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Timor-Leste: a broader view required
by dingo Sunday, Feb 10 2008, 8:39pm
international / social/political / opinion/analysis

Labor PM, Kevin Rudd has announced his support for Morris Iemma’s huge energy infrastructure sell-off in NSW, a move that threatens huge job losses, quality control standards and price rises for services. But why should Rudd care, it was Rudd who stated that politics in today’s Australia is no longer a matter of ideology? Facility and expedition are the order of the day – but for whom? Big business does not place governments in power to have their interests thwarted, so it's full steam ahead for vested interests and a final goodbye to the last vestiges of the ALP as a people's party – rest in peace the once proud Labor movement of Australia!

Rudd is at pains not to upset or confront corporate interests (his masters). He spends most of his time writing and rewriting drafts for an apology to the local indigenous community – an overdue and admirable gesture; however, other major issues affecting the nation have been ignored.

The privileged status the mining and financial sectors enjoy contrasts vividly with the depressed wages and crippling debts of average Aussies – wage disparities are at there highest since Federation! The yawning gap between executive salaries and average incomes is a national scandal but our Kevin knows who butters his bread!

The sooner unions realise that it actually strengthens a national economy to have wealth more evenly distributed throughout the community the sooner it can shake off the stigma given it by propagandists and the spin doctors of the previous conservative government.

However, this article is about Timor-Leste, the shooting of its President Jose Ramos-Horta and the set-up and murder of rebel leader, Major Alfredo Reinado, who was foolishly led to believe the government was willing to drop charges against him and negotiate his return to society.

After making fools of Australian occupation forces on numerous occasions Reinado should have known that offers of re-integration would most likely be tricks designed to lure him into the open where he could easily be eliminated and used as a patsy for escalated foreign intervention/occupation and the expedition of oil production, which has been severely delayed by social instability, particularly the existence of unchecked rebel forces on the island!

Analysts do not believe in coincidences, the ‘assassination attempts’ on government leaders in Timor-Leste coincides with a visit to Australia of a leading US military adviser – we also recall American involvement in the removal from power of Mari Alkatiri, an event that largely relied on Reinado’s actions against Alkatiri at the time.

It should be plain to all that western governments are simply a means to facilitate and expedite the needs of Transnationals and large Corporations. The Rudd Labor government is no exception. A clever but detectable ruse has just been perpetrated in Timor-Leste – what do a few lives matter when the oil demands of Western nations are at stake?

Before jumping to hasty conclusions consider well all the information that becomes available regarding the murder of Reinado and the shooting of Ramos-Horta. US covert operations have identifiable characteristics, all of which are evident in yesterday’s events in Timor-Leste!