HONG KONG / EAST TIMOR
Chan Cheong ran on behalf of October Review in a mainly working class constituency. He gained 3421 votes (4.2%). Here is a summary of his platform.
### Main Themes:
• Promote democratic changes in mainland China, end CCP one-party rule, return power to the people and realize democratic unification of China on a democratic basis.
• Defend the rights of workers and grassroots organizations, and, based on the self-organization of the masses, strive for a universally elected People's Congress of Hong Kong to exercise full power and realize democratic self-rule.
### Basic Positions:
• Strengthen the solidarity of the people in mainland China and Hong Kong, support the people in mainland China in their struggle for democracy; end CCP one-party rule, return power to the people, democratically draft a new constitution.
• The sovereignty of Hong Kong belongs to the people of China. Strive for the convening of a universally elected People's Congress of Hong Kong to exercise full power and end colonial rule, define the political, economic and social system in Hong Kong and the rights of citizens, realize highly autonomous and democratic self-rule, and finally come to democratic unification of
China.
• Hong Kong deputies to National People's Congress to be directly elected and responsible to the people of Hong Kong.
• Rescind the undemocratic Basic Law, democratically draft a Self-rule Law. • All key questions related to Hong Kong to be decided according to the wishes of all Hong Kong citizens by mechanisms such as universal referendum;
against monopoly and manipulation by the authorities.
• Support all democratic reforms favourable to the masses; for direct elections to all councils.
• Promote the self-organization and mobilization of the masses to realize democratic self-rule and to counter attempts by CCP and Britain to find professional elite successors to rule Hong Kong.
• Defend living standards against inflation; defend right to jobs; for a full social security system; for the equality of the sexes. *
Massacre highlights repression
THE MASSACRE by Indonesian troops of as many as 200 mourners at a funeral in East Timor has thrown the spotlight of media attention on one of the world's bloodiest and most tenacious national liberation struggles.
### BERNARD GIBBONS
HE carnage took place on November 12 in East Timor's capital, Dili, at the funeral of a Timorese youth, Sebastao Gomes, who had been killed by Indonesian security forces on October 28. According to the military version of events, a pistol was fired and a grenade thrown before the army opened fire.
However, two US journalists who witnessed the massacre and were badly beaten by Indonesian troops confirmed that the army had simply fired thousand of rounds into the crowd of 3,500 who emerged from the funeral Mass holding banners calling for self-determination for East Timor.
A linguistic misunderstanding
Subsequently, the Indonesian army's regional commander, Major-General Sintong Panjaitan, alleged that the death toll was only 15 and tried to explain the shootings as the result of a linguistic misunderstanding, claiming that his troops mistook the order "don't fire" for "fire". This rather unlikely account is hardly borne out by eyewitness accounts of troops savagely beating the wounded and turning away ambulances which had arrived on the scene.
Since the killings, human rights organizations estimate that up to 400 participants at the funeral have been arrested and tortured, and the Red Cross has been refused permission to visit the wounded. In the past few days, there have been reports of as many as three further massacres.
East Timor, formerly a Portuguese colony, has been occupied by Indonesia since road to democracy in Hong Kong. At the same time the Western election model favours the rich and powerful.
For the moment grassroots power, independent of the CCP regime or the British colonial regime is generally very weak, both in terms of the organization and mobilization of the masses and from the point of view of formulating programmes.
Despite very limited human and material resources, Chan Cheong, representing October Review, managed to take part in the election to put forward a program exposing the fake "representative government" system and putting forward an unequivocal view of the relationships between mainland China and Hong Kong, radical democracy and other social issues.
### Generally favourable reception
The program received a generally favourable reception in the media and among some grassroots activists.
During the election campaign period, some vanguard groups drafted a Women's Program, a Workers' Program and a Students' Program, constituting voices alternative to parliamentary politics. They raised an important idea; let the grassroots define their own demands and 12 not just give their votes to a particular candidate or party.
However these programs were only the work of small groups, and were not widely discussed among women, workers or students themselves.
Now that the elections are over, the discussions among grassroots organizations on the programs and the actual task of organizing must continue. *
International Viewpoint #218 • December 9, 1991
December 1975. An estimated 30,000 Indonesian soldiers are currently deployed in this country of 700,000 inhabitants, confronting a poorly armed guerilla army led by the Timorese liberation movement, Fretilin (Frente Revolucionario de Este Timor Independente).
The situation in Dili had been tense since the announcement on October 24 that a visit to the territory by a Portuguese parliamentary delegation, aimed at resolving the dispute over East Timor's status, had been suspended. Timorese said there had been heavy military intimidation and threats against local people prior to the scheduled visit in order to prevent them from expressing support for self-determination.
The massacre was strongly condemned by Portugal (still recognized by the United Nations as the legal administrative power in East Timor), which has called for an international inquiry and asked the EC to consider severing all relations with Indonesia. A national day of mourning for the victims of the massacre was held in Portugal on November 19.
