Book review: A Dirty Little War

During the Indonesian invasion in 1975, five Australian-based journalists were killed while attempting to provide coverage of the situation in East Timor. Despite substantial evidence indicating that the journalists were effectively executed, the Australian Government still maintains the five were accidentally killed in crossfire.

On Sunday 22nd July, as I conclude this article reports are coming in of more police violence in Genoa. ABC Online reports that Italian police have "conducted a raid on the press centre of the anti-globalisation movement, Genoa Social Forum". Italy Indymedia was one of the groups based at the press centre and its website reports that not only did the police destroy the place and take away computers and files, but also violence was inflicted by the police on those who were inside. BBC Online confirms what happened: "A BBC correspondent who entered the building immediately after the raid said he saw a number of badly injured people, and pools of blood in the rooms."

The Italian police say the raid on the press centre was the result of a tip-off and that iron bars, knives, blunt objects and black T-shirts had been seized. But Italy Indymedia suggests police were looking for an escape they wanted to justify their violence on the streets and their killing of a young man.

Revenge by authorities was a common occurrence in East Timor. John Martinkus describes the "regular routine" carried out by the Indonesian military intelligence unit when they sought revenge: "a family would suddenly find men armed with guns inside their house late at night. The masked men would take away the man of the house and often rape the mother or daughters. Young men, particularly those with an education, were almost always taken away. Often they were never heard of again; sometimes their mutilated remains were discovered weeks later, by the roadside or dumped on some vacant land or the beach."

Attempting to explain and understand what happened in Genoa and in places like East Timor is part of an ongoing discussion that will not necessarily have a tidy conclusion.

The East Timorese were determined not to be part of Indonesia their vision was to live in an independent country free of the Indonesian regime. Their struggle lasted 25 years and cost the lives of one third of their population. The protests that are occurring at events such as the G8 Summit in Genoa can also be seen as struggles for independence.

It’s often claimed that movements against corporate globalisation need to communicate a clearer vision of the future they are struggling for. But this argument fails to recognise that putting your body on the line is very often a last ditch tactic in an attempt to be listened to.

Perhaps it is the rest of us who need to listen more carefully to what’s being said – and time we began to facilitate a culture in which the messages of the less dominant, the less established, are respected and taken in to consideration, before situations escalate to such extremes.