Unions attempt to stop deportation

Lisbeth Latham

PERTH — On June 1, Iranian asylum seeker Nader Sayadi Estahbanati was deported from Esperance in WA on the Iranian freighter Mazardaran.

In 2000, Estahbanati and two friends stowed away on the Mazardaran to flee persecution in Iran following the Abadan uprising during which 23 people were shot dead and hundreds disappeared. Hosein Iran hid them in the 60-centimetre-high space above his cabin for five weeks.

When they arrived in Australia, Hosein was charged with "people smuggling", but received a suspended sentence because the magistrate found that he broken the law for humanitarian reasons rather than financial gain. The sentence is being appealed and Estahbanati's deportation will impact negatively on subsequent hearings.

During Hosein's case, Estahbanati gave testimony and was named as an enemy of the Iranian state. His picture appeared in the media. He was worried about the safety of himself and his family and friends. Since Estahbanati's brother Nesser voluntarily returned to Iran last month, no-one has seen or heard from him.

Despite lawyers' appeals, on May 29 Estahbanati was drugged in the Perth Immigration Detention Centre and forcibly transported to the Mazardaran, which was docked in Fremantle and about to sail to Esperance.

Under maritime law it is legal to return stowaways to the vessel they came in on. After activists contacted the ACTU for support, they accompanied Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) and the International Transport Federation (ITF) officials to Esperance to issue a subpoena, obtained by the ACTU, to remove Estahbanati from the ship.

The ship's master initially denied Estahbanati's presence, but then told the officials and activists that they could see Estahbanati if they had legal documents. He added that he would prefer Estahbanati was removed because he did not think the asylum seeker would make it to the next port of call due to his poor health.

Before Estahbanati could be seen, Australasian Correctional Management officers arrived and directed the officials and activists to wait in another room. After several phone calls, they were informed that they could not see Estahbanati, however, the subpoena would be delivered.

The ACTU and ITF asked that Estahbanati be allowed to see a doctor. The doctor later said that Estahbanati seemed in good health, but admitted that he had not seen identification for the patient. He described the man he treated as being 2 metres tall with a beard — very different to Estahbanati's description.

The ACTU has committed to take up Estahbanati's case with the government, and the ITF will discuss it at its conference in Britain next month. The ITF and ACTU are also concerned about Estahbanati's deportation because of the broader implications of merchant ships being used as detention centres and to assist deportations.

From Green Left Weekly #496.

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Why this is a racist war

Lisbeth Latham

Recently at an anti-war rally in Perth, I was asked by another participant ``is it really a racist war?’‘ George Bush, Tony Blair and their bellicose supporters in Australia, John Howard and Kim Beazley, have argued that the bombing campaign on Afghanistan is not a war on the Afghan people and it is definitely not a racist war.

The central aim of these statements has been to attempt to block the ability of opponents of the war to mobilise public opinion against the war. This aim has been necessitated by the growth since the 1960s of a general sentiment against racism. This popular anti-racist sentiment means that racists do not always openly claim to be racist or speak in openly racist terms.

This raises the question ``what is racism?’‘ Racism is the view, expressed either overtly or covertly, which justifies social inequality between people based on fetishising superficial external physical features, most particularly skin colour.

Racism first emerged with the development of capitalism to justify the forcible transportation of millions of Africans to the Americas in order to provide a system of institutionalised forced labour on the plantations of the European settler colonies.

At the end of the 19th century, racism continued to provide justification by the capitalist rulers of imperialist countries, whose populations were predominantly white, for the economic and political subjugation of the non-white peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America.

The current US bombing campaign against Afghanistan has been justified as necessary to ensure that terrorist attacks like that on September 11 in New York and Washington, in which more than 4000 people were killed, do not occur again. But the bombing has already been estimated to have killed 1000 Afghan civilians.

Moreover, aid agencies such as Medicins Sans Frontiers (MSF, Doctors without Borders) estimate that at least two million Afghans (with upward estimates of seven million people), will die from starvation by the end of winter if the bombing does not stop and aid agencies are unable to deliver large-scale food aid. The widespread unchallenged implication is that the lives of at least two million people, 10% of the Afghan population, are of less value than those who died in the US on September 11.

