoil remains highly suspicious. One of Australia’s finest journalists, John Martinkus, has discovered the situation is far more complex than we have been led to believe:

In a wide-ranging interview last week, East Timor’s embattled Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri accused opposition groups and their foreign supporters of repeatedly trying to convince prominent commanders in the East Timorese armed forces to overthrow his government in an armed coup. “They were always trying to get the command of Falintil, F-FDTL. They tried to convince the command to order and participate in a coup. They failed.” It was then he said his opponents embarked on a program to weaken the influence of the military. “When they failed to bring the command to join their forces in a coup then what they did is they tried to break Falintil F-FDTL and they did it by bringing out of the barracks almost 600 which they called the petitioners.”

For the first time Prime Minister Alkatiri has given his version of what exactly led to the chaos in the capital Dili in late May and the breakdown of law and order that led to 130,000 internal refugees and the deployment of 2,200 troops from Australia, New Zealand and Malaysia to quell the violence. He says his political opponents exploited ethnic divisions within the police force to create unrest. “Then they try to influence the PNTL [East Timor National police force]. How did they do it? Through this kind of propaganda, Loromunu, Loro Sae [West vs. East]. They succeeded in dividing the people within the PNTL. This is the whole strategy. Then they put groups of PNTL against groups of F-FDTL in confrontation. And they succeeded again. This is why I requested assistance from outside,” he said.

Senior sources within the command of the East Timorese armed forces; the F-FDTL confirmed that not one but three separate attempts had been made to the leadership of the F-FDTL to lead a coup against Prime Minister Alkatiri in the last 18 months.

At best, Australia’s intentions are questionable.

The LA Times may claim that at least 50,000 Iraqis have been killed since the 2003 “liberation” – a grossly conservative figure, it seems – the Washington Post provides space for Richard Perle to demand US action on Iran:

I know it is not too late for us, not too late to give substance to Bush’s words, not too late to redeem our honour.

Perle and honour aren’t two words that automatically spring to mind.  The fact that the Post still publishes people like Perle proves that the establishment respects individuals who express hyperbole and advocate war, yet refuse to take responsibility for their past, criminal actions.

The Western “mission” to bring democracy and freedom to Afghanistan has failed (the actual plan was to deliver compliant warlordism to the long-suffering population).

Jason Burke explains why.

Bolivia has good reason to distrust the US:

President Evo Morales drew a sharp denial from the U.S. Embassy when he claimed in a speech that the United States is sending soldiers disguised as students and tourists to Bolivia.

The U.S. Embassy called Morales‘ charge “unfounded,” saying in a statement: “We reiterate once more that we are supporting Bolivian democracy in a consistent way.” 

Meanwhile, Chilean people-power takes to the streets:

It was every adolescent revolutionary’s dream: schools throughout the country were occupied and the gates were barricaded.

But this was about more than student proficiency. What started in April, as a gripe against school bus fares and university entrance exam fees, rapidly grew into a nationwide movement demanding quality education for all Chileans, irrespective of class, ability or spending power. Since Pinochet stood down sixteen years ago, no other mass movement has so successfully challenged the legitimacy of the neo-liberal state the General left behind him.

Is there a relatively unseen revolution occurring in China?

The following letter appears in today’s Australian newspaper:

Elisabeth Wynhausen’s piece (“Careful, they might hear you“, Inquirer, 10-11/6) is rife with inaccuracies, contradictions and non sequiturs.

For example, she provides evidence that the policy positions of the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council reflect the views of the majority of Australian Jewry. But then she expends most of the space in a transparent attempt to portray AIJAC’s advocacy as non-mainstream, wrong-headed, and somehow stifling of debate.

Further, Wynhausen implies that Jewish activists in Australia inappropriately brand critics of Israel as anti-Semitic but she provides not a single example.

As for claims we “bully” editors, AIJAC’s conversations with the media are not to prevent them publishing criticism of Israel but to encourage them to provide a balance by also running pieces explaining and giving sorely needed context to Israel’s actions.

