Anti-ANZAC riots rock East Timor

All these anzac pigs can fuck off out of the Pacific......Haere Atu Poaka

Riots have broken out in East Timor's two largest cities, as opponents of new Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao confront Anzac police and soldiers. Gusmao's National Congress for Timorese Reconstruction party won only 22% of the vote in last month's parliamentary elections, trailing behind its rival Fretilin. Gusmao has been able to take power this week because of the intervention of his close ally, President Jose Ramos-Horta, who invoked a clause in East Timor's constitution that gave him the power to decree a government.




Fretilin activists have been outraged by Horta's act, insisting that their party has the right to form an administration because it won the largest share of the vote and the largest number of seats in parliament. Fretilin leader and former Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri told the Sydney Morning Herald that 'People are really frustrated…they voted for Fretilin, expecting Fretilin to govern the country and suddenly with some kind of interpretation of the constitution, the second party was invited in'.

The riots began after protesters in the capital Dili and the eastern town of Bacau were confronted by Australian and New Zealand soldiers and police. Refusing orders to disperse, the protesters, who chanted 'Down with John Howard!' and held banners denouncing Horta as an Australian puppet, built barricades of burning tyres and threw rocks at police and soldiers. Australian troops opened fire after youths smashed the windows of their vehicle near the pro-Fretilin Comoro refugee camp on the outskirts of Dili. The camp has been a centre of anti-occupation protest since Australian troops shot and killed two of its residents on February the 22nd. The Australian embassy was targeted by rock throwers, and in Bacau a building associated with the UN was burnt down. Protesters attacked New Zealand army vehicles in both cities.




It is not surprising that protesters have chosen to express their anger at Gusmao's illegitimate government by attacking Anzac forces and property. For more than a year now, John Howard's administration has been flagrantly interfering in Timorese affairs on behalf of its close allies Gusmao and Horta. In the first half of 2006 Howard's government waged a campaign to destabilise the Fretilin-dominated government of Alkatiri by splitting the army and police forces, funding anti-secular demonstrations by the country's powerful Catholic church, and spreading anti-Muslim and anti-communist smears against Alkatiri. The result was a wave of violence which was used to pressure Fretilin into agreeing to the deployment of an Anzac 'peacekeeping force' of soldiers and police.



Howard used the occupying force to secure Alkatiri's resignation, and to make Horta temporary Prime Minister in his place. In response, Horta lavishly praised Australian and American foreign policy and took a much more conciliatory attitude to plans to expand Australian exploitation of oil fields in the Timor Gap. But political and social stability proved hard to restore, and last February and March riots shook Dili in response to the killings of Timorese civilians by Anzac troops who had been deployed against Horta's enemies. During this year's Presidential and parliamentary elections, Anzac troops were often used to bully Fretilin opponents of Horta and Gusmao. When John Howard visited Dili at the end of July to give his support to a Gusmao government he was met by protesters demanding an end to the Anzac presence in their country. The new uprising in Dili and Bacau only proves how widespread opposition to the occupation has become.

Anti-ANZAC riots rock East Timor
http://indymedia.org.nz/newswire/display/73474/index.php

Related

* http://readingthemaps.blogspot.com

East Timor: Refugees and street youth attack cops, foreign troops, aid orgs

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East Timor: Australia's Shame

http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=20060525091427856

On the Eve of a Free Trade Area of the Pacific: Occupation, neo-colonialism and enclosure

http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=20070612183618607

Death of A Nation

On December 7, 1975 Indonesia secretly - but with the complicity of the Western powers including the US, the UK, and Australia - invaded the small nation of East Timor. Two Australian television crews attempting to document the invasion were murdered.

In 1993, with the Indonesian army still occupying the country, John Pilger and his crew including director David Munro, slipped into East Timor and made this film. In the intervening 18 years, an estimated 200,000 East Timorese - 1/3 of the population - had been slaughtered by the Indonesian military. The C.I.A. has described it as one of the worst mass-murders of the 20th century.