Imperialism is a word that is often misused. Marxists use it to refer to a particular stage in development of capitalism that emerged in the industrially developed countries at the end of the 19th century. Nearly all branches of their economies came under the monopolist control of a few large corporations.

These large corporations were owned by super-rich capitalist families, like the Rockefeller and Morgan families in the United States, who also owned the big banks, insurance companies and stock exchange investment houses. These families were often financially and personally inter-related and formed a financial oligarchy that dominated not only the economy but the political life of the developed capitalist countries.

The corporations and banks in the developed countries took advantage of the uneven development of the world capitalist economy to preserve their monopoly of ownership of advanced technology and to use this monopoly to extract above-average profits from the underdeveloped capitalist countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

As a result of the emergence of monopoly capitalism, the world was divided into a handful of predominantly white, rich nations dominating the economic and political life of the great majority of the world’s population.

The division of the world into rich and poor nations created a massive drive towards the militarisation of the imperialist nations. This was essential to ensure that they would be able to protect their investments and markets from challenges by their imperialist rivals. This was the central focus of both the first and second world wars.

Since the second world war, the imperialist powers have subordinated their rivalry to uniting behind the strongest imperialist power, the United States, to crush any challenges from the oppressed nations to throw off imperialist domination. This was the driving force behind the US-led military interventions into Korea in the 1950s and Vietnam during the 1960s and 1970s.

During the US-led war against Vietnam, anti-war sentiment became widespread in the United States and other imperialist countries like Australia. So too did anti-racist sentiment.

Widespread acceptance of the idea that it was racist for the governments of rich, white nations to wage war to stop the non-white peoples of the poor, Third World countries from choosing governments that US and its allies were hostile to, helped to limit the ability of the US and its allies to utilise their own armies to wage such wars.

Instead, the imperialist powers were forced to rely on the creation and support of right-wing proxies to attempt to maintain their domination over Third World countries. This is what the US did in the 1980s in Nicaragua with the contras, and in Afghanistan with the mujaheddin and the Taliban.

Since the September 11 terror attacks, the rulers of the imperialist countries have sought to regain public acceptance for the large-scale use of their own ground troops to impose on Third World countries governments that are totally subservient to the imperialist interests.

This is the real goal of the current “war on terrorism”. But it is being masked by claims that it is aimed at defending “civilisation”. Blair has even attempted to present the US-led war as part of a drive for a better world for “the starving, the dispossessed, the ignorant, those living in want and squalor”.

The US government has increasingly made it clear that the “war on terror” will have no end, and has already identified more than 60 countries that it will take action against for allegedly harbouring “terrorist organisations”.

The imperialists’ “war on terror” aims to crush all resistance to their ability to exploit the peoples of the Third World, and thus to maintain global inequality between the rich, predominantly white, nations of the First World and the poor, predominantly non-white, nations of the Third World. That is why this is a racist war.

From Green Left Weekly issue #472

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Indonesian military escalates repression

By Lisbeth Latham & Pip Hinman

On February 20 the "cease-fire" between the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) and the Indonesian military (TNI) was extended for the third time since the so-called humanitarian pause in 2000. These declarations mean nothing, Syadiah Marhaban from the Aceh Referendum Information Centre (SIRA) told Green Left Weekly. That very night the TNI swept through four villages terrorising and killing people.

Following every previous cease-fire extension, attacks on unarmed Acehnese take place almost immediately; more than 100 people have been killed since January. Since GAM declared unilateral independence from Indonesia in December 1976, some 30,000 people have been killed.

Under the current cease-fire, GAM and the Indonesian government have agreed to a four-point code of conduct. However, given the lack of an enforcement authority, the TNI continues to hunt down GAM members especially in the rural areas. Ed Aspinall, who lectures in Indonesian studies at University of New South Wales and has recently returned from Aceh, told an Amnesty International forum in Sydney that the TNI routinely strafes whole villages in revenge attacks if even one of its soldiers comes under fire.

