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Timor-Leste: El Dorado of the South Pacific
by Kwang zi Saturday, Apr 14 2007, 6:18pm
international / imperialism / commentary

The current population of East Timor is approximately one million souls while the value of its natural gas and oil reserves amount to billions of dollars. However, the tiny new island nation is impoverished with above 35% unemployment and a rural based economy. Without elaborating further, Timor-Leste presents an extremely volatile situation as greedy interests, primarily America via its ‘World’ Bank and Australia-New Zealand acting as the military arm, poise themselves to exploit the impoverished people and nation of Timor-Leste.

All things being remotely equal, the entire population of Timor-Leste should be potential billionaires, but we know that is not how it works. Enter the World Bank to ‘save the day’ with crippling – but ‘legal’ – loans to enslave the nation while the natural wealth is developed/plundered. The Transnational oil corporations of the western world are about to chalk another one up to the usual formula of enslaving developing nations with crippling loans while they plunder everything of value.

A glance at the track record of the World Bank and Transnationals in Africa and Latin America confirms the ugly scenario; school children are easily able to complete school projects on exploitation with the information available today! The charade of ‘development assistance loans’ has long since become transparent. After decades of ‘development’ and billions of dollars extracted from Africa how many exploited nations can boast equal living standards and conditions with western nations?

Fortunately for the exploited ‘third world’ a former exploited nation has freed itself from the shackles of slavery and has risen to be the most powerful nation in the region with an economy about to surpass that of the USA. Enter China and the competitive edge it offers. China has proven that international business does not require a gun and crippling economic loans. Its recent trade mission to Africa has seen benefits for all parties involved. China recently offered various African nations development loans at a fraction of the rate of the World Bank; 1.7% to Angola with additional benefits in the form of infrastructure development and other manufacturing options. Angola was quick to reject the crippling offer of the World Bank and like many other African nations signed up with China for a mutually beneficial future.

Business is business in a ‘free enterprise market’ and a better offer would not usually be refused unless of course we arrange to place a puppet government in power to safeguard our interests, and ‘manage any discontent’ from the local population. All inordinate resistance would be met with ‘peacekeeping forces’ of the kind that China never requires in its business dealings with the international community.

In view of current realities the factions in Timor-Leste become more transparent; western rapacious interests represented by Ramos-Horta, and Fretilin the people’s party represented by Lu Olo!

Anyone who imagines that ‘free and fair’ elections are occurring in the presence of armed foreign military while superior offers of competing nations are obstructed, is deluded.

To those who wish to challenge the above observations I would simply say allow Timor-Leste to negotiate with China in the spirit of free and fair enterprise. Refusal and continued obstruction would amount to verification and confirmation of the ugly reality of military expansionism and neo-colonial exploitation and oppression.

I would add that it is the majority of Timor-Leste that holds the destiny of the nation in their hands, in the event they seek our assistance – that assistance would be forthcoming.