Putting Timor Leste in its place
Posted_Date
Image

Body
‘Never let facts get in the way of a story.’
This saying appears to be the defining mantra governing Timor Leste’s leadership, recently represented by its Charge d’Affaires in Nay Pyi Taw. Dili, it seems, now affirms a ‘dedication to upholding the principles of the ASEAN Charter’, and to ‘strengthening ties with Myanmar’. The restraint and composure shown by Myanmar to even entertain the Timorese representative should be commended.
The audacity is breathtaking. Timor Leste’s leaders have cavorted with terrorists who have butchered and seek to kill Myanmar citizens further. Its President, Jose Ramos Horta, has disgustingly validated representatives of a group of terrorist grifters and philanderers now sliding into irrelevance with each passing day. At one point, Timor Leste even called for Tatmadaw soldiers to betray their oaths. Horta further repeated outright lies from disgraced Yanghee Lee’s disreputable outfit – a worthless gaggle of former UN has-beens now working as groupies for terrorists in Myanmar to cling to any shred of relevance. Horta would later bark ‘condemnations’ of Myanmar’s planned elections, thus endorsing threats made against civilians involved in the country’s election process. Such calls for insurrection and interference in the domestic affairs of another sovereign country go far beyond the meaningless platitudes common to the cheap Western activist spiel spat out on social media.
These overtures should come as no surprise. Modern Timor Leste and Horta’s Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor (FRETELIN) was born through many years of subjecting Timorese and ethnic Indonesians to terroristic atrocities while being cradled by the paws of Western bias in their favour. FRETELIN thugs – very similar to the terrorists operating in Myanmar – forced rural bystanders into ‘protected villages’ in measures which led to massive bouts of famine, starvation and killing tens of thousands of civilians. As founder, Horta and his fellow FRETELIN terrorists oversaw the wanton slaughter of political rivals for many years, including innocent Timorese civilians who voted against independence.
Their campaign of “Mati An” in the 1970s saw the group murder thousands of its own members for ‘counterrevolutionary’ activities – actions adopted by the ABSDF (North) in their massacres in Pajaung and by the many lowlife terrorist cells roaming Myanmar today. This politicide extended to its main rival, the Timorese Democratic Union (UDT). Radio broadcasts by FRETELIN called for the execution of ‘traitors’, from UDT, riling up civilian bystanders into abetting the group’s atrocities.
And yet, Horta and FRETELIN received zero accountability for these crimes. The Serious Crimes Unit (SCU), a joint UN-Timor entity set up in 1999 to investigate war crimes, disproportionately focused on crimes by pro-Indonesia militias while ignoring or, at worst, covering up FRETELIN atrocities. FRETELIN-backed gangs disrupted independent investigations and threatened and even killed family members of FRETELIN victims. These heinous campaigns of terror somehow resulted in Horta being awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 1996 – another example of the award’s diminished legitimacy. So long as the terrorist in question serves the interests of the winds of the ‘international community’, said terrorist and his affiliates will be beyond reproach, with their only requirement being to occasionally spout Western liberal talking points.
This mindset of unchecked immunity has translated into Timor-Leste’s relations with Myanmar. Horta and his government believe there are no consequences for supporting terrorists from another country – the same kind of mindset seen in the (often vacuous) heads of Western European diplomats. Dili thinks it can mouth off and abet calls for terrorism in Myanmar with impunity and saunter into becoming an ASEAN member state.
We should remember this: Timor Leste is playing the Gambia playbook. It has marketed itself as a sock-puppet for the Western neoliberal rulers, getting overwhelmingly trounced in domestic opinion polls, in return for increased regional visibility and other perks. No genuinely productive citizen in the West currently has the time to cheer on the vapid, moral grandstanding exercises made overseas by their governing and ruling classes as they struggle with debt, immigration and soaring costs of living.
Myanmar, for context, has always sought harmony and peace in its international relations. The country’s governing and long-held foreign policy doctrine remains rooted in non-interventionism. Myanmar just so happens to be also one of those conflict landscapes where lazy, grandstanding statements, articles, books and entire careers as ‘country experts’ and academics can be manufactured by simply regurgitating terrorist propaganda. Six-figure salaries and consulting fees are drawn by ‘experts’ and activists repeating the same empty, biased nonsensical script, with paraphrased versions of the same junk published in outlets largely overseen by editors who couldn’t point out Shan State from Taninthayi Region on a map.
These experts rely on the work of local quislings only too willing to betray the country for the privilege of being labelled ‘brave dissidents’. Just like how FRETELIN’s terrorist gangs and PDF terrorists murder political opponents, discussions that go against the prevailing, anti-Myanmar government narrative are silenced and not allowed any genuine consideration – a legacy of the ‘safe space’ narrative environment cultivated by the despicable tyrants of western liberal hegemonic institutions. As such, this echo chamber becomes ripe for countries like Timor Leste and people like Horta and his sidekick, Xanana Gusmao, to partake in this exercise of moral grandstanding to increase their own visibility for ulterior motives. Horta condemns Myanmar, while flagrantly ignoring the terrorists that he calls his ‘friends’.
This prevailing context and Myanmar’s longstanding diplomatic posture do not mean the country’s government is toothless. Myanmar will not stand meekly in the face of disrespect that has crossed far beyond any acceptable thresholds. Myanmar thus must not compromise in its stand of opposing Timor Leste’s entrance into ASEAN.
Should Timor Leste be admitted, the country will only use its membership as a pulpit to take swipes at Myanmar and its interests, flagrantly disregarding the ASEAN charter’s non-interference provisions simply because its leadership have been bred and taught that they can act with impunity for being a Western neoliberal attack mouthpiece. Myanmar is under no obligation to entertain this delusion. In the same way, Horta demonstrates a disregard for facts to write his own saviour story. Myanmar should disregard its country’s desires in favour of focusing on its own interests. Let Horta and his cronies first clean up Timor Leste’s own house-still stained with and smelling of the blood of his opponents, before it dares lecture on Myanmar and cavort with terrorists.
Source: GNLM
(Explanation: This article is just the author’s opinion.)