On February 15, the TNI announced an additional 6000 troops would be sent to Aceh, bringing the total deployment of combat troops to more than 30,000.

Aspinall described the northern-most city of Banda Aceh as being like a "war zone" in which there is an unofficial curfew as night falls.

"People are just too scared to leave their homes after dark. Local commanders are calling on the central government to call an all-out civil emergency", he said.

Aspinall described President Abdurrahman Wahid as pursuing a dual policy of negotiations with GAM while the TNI is allowed a virtual free hand to wage war.

And while the political situation in Indonesia remains unstable, the military is playing up their role as harbingers of peace and security.

The TNI's attempts to hunt down GAM members and terrorise its rural support base reflect the Indonesian government's unwillingness to engage in genuine negotiations over Aceh's future. The military have significant commercial operations in the gold, oil, gas timber and marijuana-rich state of Aceh.

Autonomy versus independence

Syadiah Marhaban told Green Left Weekly that a poll conducted by SIRA just before the November 8 referendum rally last year -- during which 48 people were killed, hundreds were injured and thousands of public and private vehicles damaged by the security forces -- 92.6% said they favoured independence rather than autonomy.

Despite the overwhelming sentiment for independence, the Wahid government is only prepared to allow greater autonomy -- a position the Aceh People's Council has adopted. Wahid's government is pushing the Acehnese House of Representatives to prioritise deliberation of the autonomy law which ensures the central government maintains control over financial and security affairs.

While the new autonomy laws -- scheduled to take effect from May -- are supposed to decentralise decision-making and allow Aceh to retain a greater percentage of earnings from the exploitation of its natural resources, they say nothing about reducing the number of TNI troops in Aceh.

In an attempt to shift the balance of forces and provide some legitimacy to the autonomy demand, the Wahid government is seeking to include anti-independence groups in the negotiations. However this is unlikely to be successful given GAM's strong base of mass support, and the activities of pro-referendum groups like SIRA and the radical Student Solidarity with the People (SMUR).

On February 20 Indonesian defence minister Mahfud Mahmoddin declared he was tired of prolonged talks with the independence movements in Aceh and West Papua and threatened to become increasingly tough with "separatist groups".

SIRA has evidence that the TNI has started to train militia groups in the northern part of Aceh. "Jakarta is going to try to repeat what it did in East Timor", Marhaban warned. She said that the TNI is recruiting poor transmigrants from Java for six months of training. "This shows the Wahid government's desperation. It has been unable to contain or curtail the pro- referendum sentiment by military means, and is now resorting to inciting communal conflict to achieve its ends."

Attacks increase

Following the forced resignation of the despot Suharto in 1998 the democracy movement forced a number of concessions from President Habibie's government and the TNI including the abolition of wide-ranging anti- subversion laws.

However, many restrictive laws remain on the books, including those dealing with freedom of speech (including the law banning the propagation of Marxism).

Last November Muhammad Nazar, chairperson of SIRA, was detained and charged with treason. After growing pressure he was finally set to go to trial last week. He looks set to be the first activist to be so charged since the Suharto days. According to Marhaban, some 500 extra soldiers have been deployed for his trial in Banda Aceh.

The Western powers' opposition to Aceh's independence is primarily motivated by a desire to maintain a politically stable environment for corporate investment throughout the Indonesian archipelago. There is a general fear within the ruling circles of the imperialist powers, in particular in Washington and Canberra, that if Aceh was to win its independence, the West Papuan independence struggle would be given added momentum and other provinces dissatisfied with rule from Jakarta would become similarly inspired.

US support is important for the Wahid administration to maintain control in Aceh. It gives political cover to Jakarta and helps keep the independence forces relatively isolated and serves to strengthen a weakening military position within Indonesia.

TNI and Indonesian police forces are increasingly stretched. It is estimated that half of Indonesia's 200,000 soldiers and 300,000 police are now deployed in provinces waging struggles for independence such as Aceh and West Papua or where communal violence is breaking out, such as in Kalimantan and Malaku.

