By Ruth Ratcliffe
As the fifth largest shareholder in the Asian Development Bank, Australia is a significant imperialist force in this region.
The Australian government lends money for a range of projects. Many of the so-called aid projects, ostensibly to benefit the billions of desperately poor people in the region, are really subsidies for Australian business. In 1996-97, Australian investment in countries that were controlled by dictatorships or regimes that regularly contravened basic human rights totalled $17.8 billion. These countries also received 35% of Australian companies' total exports.
John Howard may object to Australia being viewed socially as a part of Asia, but he has no problems with Australian capital dominating the region. Again and again, the Australian government has gone to great lengths to cover for governments that allow Australian capitalists to suck super-profits out of the people and environment in the region. The Dili massacre was an "aberration", Thai troops shooting more than 100 protesters was "distressing", Indonesia is "not a perfect democracy": the excuses have been numerous.
The Australian government has a range of euphemisms for its complicity in repression and dictatorship in the region: "national interest", "special relationship", "constructive engagement". But government spokespeople have occasionally been incredibly blunt about Australia's priorities. In 1976, Richard Woolcott, Australia's ambassador to Indonesia, reported to Canberra: "On the Timor issue ... the government is confronted by a choice between a moral stance, based on condemnation of Indonesia for the invasion of East Timor and on the assertion of the inalienable right of the people of East Timor to self-determination on the one hand and a pragmatic and realistic acceptance of the longer term inevitabilities of the situation on the other hand. The former is more proper and principled but the longer term national interest may well be served by the latter."
Indonesia made Australian government recognition of Indonesia's occupation of East Timor a pre-condition for negotiations on the Timor Gap oil fields. When the Timor Gap Treaty was signed in 1989, Australia gained access to 7 billion barrels of oil, or, as ALP foreign affairs minister Gareth Evans put it at the time, "zillions of dollars". By that time, 200,000 East Timorese had been killed by the Indonesian military.
The Australian ruling class not only profits from exploiting the people and environment of Asia, it not only offers diplomatic and political cover for repressive regimes, it also provides the arms with which massacres are carried out. Australia has sold arms to Indonesia, aircraft parts to Burma, fighter jets to Pakistan and aircraft to the Philippines.
However, wherever there is repression there is also resistance and throughout this region young people have been at the forefront of some crucial struggles.
It was students in Indonesia, at first organised in secret study circles, who were the catalyst for the formation of new organisations to fight for democracy. They gave the inspiration and courage to Indonesia's workers and urban poor to mobilise in huge numbers to bring down the Suharto dictatorship in 1998.
After thousands of students and other young people were killed in Burma in 1988 for campaigning against the regime, more again are still organising, in exile.
Students in East Timor raised their voices for independence: who can forget the image of them standing up against bands of Jakarta-sponsored militias, singing independence songs?
Young people in South Korea, Pakistan, Thailand, India, the Philippines, China and Latin America, too, have been key players in movements for democracy and social change. Young people in all these countries have given their lives in the fight against repressive, IMF-directed regimes.
The struggles occurring throughout the world are an inspiring indication of ordinary people's willingness to resist repression. Here in Australia, we too have a responsibility to fight and build alternatives to neo-liberal globalisation.
While there is globalisation of tyranny and poverty, we need to respond by globalising solidarity amongst people. International solidarity has a strong history in this country. The anti-Vietnam War movement, solidarity with the revolutions in Latin America, and campaigns for an independent East Timor have mobilised hundreds of thousands of people and sent clear messages to governments that we will not stand aside while repression exists.
Any step forward for a struggle for justice overseas — such as the ousting of Suharto, or the withdrawal of Indonesia troops from East Timor, or the delay of IMF-imposed subsidy cuts — are steps forward for our struggle here.
International solidarity is not charity; it is a political act. It is crucial, not only for increasing more people's understanding of struggles overseas, but also for exposing the role of the Australian government in the region. Internationalism breaks down nationalist and racist ideologies.
Along with campaigning in support of struggles against injustice in the region, we can make a real difference by building opposition to the Australian government and weakening its ability to implement repressive, anti-people foreign policy. Global justice requires global action!