Pilger tells the story using clandestine footage of the countryside, internment camps and even Fretlin guerillas, as well as interviews with Timorese exiles, including Jose Ramos Horta and Jose Gusmao, and Australian, British, and Indonesian diplomats.

Nixon had called Indonesia the "greatest prize in southeast Asia" because of its oil reserves and other natural resources. Even though Indonesia had no historic or legal claim to East Timor, it was convenient for diplomats to declare that East Timor, just gaining its independence from Portugal, would not be a viable state.

However the lie was given to this argument when Australia and Indonesia signed the Timor Gap Oil Treaty and carved up the huge oil and gas reserves in the seabed off East Timor.

None of the politicians from that period - President Ford, Henry Kissinger, Daniel Moynihan, Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Gough Whitlam - has clean hands. The Indonesian military used US and British planes to bombard the island, while the defense ministers proclaimed ignorance.

As Pilger gets an Australian diplomat to admit, East Timor was considered "expendable."

But no one watching the massacre in the Dili cemetery can excuse the geopolitical machinations that led to this genocide

Message to S Pacific Forum

To the Honourable Members States of the South Pacific Forum,

We representatives of the Pacific Nations of Australia, Aotearoa, Bougainville, East Timor, Papua New Guinea, Te Ao Maohi (French Polynesia) and West Papua, gathered in Sydney, April 1998, reaffirm, on behalf of all Indigenous peoples of our vast region, that the Pacific lands and waters are our ancestral home.

We reassert our inalienable right to our sovereignty and reject the last remaining tentacles of colonisation which maintain their grip upon our region. As we enter the 21st Century we demand an end to colonisation in all its forms and declare our right to live in peace and prosperity with the lands and waters which gave us birth. We do this in honour and respect of our ancestors and of the unborn yet to come.

We note with concern that the 1997 South Pacific Forum Communique did not address the following:

1) The right to self-determination and independence for colonised peoples of the Pacific;

2) The proposed decommissioning of the United Nations’ Decolonisation Committee;

3) The exploitation of resources and continued environmental destruction;

4) The continued militarisation and nuclearisation of the Pacific region.

We therefore call on all South Pacific Forum Member States to include the following issues on the agenda at the 1998 South Pacific Forum to be held in the Federated States of Micronesia:

DECOLONISATION COMMITTEE:

We call for the extension of the mandate of the United Nations’ Decolonisation Committee beyond 2000; the reinscription of all colonised peoples with the Committee’s List of Non-Self-Governing Territories; and in particular for the inclusion of Te Ao Maohi (French Polynesia); West Papua, and Ka Pae’aina (Hawai’i) in that List.

We reaffirm our support for the right to all Indigenous peoples, including those of Aboriginal Australia and Aotearoa (New Zealand), to self-determination and independence but recognise that this year (1998) is a crucial year for the French colony of Te Ao Maohi (French Polynesia), following recent events in Kanaky (New Caledonia), and for the Indonesian colonies of West Papua and East Timor, following the overthrow of the Soeharto regime in Indonesia.

We remind the Honourable Members of the South Pacific Forum of the United Nations General Assembly resolution 1514 (XV), Declaration on the granting to independence to colonial countries and peoples, 14 December 1960, which states: "The subjection of peoples to alien subjugation, domination and exploitation constitutes a denial of fundamental human rights, is contrary to the Charter of the United Nations, and is an impediment to the promotion of world peace and co-operation. All peoples have the right to self-determination; by virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development."

This sentiment is repeated in numerous resolutions of the UN General Assembly, including the International Covenants on Human Rights. It is reflected in the UN International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism, which promises to end colonialism by the year 2000.

We remind Members that for the issue of the decolonisation of Te Ao Maohi (French Polynesia), West Papua and Ka Pae’aina (Hawai’i) to be placed on the UN Agenda they must first be placed on the Agenda of the South Pacific Forum. We call upon all nations of the Pacific, but particularly those which were once themselves colonised, to take the lead in this initiative.