Marhaban is under no illusions about how the fight for the right to a referendum would eventually be won. "International pressure on Jakarta, particularly from countries such as the US and Australia, is vital", she said.

US military training, or the stepping up of such training by Australia, will provide further legitimacy to the Indonesian government's effort to smash the independence forces. For this reason, she argued, the Australian and US governments must be forced to end all military ties to Indonesia.

SIRA is demanding the TNI and police leave Aceh. After that there's a need to conduct a campaign to raise consciousness among Acehnese about what a referendum would mean. "We have to be ready to take the consequences", Marhaban said, alluding to the likely difficulties a democratic government might encounter from multinational companies, such as Exxon (Esso), currently profiting from the Acehnese people's misery.

From Green Left Weekly issue #440

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Indonesian students demand: No cuts to education subsidies!

By Lisbeth Latham

On April 1, Indonesian students involved in the National Student League for Democracy (LMND) participated in a national mobilisation in Jakarta demanding that the government abandon plans to cut education subsidies to state universities. The policy is expected to result in tuition fee increases of around 300%.

The cuts are part of the broader austerity measures introduced by the Indonesian government on April 1, under the guidance of the International Monetary Fund and its Coordinating Group on Indonesia (CGI), in order to repay Indonesia's debts to international banks and corporations.


The slashing of subsidies on other basic items such as food, cooking oil and electricity will force workers, peasants and students to shoulder a greater share of the burden of the 1997-99 economic crisis.

The LMND sent a solidarity statement to the March 22 national day of action against education privatisation in Australia. It was read out at many of the rallies and received a good response.

It explained that due to rising living and education costs there has been a large drop in the number of students going on to attend high schools and universities. Of the 4.5 million high school students enrolled in 1996-97 only 2 million entered university studies in 2000. At the same time only around 5 million of the 7.5 million junior high school students enrolled in high school.

The LMND is demanding: no cuts to education subsidies, free education for the people, and for the arms bill to be cut so that more funds can be allocated to education.

ASIET member Kerryn Williams told Resistance magazine, “The fact that the Indonesian and Australian governments are pursuing the same policy of shifting education costs onto students and their families makes building solidarity between the campaigns of students here and there very important.”

From Green Left Weekly issue #400

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Police attack Joy Mining picket

Lisbeth Latham

MOSS VALE — Police forcibly removed people from a picket line at the Joy Mining heavy machinery manufacturing plant on April 27 to allow the removal of the plant's hydraulics workshop equipment. The picket was established last week by supporters of the workers who were locked out for three months on April 17 after injunctions were taken out by Joy Mining against the Australian Workers Union, Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) and Electrical Trades Union.

Until April 27, the police had allowed the union and then the picketers to prevent vehicle access to the plant. It now appears that Joy Mining intends to shift all the machinery off site, and that the police will try to ensure this happens.

The removal of equipment from the site and reports from the AMWU that Joy Mining's parent company, Harnischfeger Industries, has filed for bankruptcy in the United States raises doubts about the workers' continued employment.

The picketers are determined to stop any further equipment being removed and are urging others to join them on the picket line on Vale Road (just off Suttor Road) in Moss Vale. For more information, contact the Wollongong Resistance Centre on (02) 4226 2010.

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Australia betrays East Timor refugees

By Lisbeth Latham

One hundred and fifty East Timorese refugees refused to leave the East Hills army barracks in Sydney on February 22. The government was determined to remove the refugees from the camp for a "voluntary" flight home on February 22.

Three hundred local Timorese and their supporters facing 100 police blocked the buses bound for the airport. They managed to delay the departures, but the refugees have now been returned to East Timor. These refugees were amongst the last to leave of those who entered Australia after the bloody events in East Timor last year to leave; such betrayals of East Timorese refugees are not new.

'Safe haven'

In response to the terror unleashed in East Timor after the independence ballot on August 30, the Australian government initially agreed to provide sanctuary only for staff from the United Nations Assistance Mission in East Timor, plus 350 East Timorese staff and their families. On September 8, immigration minister Philip Ruddock announced that an additional 1450 East Timorese would be allowed into Australia under the safe haven legislation.