Netherlands suspends aid
The Netherlands has already suspended aid to the Djakarta regime. The US state department limited itself to expressing "regret" and calling for a "prompt and full investigation" . For its part, the British government has ruled out any arms embargo against Indonesia.
Australia, a few hundred kilometers away, is one of the few countries that recognizes Indonesian sovereignty in East Timor. Its notoriously lachrymose Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, had no tears to shed for the victims of the military, merely calling for "a thorough investigation" . Australia and Indonesia recently signed the Timor Gap treaty, with a view to exploring the potentially rich oil reserves beneath the Timor Sea, and Canberra is clearly not going to allow human rights considerations to undermine the opening to Asia which is becoming increasingly central to its economic strategy.
Nonetheless, the Hawke government has been shaken by the massacre and the angry protests which followed in most of Australia's major cities, and it is moderating somewhat its pro-Indonesian tone.
The Indonesian government, accustomed to carrying out the most savage butchery without a peep of protest from Western governments and media, appears to be somewhat taken aback even by these restrained protests - an "Israeli-style" inquiry is now to be set up to limit the damage, presided over by a retired military notable.
The eastern part of the island of Timor was under Portuguese control for four centuries: following the overthrow of the Caetano dictatorship in Portugal in April 1974, Fretilin was formed in September 1974 as a broad front against the colonial
EAST TIMOR presence.
There followed
1000 miles
CHINA a brief period of
INDIA
1600 km civil war with a more conservative
PACIFIC OCEAN group, the UDT,
THAILAND in which an esti-
VIETNAM mated 3,000 peo-
GAMBODIA
PHILIPPINES ple died, but
Fretilin had estab-
KUALA
~
MALAYSIA
LUMPUR• lished effective
SINGAPORE O control of the country by Sep-
N DO N tember 1975.
INDIAN OCEAN
TIMOR
JAKARTA•
SEA
An Australian
DILI
MP, Ken Fry, who visited East Timor visited Fast Timor in that month, observed that "the Fretilin administration was responsible and moderate and had the massive support of the people of East Timor... The civil war had ended". . His testimony is significant, because one of the pretexts for the subsequent Indonesian invasion was the need to end the civil war, together with the alleged "Communist threat" represented by Fretilin. In fact Fretilin's "Catholic populist" programme, centring around a literacy and health drive and the beginning of an attempt to plan the development of the country's economy in accordance with popular needs, owed much more to Paulo Freire than to Mao Zedong; but even the prospect of such a goverment, in a strategically sensitive area, was too much for President Suharto's "New Order" regime in Djakarta and a US government still reeling from its defeat in Vietnam.
US gives support to invasion
On November 28, 1975 the Democratic Republic of East Timor was proclaimed. Indonesia invaded on December 7, 1975, the invasion coming within 12 hours of a visit to Indonesia by US President Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Three US destroyers participated in the Indonesian military blockade of East Timor, and Congress voted to double military aid to Djakarta a few days after the attack.
The US, Britain, France and Germany abstained on a subsequent resolution in the UN condemning the invasion (which was nonetheless passed) - however the UN Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution on December 22, 1975, calling for the unconditional withdrawal of Indonesian troops.
Using chemical and biological weapons, the Indonesians killed an estimated 10% of the Timorese population in the first six months of the invasion — in July 1976 Bast Timor was formally annexed as Indonesia's 27th province. In 15 years of military occupation, it is estimated that a third of the population of East Timor (or around 200,000 people have died.
It is hardly necessary to point out the
### EAST Darwin
TIMOR AUSTRALIA parallels with Iraq's annexation of Kuwait, nor the very different response shown to the aggression by the major imperialist powers. Western governments have continued to maintain the closest economic, political, and military links with the Djakarta dictatorship (the United States and Britain are Indonesia's main arms suppliers, while Australia provides military and intelligence training).
The media have connived in covering up the crimes of the Suharto regime both in Indonesia and East Timor (thus, preposterously, the Financial Times' Claire Bolderson claimed on March 22 of this year: "Indonesians are immensely proud of their democracy [in which] "opposition" is a dirty word and the bickerings and snipings of western democratic practice are scorned. Potentially divisive voting ... is almost unheard of"- this happy state of affairs having been brought about through 25 years of military-backed tyranny and the slaughter of up to a million Communists and members of the Chinese minority between 1965 and 1969).
Opportunity for solidarity
Nonetheless, the obvious embarrassment of Western governments at having their double standards so blatantly exposed provides a good opportunity to build solidarity with Fretilin and its call for self-determination and an international arms embargo against Indonesia, especially in those countries most complicit with the Suharto dictatorship.
It should also provide an opportunity to focus on solidarity with the movement for democracy within Indonesia. Perhaps the most sıgnificant protest against the massacre took place in Djakarta itself, where about 200 people demonstrated on Tuesday, November 19, with banners calling for self-determination for East Timor (70 were subsequently arrested). This, with other as yet modest developments (like the formation of an independent Indonesian trade union at the end of last year) indicates that time might be slowly running out for a regime that deserves to be ranked 13 among the most bestial on the planet. *