Many groups in Australian society engage politicians, the media and others of influence. It is part of what makes us a democracy, and constitutes participation in debate, not its suppression. It is unfortunate that some see it as somehow sinister or inappropriate when Jews, and only when Jews, exercise this right.
Colin Rubenstein
Executive director, AIJAC

Rubenstein is being disingenuous. Nobody is suggesting Jews don’t have the right to lobby, agitate and promote their agenda. The issue is the ways in which it is done. As we’ve seen recently, Zionist lobbying regularly involves threats and vitriol, causing the opposite of the desired effect. Furthermore, more and more Jews are simply disengaging from the Zionist project. Rubenstein doesn’t have any answers to this dilemma, except stronger promotion of Israel’s exclusionary ideology.

Charles Krauthammer loves Australia and explains why our “geographic and historical isolation has bred a wisdom about the structure of peace.” This “peace” has been ensured, he laughably argues, by joining every imperial adventure over the last century. An independent foreign policy is scorned, but servitude is praised.

The friends we keep…

The Wall Street Journal opinion editor says gay marriage could lead to marrying snakes.

Really.

Afghanistan is a failed state, a nation run by warlords, drug runners and terrorists. Australian troops are supporting a regime that is just full of good ideas:

The war against the Taliban has gone badly these last months, but Afghanistan’s national intelligence agency has devised a secret plan to reverse the tide of bad news.

In a coordinated action this week, the intelligence operatives drove up to TV stations and newspapers in muscular SUVs and dropped off an unsigned letter ordering journalists to report more favourable news about the government.

In particular, the letter said, they should avoid “materials which deteriorate people’s morale and cause disappointment to them.”

The security directorate’s letter also demands special protection for the feelings of the mujahedeen – veterans of the 1980s guerrilla groups that fought Soviet occupation. Many mujahedeen leaders are reviled in Afghanistan for destroying the country in civil war after the Soviet withdrawal – but they regained positions of power by providing the ground forces that helped the U.S.-led military coalition topple the Taliban in 2001.

They are not to be criticized or called “warlords” – a common term in Afghanistan for the more powerful among them, it specified. And Afghans called back by Karzai from exile abroad to take posts in the government are not to be called “westernized.”

And who is really behind such moves?

Whatever the incident may mean about the maturing skills of Afghanistan’s CIA-mentored intelligence community, it is just more bad news for the 4-year-old independent press.

John Pilger, June 22:

These days Australia likes to present itself as a helpful, generous neighbour of East Timor, after public opinion forced the government of John Howard to lead a UN peacekeeping force six years ago. East Timor is now an independent state, thanks to the courage of its people and a tenacious resistance led by the liberation movement Fretilin, which in 2001 swept to political power in the first democratic elections. In regional elections last year, 80 percent of votes went to Fretilin, led by Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri, a convinced “economic nationalist,” who opposes privatization and interference by the World Bank. A secular Muslim in a largely Roman Catholic country, he is, above all, an anti-imperialist who has stood up to the bullying demands of the Howard government for an undue share of the oil and gas spoils of the Timor Gap.

On April 28 last, a section of the East Timorese army mutinied, ostensibly over pay. An eyewitness, Australian radio reporter Maryann Keady, disclosed that American and Australian officials were involved. On May 7, Alkatiri described the riots as an attempted coup and said that “foreigners and outsiders” were trying to divide the nation. A leaked Australian Defense Force document has since revealed that Australia’s “first objective” in East Timor is to “seek access” for the Australian military so that it can exercise “influence over East Timor’s decision-making.” A Bushite “neocon” could not have put it better. 

Israeli human rights group B’Tselem releases a statement:

IDF Killed 23 Civilians in Gaza in the Past Month “By Mistake”

In the last four weeks, according to B’Tselem’s statistics, Israel ‘s security forces in the Occupied Territories killed 23 Palestinian bystanders, who the military indicated they did not intend to kill. Among them were 7 children. All were killed by helicopter missile fire, excluding one killed by artillery fire.

The statistics relate to the period of 20/05/2006 – 21/06/2006, and do not include the members of the Ghaliah family, in regard to whom B’Tselem cannot currently confirm with certainty who is responsible for their deaths. 

Mick Dodson, The Age, June 22:

It’s not easy to separate some reasonable messages Tony Abbott was trying to deliver yesterday without getting caught up in the “put-down” language adopted in his speech to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.

But why does he wrap that up in language about paternalism rather than describing it as a basic responsibility of government to the citizens of Maningrida, just as it is to the citizens of Manly?