This legislation, drafted in early 1999 to deal with Kosovar refugees, allows only three-month visas, the holders of which are not allowed to apply for any other form of visa while in Australia.

The "safe havens" are disused military barracks. Individuals are not allowed to leave; if they do they lose access to government services and the minimum government payments of $27 per week per adult and $10 per child.

In December, when the safe haven visas expired, more than 1000 Timorese refugees were returned. Ruddock said on December 6, "The East Timorese were evacuated in September to stay until conditions in East Timor improved ... The United Nations high commissioner for refugees has provided assurances that it is now safe."

This was described as a "voluntary" return. However, Timorese who opted to remain in Australia would receive no government assistance, had no right to work and constantly faced the threat of deportation.

The government ignored the conditions that refugees were returning to: most buildings, infrastructure and crops destroyed, and mass unemployment. A Fretilin representative in Australia, Naldo Rai, said on February 22, "We have contact with relatives in East Timor who say the conditions are very bad. There is no food, no clothing, no houses."

There are reports that refugees who returned to East Timor earlier were provided with only a blanket and a tarpaulin, without rope to tie the tarpaulin down.

Long-term refugees

Many refugees entered Australia after the Dili massacre in 1991. In 1994, the Australian government argued that because these Timorese had the right to request Portuguese citizenship, they did not require Australia's protection.

In 1998, the Federal Court decided that the Refugee Review Tribunal should reconsider Kon Tji Tay's application for asylum because there was no evidence that Portugal would provide protection. The immigration department conducted an appeal throughout 1999.

In addition to mounting numerous legal challenges to the granting of refugee status, the Australian government has conducted a war of attrition. Without refugee status, the Timorese are not eligible to work or to enter educational institutions. The government has ended asylum seeker assistance payments.

On November 9, the government announced that it would end its appeal, but informed the refugees that, since East Timor is now "safe" to return to, they must reapply for asylum under the new Border Protection Act.

The act states that Australia is no longer required to provide protection if alternative avenues for protection exist, such as dual citizenship or potential dual citizenship (that is, with Portugal). The applications will be dealt with individually, making it a lengthy process that will further exhaust the resources and resolve of refugees who have been in Australia for up to 10 years.

In addition, there are still more than 100,000 East Timorese being forced to stay in camps in West Timor, where they were driven in late 1999. The Australian government has done little to secure their release.

A report in the Bali Post newspaper on February 22 said that at least 700 people had died in the camps in the last six months. The refugees are frequently harassed by militias and the military.

Punishing the victims

In November, the government passed the Border Protection Act, among the harshest legislation dealing with refugees in the world. While whipping up nationalist and racist sentiments about "boat people" and "illegals" to justify these legislative attacks, the government tries to assure us that it is nevertheless humane.

However, the government's treatment of the East Timorese refugees is consistent with its general approach of blaming and punishing the victims of Third World poverty and imperialism.

For decades, Australian governments supported the Suharto dictatorship in Indonesia because it gave Australian companies access to Indonesia's natural resources and markets and provided a "stable" environment in which to make profits. Australia gave diplomatic and military support to Indonesia's occupation of East Timor and Australian companies secured access to rich oil and gas fields in the Timor Gap.

But Australian governments weren't just complicit in the deaths of more than 200,000 Timorese since 1975. The Coalition government continued to support Indonesia last year while it displaced more than half of East Timor's population and destroyed most of its economy and infrastructure.

The Australian government rejected evidence of the links between the Indonesian military and the pro-integration militias and in the United Nations, Australian officials argued against the deployment of a non-Indonesian security force during the independence vote.

Now the government is punishing further the victims of its own policy.

For real justice

It should be left to each East Timorese refugee to decide if they want to stay, and much more aid should be made available to rebuild East Timor, thereby giving East Timorese refugees a real choice about returning home.