PEACE INITIATIVES:

We call for South Pacific Forum Member-States to support the Bougainville Peace Plan and to ensure that the terms of any and all agreements are adhered to.

NUCLEAR ACTIVITIES AND MILITARISATION:

We call on South Pacific Member-States to take initiatives towards: the abolition of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons; an end to transshipment, storage and dumping of nuclear and toxic chemical waste in and through the Pacific; adequate compensation for all communities and peoples affected by nuclear testing especially in Te Ao Maohi (French Polynesia), Marshall Islands and Kiribati; and the cleanup and ongoing monitoring of sites left contaminated by nuclear testing.

RESOURCES EXPLOITATION AND ENVIRONMENTAL DESTRUCTION:

We note with grave concern the increasing environmental destruction caused by the exploitation of resources of indigenous lands and waters. We call for the rights of Indigenous peoples to determine priorities and strategies for the development and use of their lands. We also call for compensation for Indigenous peoples for the loss and damage of their lands and waters, and of their livelihoods, caused by resource exploitation. We remain concerned with the threat posed to our nations by climate change brought about by the activities of the more industrialised nations.

MULTI-LATERAL AGREEMENT ON INVESTMENT (MAI):

Concerned by the impact of globalisation, we call on South Pacific Member-States to completely reject the MAI. We are concerned that the present MAI treaty will give transnational companies unrestricted access to exploit our lands and waters. We assert our right to control of our lands, our waters and our labours. We call for adequate and appropriate equitable development which can lead our peoples out of the social and economic disadvantages propagated by colonisation in all its forms.

CONCLUSION:

In conclusion, we proclaim our determination to actively pursue an independent and nuclear free Pacific and to actively challenge issues affecting: our sovereignty, decolonisation and indigenous rights; our environment and resources; nuclearisation and militarisation; and, our economic, social and cultural development.

Signed: Representatives of Aotearoa, Australia, Bougainville, East Timor, Papua New Guinea, Te Ao Maohi and West Papua, April 1998. .............

This open letter to the Member States of the South Pacific Forum is for general distribution. It was created as a campaign tool leading up to the South Pacific Forum August 1998. We encourage all supporters of the Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific movement to lobby their own and other governments which are members of the SPF with these demands.

Also: could you please distribute this petition as widely as possible to networks around the world and return to: Zohl de Ishtar - or Pacific Concerns Resource Centre - 83 Amy St, Toorak, Private Mail Bag, Suva, Fiji. By 31st July 1998.

INDEPENDENCE AND SOVEREIGNTY FOR TE AO MAOHI (French Polynesia)

"We seek our dignity as a people to live freely in our own land."

We, the undersigned, give our support to the Maohi people of Te Ao Maohi (French Polynesia). We call on our governments to support the Maohi people’s right to self-determination and independence, to discuss this issue at the South Pacific Forum, and call for the re-inscription of French Polynesia on the list of non-self governing territories, with the United Nations Decolonisation Committee.

Name Address Signature

In solidarity,

Zohl de Ishtar Women for a Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific, Australia. International Peace Bureau, Oceania Representative (Female) for the representatives of the following countries:

Australia: Jenny Munro, Kathy Malera-Bandjalan, Zohl de Ishtar Aotearoa: Hone Harawira Bougainville: Moses Havini, Marilyn Havini, Vikki John East Timor: Ceu Brites PNG: Powes Parkop Te Ao Maohi: Tamara Bopp Du Pont, Marie Bopp, Auxilia Boobsie-Haereraaroa, Ahuura Paia. West Papua: Rex Rumakiek, John Ondawame, Dolly, Nell, Anne Noonan, Joe Collins, Kel Dummett, Linda Gale.

East Timor-Election

Last Updated 08/04/2007, 18:36:20

Police in East Timor have arrested more than 200 people in the lead up to tomorrow's election for a new president.

Anne Barker reports, political leaders have appealed for calm as voters head to the polls.

