BONAPARTE KEATING
CONSUMMATES HIS RELATIONSHIP
WITH SUHARTO THE BUTCH@R
Well it's official, Suharto the butcher and Bonaparte Keating have stepped
right out of the closet into the limelight. Over the past few years our
friends have been groping each other under the sheets in the dark. They're
now so confident of their little relationship that they have decided to make
it official and sign on the dotted line. I'm surprised that so many
politicians, media commentators and Australians find it unusual that
Bonaparte Keating and Suharto the butcher have decided to publicly
consummate their secret little love affair.
Anybody with half a brain would realise that our mates were serious about
their little affair. Over the past three to four years the Australian
government has gone out of its way to reward and accommodate the military
dictatorship that runs Indonesia. The Australian army has been training
Indonesian officers for a number of years. Over the past few years they have
held joint military exercises and Indonesian troops have been deployed on
Australian soil during the last war games this year between Australia and
In@nesia. Keating @nd a few membe@s of the governments inner cabinet have
gone out of their way to support and reward the Indonesian military
dictatorship.
This latest treaty between Australia and Indonesia has gone one step
further. In the name of each and every Australian the Keating govemment has
promised to aid the Indonesian govemment in times of crisis. Although a
great fan fare has been made of the fact that the treaty only applies to an
external threat, the wording of the treaty does not distinguish between an
external and an intemal threat. The Suharto military dictatorship is so on
the nose that radical body the United States congress has halted military
aid to Indonesia. In a display of brotherly and sisterly love the Australian
government has conveniently filled the void by providing the Suharto
military dictatorship with access to small arms, officer training and joint
military exercises.
The relationship is now so close Indonesia's secret police and Australia's
security agencies are sharing information on potential troublespots and
trouble makers. The security treaty that was signed o Monday between the
Australian and Indonesian governments has profound ramifications for the
people of Australia and Indonesia. This security treaty has struck a blow at
the forces within Indonesia that are trying to introduce democratic reforms
and open government in that country.
The Indonesian archipelago is a diverse society that incorporates the
Melesians in Irian Jaya (West Papua) as well as people with many different
customs, languages and aspirations. Australians who only concern themselves
with the struggle in @ast Timor, should remember that the .ndonesian
military dictatorship is under @hreat on many fronts. Nationalist rnovements
exist in Irian Jaya and @uslim fun@mentalists have challenged the
dictatorships hegemony in Sumatra. At the same time Indonesian workers and
tudents have attempted to organise gainst the military dictatorship.
Australia's new security agreement with the Indonesian military is a direct
body @low to all Indonesians who want to overthrow the military
dictatorship. -@eating needed to move in secrecy to organise this treaty
because the Labor aucus and even most of his cabinet @;olleagues were
against the treaty. They @vere not involved in the decision making process,
because Keating knew that if he involved them they would veto the new
security arrangements.
As individuals and groups we should articulate our disgust with the current
iecurity arrangements between Bonaparte Keating and the butcher Suharto. We
should not only refuse to support and recognise the current agreement, we
should extend our hand and provide moral and physical support to those
forces in Indonesia that want to overthrow the military butchers in power in
Indonesia today.
RUSSIA'S DALLIANCE WITH THE "FREEH WORLD UNDER THREAT!!
Looks like life under the old Communists .n Russia wasn't so bad after all.
It looks ike that life without parliament, with the K.G.B. and the Gulag and
Siberian labour camps is preferable to life in Yeltsin's Russia. It's
strange that after seventy years of @otalitarian governmen@ and rlve @ears
of capitalist reforms a significant number of Russians have become nostalgic
for the bad old days. The results of this weeks parliamentary elections hold
few if any surprises for most Russians. Their little experiment with
corporate and private capital and parliamentary democracy have been dismal
failures. Most Russians have found that their lives have changed for the
worse and that only criminal elements have profited from the so called
democratic reforms. Cynicism is so rampant less than 60% of registered
voters (and many are not registered) bothered to cast a ballot in this weeks
parliamentary elections.
Maybe Russians know that power lies in that hands of the President and the
executive not on the parliamentary floor. Maybe they know that Yeltsin and
the executive are only ffgureheads and that power lies in the board rooms of
the national and transnational corporations that are dining on Russia's
internal organs. Maybe they know that the so called reforms are a sham.
Maybe they realise that power is being transferred from the Nation State to
the newly emerging corporate State.
One of the most disappointing aspects of this whole sorry affair is that the
anarchist forces that sprung up with the collapse of the party were
stillborn. I still find it strange that the Anarchists and their supporters
were not able to influence people to seize the means of production,
distribution and exchange from the States hands and use them for their own
benefit. It seems that few Russian activists were able to convince their
fellow citizens that their liberation depended on themselves, not on some
humane corporate myth. As Russians continue to drown in the political and
philosophical sewerage that poses as informed debate in their community, the
possibility arises that they will once again seize their own destiny. The
nostalgic revival of the old Communist forces will only bring Russians more
suffering. Nothing will change unless they are willing to determine their
own destiny through direct action and extra parliamentary activity.
VICTORIAN HEALTH SYSTEM
UNDERGOES MAJOR SURGERY!!
In a series of extraordinary recommendations the so-called independent
hatchet teams that have been established to reform the health care delivery
system in Victoria have recommended a series of inane reforms. In their
wisdom they have recommended that hospitals be closed, that services that
have been established for some time be re-allocated to other centres and
that as many as the hospital services that can be contracted out, be
contracted out.
Their so-called reforms will rip the soul out of a public health care system
that is tottering through lack of support. As the States Regional Health
Authorities asset strip the potentially profitable segments of the public
health system, the Commonwealth government continues to hand over Federal
funds to the Kennett regime to run the public health service. It's pathetic
to see the limp reaction of the commonwealth government to the State
governments attempts to privatise outpatient departments, cleaning services,
catering, various accident and emergency departments and a host of other
public health services. It's one thing for Carmen Lawrence to say that they
will review the State/Federal funding arrangements, it's another thing for
them to do something about it.
The bottom line of these so-called reforms is the fact that more people will
be forced to wait for medical care and more people will die because of a
lack of basic public health care facilities. The struggle to provide decent
health care services affects each and everyone of us because sooner or later
irrespective of how wealthy we are or how much private insurance we have we
will need access to efficient public health care services.
FREEDOM PRESS
http://www.lglobal.com/TAO/Freedom