Timor outrage
September 10th 1999 08:33
I lived in Hong Kong for 16 years until 2007. In 1998 and 1999 I wrote a series of political and social commentaries for a quirky institutional newsletter - quirky in that it was intended to be as much contentious, offbeat and humorous as it was informative. I was working as an editor, and I wrote the articles under the pseudonym Red Inque. I post them here for anyone interested in a look at life in Asia at the time, and in Hong Kong just after its return to Chinese sovereignty.
Asia's big bully
Around about the time that NATO and its mates nominated themselves arbiters of international humanitarian integrity and decided to bomb the stuffing out of Kosovo, an email circled the world faster than you can say Internet pointing out that not one military action undertaken by the United States since the end of World War II has resulted in a more humanitarian or more democratic government being put in place. That’s a lot of military action for a zero batting average.
Having the biggest pea-shooter on the block does not guarantee sagacity in determining the distance between detente and detonate. Instead, it attracts appelations such as bully, and references to right by might.
The big guns, so to speak, may yet get a score on the board from Kosovo. The dust is still to settle, but if displaced Albanians return in large numbers, and if they find a better place, it will be a victoy of sorts. Perhaps they already have in the minds of many people for whom stark television images of Yugoslav-inflicted human misery are fresh. And this gives rise to an interesting question – if military intervention in Yugoslavia can be tolerated, does this spell a new philosophy, an increased inclination to send troops across sovereign borders in the name of justice?
The question attaches itself to the new world centre of outrage, East Timor. Can there be any argument that the situation in East Timor features the same brutal injustices as that in Kosovo? No. Will the UN or NATO or ANZUS ride in on white chargers to redress the wrong and punish the wrongdoers? No. Not this time.
Why? Because Western politicians understand clearly what their populations may not – that Indonesia is much bigger than Serbia. Yugoslavia is in Europe’s backyard, and one of the smaller fish therein. Indonesia is in Asia’s front yard, and the fifth-most populous nation on earth.
Australia, which has been super-sensitive and very outspoken about things Timorese ever since several Australian journalists were murdered there by Indonesian troops in the 1970s, has strongly condemned Indonesia, but probably doesn’t have big enough pea-shooters to go in alone.
So far the only NATO power to shake a fist is France, which also will not go in alone.
The Americans won’t go in. As Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer colourfully put it, they appear all “Kosovo-ed out”. The same thing can be said for the Brits.
And anybody who does go in can bank on fierce opposition from China and probably Russia, who have very big pea-shoorters of their own.
Of course, there is another option – economic sanctions. Iraq and Cuba may be proof that this doesn’t work, but at least America has failed fewer times this way than by dropping bombs.
People everywhere confuse what they read in newspapers with news. -- A.J. Liebling
Around about the time that NATO and its mates nominated themselves arbiters of international humanitarian integrity and decided to bomb the stuffing out of Kosovo, an email circled the world faster than you can say Internet pointing out that not one military action undertaken by the United States since the end of World War II has resulted in a more humanitarian or more democratic government being put in place. That’s a lot of military action for a zero batting average.
Having the biggest pea-shooter on the block does not guarantee sagacity in determining the distance between detente and detonate. Instead, it attracts appelations such as bully, and references to right by might.
The big guns, so to speak, may yet get a score on the board from Kosovo. The dust is still to settle, but if displaced Albanians return in large numbers, and if they find a better place, it will be a victoy of sorts. Perhaps they already have in the minds of many people for whom stark television images of Yugoslav-inflicted human misery are fresh. And this gives rise to an interesting question – if military intervention in Yugoslavia can be tolerated, does this spell a new philosophy, an increased inclination to send troops across sovereign borders in the name of justice?
The question attaches itself to the new world centre of outrage, East Timor. Can there be any argument that the situation in East Timor features the same brutal injustices as that in Kosovo? No. Will the UN or NATO or ANZUS ride in on white chargers to redress the wrong and punish the wrongdoers? No. Not this time.
Why? Because Western politicians understand clearly what their populations may not – that Indonesia is much bigger than Serbia. Yugoslavia is in Europe’s backyard, and one of the smaller fish therein. Indonesia is in Asia’s front yard, and the fifth-most populous nation on earth.
Australia, which has been super-sensitive and very outspoken about things Timorese ever since several Australian journalists were murdered there by Indonesian troops in the 1970s, has strongly condemned Indonesia, but probably doesn’t have big enough pea-shooters to go in alone.
So far the only NATO power to shake a fist is France, which also will not go in alone.
The Americans won’t go in. As Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer colourfully put it, they appear all “Kosovo-ed out”. The same thing can be said for the Brits.
And anybody who does go in can bank on fierce opposition from China and probably Russia, who have very big pea-shoorters of their own.
Of course, there is another option – economic sanctions. Iraq and Cuba may be proof that this doesn’t work, but at least America has failed fewer times this way than by dropping bombs.
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