Dozens of people have been injured in the past two weeks in fighting and other skirmishes connected to the main political parties.

Virtually all 8 presidential candidates have accused rival groups of intimidation or violence in the leadup to the poll.

Police have arrested at least 200 people - although many have been released soon after.

More than five thousand police and international soldiers will be posted around the country tomorrow to protect the vote from violence.

Authorities have banned voters from carrying weapons in or near polling stations.

Police to 'blanket' E Timor violence

April 8, 2007

Authorities in East Timor are preparing to throw a "security blanket" over the tiny nation, as more than half a million locals head to the polls on Monday to select a new president.

Virtually every police officer in the country, local and international, will be on duty in a bid to calm the situation and prevent a repeat of the occasional violence and intimidation that marred the otherwise colourful two-week election campaign period.

Dozens of people were injured, and hundreds arrested, when rival political supporters clashed sporadically during the campaign.

"I hope, with this security blanket, the election will (proceed) peacefully," United Nations Police deputy commissioner Hermanprit Singh said.

There are eight candidates vying to replace charismatic independence fighter Xanana Gusmao in the largely ceremonial job.

"I believe people will behave very well," said Gusmao, who is not standing for re-election, but is expected to contest national parliamentary elections later this year.

"My hope is that the process can be very democratic and very fair."

Gusmao was speaking as Timorese authorities held a ceremony for the official distribution of the ballot papers across Dili's six sub-districts on Sunday.

Across the remote and mountainous nation, 90 horses, 400 porters, four helicopters and a series of vehicles were on Sunday distributing 600,000 papers to more than 500 polling centres and 700 polling stations ahead of Monday's vote.

Monday's poll is the first to be organised, conducted and supervised by East Timor authorities, and the first presidential poll since it gained independence from Indonesia in 2002.

More than 2,200 local and international observers have gathered to witness the vote.

But it is unlikely any of the three frontrunners - major party Fretilin's Franciso Guterres "Lu Olo", current Prime Minister Jose Ramos Horta or Democratic Party candidate Fernando "La Sama" de Araujo - will get the majority needed to win.

A run-off poll between the top two contenders is likely next month.

Deputy Commissioner Singh said thousands of police would patrol polling areas "to ensure there are no post-poll clashes between the rival supporters or to minimise such clashes if they were to happen".

He added there was a large number of gang leaders and gang members in custody on other matters who otherwise may have created problems during the poll.

Dili was quiet on Sunday as thousands attended church for Easter Sunday mass.

A letter from East Timor's two bishops to their congregations urged citizens to make a careful choice based on the competency of the candidates to run the country, their honesty and integrity, and their commitment to rebuilding the shattered nation.

"The church places important value on democracy, because democracy provides the opportunity for the nation to elect its own leader," the letter said.

"You should not give your hand to those leaders who only fight for their interests and their ideology to be in power."

© 2007 AAP

JOURNAL: Politics in East Timor

David Axe has an excellent series that can provide you a taste for the chaos in East Timor that Australian troops have been sent to quell. Vignettes include low-tech mechanized warfare:

Around here, bikers mean trouble. After all, who rides motorcycles? That’s right: young guys with too much free time and too much energy. The bikers are headed past my hostel and towards the other end of the street, so I follow. At a roundabout they converge, yell at each other some then scatter again. I’m starting to get a feel for what’s happening. This is mechanized political violence. Both sides have armies of dudes on bikes itching to fight. Only the U.N. is keeping them apart.

militias:

Last year, a former Timorese police officer, Major Alfredo Reinado, gathered a 600-strong army of disaffected policemen to challenge the government, which was carefully planning for a critical presidential election scheduled for April 9. In recent weeks, Reinado’s force has raided government facilities and stolen weapons.

and hired gang-banger guerrillas (2):

There are $2-a-day thugs, many of them recruited by the political parties from the city’s refugee camps, roaming the streets, looking for something, anything, to kill.

http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2007/04/journal_politic.html