To assist refugees to return, and to allow visits by East Timorese to Australia, where many will still have relatives and friends, the government should establish a special category of visa, similar to that granted to New Zealand citizens, which allows them to travel freely between the two countries.

To aid development, the government should fund 1000 new scholarships per year for East Timorese to attend Australian higher education institutions.

Massive non-repayable grants and reparations for Australia's support for the war on East Timor should be funded out of a levy on all Australian businesses that have profited from investment in Indonesia and East Timor.

It is vital that the Australian people act now to safeguard the human rights of East Timorese in Australia and East Timor. Resistance is supporting a national day of action on May 13, organised by Action in Solidarity with Indonesia and East Timor, to demand "Justice for East Timor! Justice for all refugees!".

From Green Left Weekly #395
Resistance magazine and Green Left Weekly will keep you informed about the struggle for justice in East Timor and the solidarity campaigns.

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East Timor's future: Solidarity is still needed

By Lisbeth Latham

The withdrawal of Indonesian troops from East Timor was a significant victory for the East Timorese resistance movement, and the international solidarity movement. But the struggle for independence came at a price.

Since the Indonesian invasion in 1975, more than 200,000 East Timorese have been killed. After the East Timorese voted overwhelmingly for independence on August 30, the Indonesian army (TNI) and police, and their gangs of “militia”, killed and forcibly deported thousands of East Timorese and destroyed East Timor's infrastructure. More than 85,000 people remain unaccounted for.


There was a massive response from working people internationally. In Australia, thousands mobilised calling for an immediate armed intervention to stop the violence. In Australia, the federal Coalition government was forced to act, going against 24 years of support for the Indonesian occupation.

Australian support for genocide

Throughout 1999, Prime Minister John Howard's government denied that the terror gangs in East Timor had any links with the Indonesian military and claimed that any problems were due to “rogue elements” in the TNI. It argued against a United Nations security force overseeing the ballot, despite widespread violence having already twice forced the referendum to be postponed.

Canberra supported the Indonesian government and the TNI because it saw this as vital to maintaining the stability required for Australian business to make profits in East Timor and Indonesia. Despite being forced to act to help East Timor, political stability and profits continue to be the driving forces behind Australian foreign policy.

The government continues to protect the TNI. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has blocked the International Commission of Jurists from interviewing East Timorese refugees.

As well, the Australian Federal Police have initiated disciplinary action against an intelligence officer who was in East Timor because he reported to a parliamentary standing committee on the collaboration between the TNI and the militia.

The government has spent $1 billion on the military operation in East Timor, but has committed only $6 million to rebuilding East Timor. It continues to push for the deportation of East Timorese who are attempting to obtain asylum in Australia following the 1991 Dili massacre, despite the fact that much of East Timor remains in ruins.

Meanwhile, the Howard government is attempting to turn its foreign policy defeat into a victory -- making the Australian people pay for strengthening its capacity to intervene militarily in the region. The government's “Timor tax” -- an increase in the Medicare levy -- will help to cover the costs of having troops in East Timor and the establishment of two more combat-ready battalions.

People aid not militarism

The Australian government should pay massive war reparations to East Timor, funded by a levy on the businesses that have had made profits in East Timor and Indonesia.

Much of the aid that is going to East Timor is not finding its way to the people. Most well-paying jobs go to non-East Timorese and those locals who do have jobs are paid wages that are the same as during the occupation. Since the arrival of Western non-government organisations in East Timor, the cost of food and basic goods has risen dramatically.

On January 5, the Timorese Socialist Party led a workers' protest outside the United Nations building calling for the employment of East Timorese, increased wages, an increased minimum wage and a reduction in prices. The solidarity movement should support such actions, and the right of the East Timorese people to control the transition process.

Resistance demands that East Timorese refugees be able to enter Australia without visas, be allowed free access to Australian universities and be provided with support to return to East Timor if they choose.

There is still much to be done. Resistance will continue to build campaigns alongside the solidarity group Action in Solidarity with Indonesia and East Timor, and will keep young people informed through Resistance magazine.

From Green Left Weekly issue #390

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