Ken wrote:

>In one more futile attempt to understand the world... can anyone explain to
>me the connection between East Timor and oil? I read one line in a newspaper
>that made this connection but provided no background.

This is possibly a reference to the fact that Indonesian waters
include some important sea lanes through which oil flows to the US,
Japan etc. Major US intervention in the East Timor crisis would
probably upset the applecart with Indonesia, sending the tankers on a
much longer voyage and push up the price of Middle East oil on the US
market.

And then Bruce wrote:

>And what do the Indonesians have against the Australians?  Is that an
>anti-imperialist power (Brits) thing (I thought I heard Portugal was the
>imperialist power in this situation but maybe I'm getting my stories mixed
>up)?  The Indonesians seemed to be pretty unhappy about the prospect of the
>peace keepers being headed up by the Aussies.
>
>Ian, Dave?

This one is a little harder to follow -- even from here in the
frontrow seat. Australia has a long history of support for Indonesia.
We were on their side when they were trying to get their independence
from the Dutch after the 2nd World War. Australia supported the
Indonesian annexation of East Timor (or, the Government did anyway --
a lot of people here really hated it). And there has been a lot of
cooperation between the Australian Government and military and the
Indonesian Government and military ever since -- right up until a
couple of weeks ago.
But there is also a lot of guilt here about the East Timorese.
Australian troops landed in East Timor during the 2nd World War (when
it was a Portuguese colony and neutral in the War) and as a result
the Japanese went into Timor. The East Timorese gave the Australian
troops incredible support and assistance, to their very great cost
with the Japanese, and a lot of our old soldiers are still around and
very loyal to the East Timorese.
We've always known that the Indonesians employed some pretty tough
tactics against unrest in their country but when we saw these methods
on our TV screens every night just up the road in East Timor it was
shocking in the extreme. Defenceless people being chopped up by thugs
with machettes, traumatised little children, young men disappearing
etc etc.
There are reliable reports, and video evidence, to support statements
that the militias are sponsored, supported and controlled by the
Indonesian military. Quite a lot of them are known to be Indonesian
military and intelligence people. The methods used in East Timor,
before and after the recent independence ballot, were brutal in the
extreme. When 78.5 per cent of the East Timorese voted for
independence, and were brutalised for that, Australians decided en
masse that they deserved their independence and had our support. I
don't think we could have done anything else and still kept our
self-respect.
The Australian government, after years of going along with Indonesia
on this issue, decided enough was enough and rounded up support for a
peacekeeping force. Indonesia, I think, sees this as a betrayal of a
friendship. I suspect there's a lot of Javanese nationalism here and
an inability to see the other person's point of view. And I think
there is the feeling that we're a bunch of Europeans telling our
little brown-skinned brothers how to behave. So they're not well
pleased with us. We have not heard the last of this matter.
This may clarify the situation for you (or make it even more confusing!)

-- --
Ian Evans
The World of Old Houses: http://www.oldhouses.com.au
Publisher: The Flannel Flower Press Pty Ltd
PO Box 591, Mullumbimby, New South Wales, Australia 2482
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