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Timor: An interesting point that seems to
have been omitted from any public discussion on the East Timorese
referendum is the displaced population. If as many East Timorese have been
displaced as has been claimed then the referendum on independence for East Timor
would have omitted a large percentage of the electorate from the referendum.
Many of these would have been in West Timorese camps or even holed up in the
East Timorese hills. I now wonder how reliable this referendum was.
Japan: "The vice minister of defence lost
his job last week after saying in a magazine interview that Japan should
consider arming itself with nuclear weapons. Yesterday, the government belatedly
muzzled Mr. Nishimura, pressuring him to cancel a press conference on the
issue."
Clearly as in the case of Australian members of the government making extraordinary statement concerning the role of Australia as a regional power Japan has been drawn into a similar scenario where a government minister says publicly what much of the Japanese bourgeoisie are discussing privately. Clearly as I indicated in postings of mine on East-Timorese developments, the interventionist role of Australia and the West re. East Timorese generates problems for the respective bourgeoisies of leading countries in the region that prompt developments that lead to complications. It is clear that if the situation in Timor were to get increasingly messy similar and even more unpredictable developments would occur causing the situation to grow more difficult in which issues not otherwise raised publicly would emerge. These tendencies are present as recent events indicate and can lead to greater regional tension. Argentinean elections: It is clear that the election of the new Argentinean President is not going to lead to any significant changes in Argentina. It is not as big a change as may be thought when it is viewed in the context of the fact that the Peronists still control Parliament etc. The incoming President has no intentions of changing the programme of cutbacks in state spending and privatisations that the outgoing President instituted. The incoming President puts the emphasis on eliminating corruption etc. --the ethical politics of the so called "Blair Revolution" of New Labour. But this means nothing in substance since it is impossible to eliminate corruption under capitalism. Anyway corruption among the bourgeoisie is of no real concern to the working class. Corruption among the bourgeoisie is nothing more than a matter of how the cake gets divvied up among the bourgeoisie. Bourgeois political parties promises to eliminate corruption and to pursue ethical politics domestically and internationally is just a form of the new bourgeois ideology that has been manufactured by the bourgeoisie. As at least one commentator suggested what has happened is that the politics stays put while the face is changed --image politics again. A mere marginal change of no significance is now what elections turn on. The Gulf: The Gulf states concerned are apparently increasingly unhappy with the continued high profile presence of US forces on their territory and along its coasts with the feeling that Iraq is less a threat to them than formerly. Clearly if Washington is forced to scale back its presence in the Gulf it will become increasingly less able to maintain the no-fly zone over Iraq etc. Its military ability in relation to both Iran and Iraq will have been substantially diminished. It is clear then that international and regional conditions are becoming increasingly favourable for Saddam in his efforts to get a more satisfactory agreement with the West in place. Here is a case where Washington may not get things quite as they would like. Washington may be forced to negotiate with Saddam because of the threat of the relevant Gulf states forcing a significant withdrawal of American forces from the region.
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