An independent East Timor - a promotion of vested interests? (The Straits Times)

Nalapat, M D. New Straits Times; Kuala Lumpur [Kuala Lumpur]11 Sep 1999: 12.

​SINCE Kofi Annan replaced the independent-minded Boutros Boutros Ghali years ago, he has allowed the conversion of the United Nations from a genuinely international organisation into an open facilitator of the colonial-era system of western privilege.

Hence his silence over the continued illegal bombing of Iraq by US-UK jets.

The latest action in support of this humiliating role has been the despatch of an observer mission to East Timor, dominated by the very countries that seek to carve out an independent East Timor merely to satisfy their desire to implant a new Nato base in the Asean region.

Under uncle Kofi and his western masters, the UN has begun the precedent of the former colonial power having the major say in deciding the future of territories.

This fits in with British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook's assertion that as the "former colonial power" the United Kingdom has special responsibilities in the Indian subcontinent.

Thanks to this pandering to the dictates of the former colonial powers, Portugal has superceded Indonesia in confabulations on East Timor.

Indeed, the role of Jakarta under President Habibie, according to the UN, is to supinely accept Nato diktat conveyed through the UN.

Soon, this is likely to include forced assent to armed troops from Nato and its regional surrogates, Australia and New Zealand.

Both are white-dominated countries with immigration policies that seek to preserve western privilege in Asia.

According to UN headquarters, 99.6 per cent of the approximately 800,000 inhabitants of East Timor voted in the referendum.

Previously, the Western media had itself reported that numerous inhabitants of the territory had migrated to regions outside their homes, as well as out of the territory altogether.

Education levels, thanks largely to sustained neglect of the local population by Portugal, is abysmal.

However, the people scattered all across the territory and outside, who had never previously had access to democratic methods, miraculously cast their ballots en masse on Aug 30.

The "results" of the referendum parallel the outcomes of polls in such bastions of democracy as South Korea.

But, if we are to believe the UN and the Western chancelleries, while similar results anywhere else are fraudulent, the East Timor verdict is totally genuine.

Had such a near-complete turnout of the voting population been recorded anywhere else, it would have been derided as fake by the very same Western powers who organised this fraud, in order to promote their perceived strategic interests by carving a Christian-majority country out of a Muslim one.

Logistically, at least a tenth of voters keep away from booths thanks to illness or lassitude, thus leading to a clear presumption of rigging in cases where the voting percentage climbs above an (improbably high) 90 per cent.

In the East Timor case, the 99.6 per cent figure makes it no longer a presumption but a fact.

In India for instance, only in booths known for rigging have voting figures crossed 90 per cent.

East Timor is only the latest example of the penchant of former colonial powers for geopolitical engineering, of which the creation of Pakistan in 1947 was an early example.

Thanks to German pressure to reward its World War II allies, the Croats, Yugoslavia was carved up into a medley of states by 1992.

Had India been as weak as Yugoslavia, by now an "independent" state would have arisen in Kashmir thanks to US-UK pressure for the same that has never wavered since 1948.

Sadly, the Habibie administration allowed itself to be rail-roaded into a referendum organised by the very powers that seek an "independent" East Timor under their grasp.

This will never happen in a Malaysia led by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

Nato-ordered independence for East Timor may open the gates for similar movements in Aceh, Irian Jaya and other Indonesian provinces.

Extremist tendencies among the Muslim majority can be expected to develop in the face of the vivisection of the archipelago-state, and this could lead to an independence movement in Bali, a Hindu-majority province that is a symbol of Indonesia's religious tolerance.

Altogether, there is a high prospect of Indonesia unravelling as a consequence of a Timor surrender.

Ironically, this will impact negatively on the Nato powers themselves, by creating instability and chaos not just in Indonesia, but in nearby countries.

It will lead to Australia playing a colonising role by sending in troops into the region, in an effort to protect the white-dominated Nato alliance from a self-generated quagmire.

A moderate Indonesia is worth much more to the basic interests of the US-EU combine than any likely benefit from a protectorate, headquartered at Dili.

However, try telling that to Nato's geopolitical cowboys, especially an Australia raring to re-establish European-race dominance in the Asean region on the back of Nato.

The only hope now is that the armed forces and the business community in Indonesia will respect the verdict of the Indonesian people and anoint Megawati Sukarnoputri as the next President of Indonesia.

The PDI-P chief has already hinted she will not allow an independent East Timor, only an autonomous province that retains its cultural distinctiveness while posing no danger to her country's stability.

If she gets sworn in and is able to implement her policy, Indonesia may yet be saved from the chaos planned for it by the neo-colonisers in Nato.