Social Chauvinists and Shameless Opportunists

That the social-chauvinist leadership of the Democratic Socialist Perspective (DSP) refuses to oppose the Australian government’s latest military occupation in East Timor is no surprise. Whatever “condemnation” they were able to muster over the Australian government’s “gunboat diplomacy” off the coast of East Timor in May predictably evaporated with Australian troop deployment. Braying that the imperialist intervention “was at the invitation of the Timor-Leste government and appears to have the support of the full political spectrum in the country,” National Secretary Peter Boyle has baldly stated “The DSP is not campaigning for ‘troops out’ demand at this stage” (Green Left discussion post, 15 June).

Meanwhile the opportunist Socialist Alternative (SAlt) trumpet in the June issue of their newspaper, “Once more it’s a disgrace that anyone who calls themselves left-wing or anti-war supports the Australian military going in to East Timor.” In an article in the same issue entitled “The ‘left’ cheer squad for Australian imperialism,” they claim that in 1999 “Socialist Alternative argued against sending troops.” These charlatans dredge up a single quote from a June 1999 article, three months before the intervention, where they wrote that an occupation by UN forces would result in East Timor being “turned into an Australian neo-colony.” SAlt know full well that they are yet again involved in a shabby cover-up of the insidious role they played in 1999.

As we note in the accompanying article, not only did SAlt join the “troops in” marches in 1999 but they embraced and promoted the chauvinist union bans against Indonesia, which in SAlt’s own words were “aimed at encouraging the Australian Government to send in troops” (Socialist Alternative, October 1999)! Indeed, they even wanted these bans to be extended by the imperialists. Thus in their special September 1999 issue they advised “If the US, Japan and Australia had immediately announced stiff economic sanctions, the atrocities could well have been brought to a halt before the devastation was so complete.”

Since the Australian military occupation of East Timor commenced in September 1999, the self-declared “anti-imperialists” of Socialist Alternative, when challenged, have not been able to cite one example where they have demanded in print that the Australian imperialist troops get out. Now nearly seven years later, in their June issue, SAlt finally squeak, “Australian troops out of East Timor.”

In contrast to our reformist and centrist opponents, we of the Spartacist League have consistently opposed the Australian imperialist military. Just as in 1999, today we forthrightly demand that Australian imperialist troops get out of East Timor! This implacable opposition to Australian imperialism flows from our revolutionary purpose of building an internationalist, proletarian party that can lead the working class to sweep away the racist Australian capitalist rulers through workers revolution.