October 1999

Hugo Chávez is a name on all Latin-American lips. The 45-year-old army commander, who attempted a coup in 1992, was elected president of Venezuela in December 1998. Since taking office he has, with the support of the left and the have-nots, embarked on a “peaceful and democratic revolution” that is worrying those who preach globalisation. There is a name on all Latin-American lips nowadays: that of Hugo Chávez. This 45-year-old army commander, who attempted a coup in 1992, was elected president (...)

A quarter of century has elapsed between 7 December 1975, the day Indonesia invaded and annexed East Timor, and the referendum of 30 August 1999 in which 78.5% of the population called for independence. Two hundred thousand Timorese died during this forced “integration” while the world community looked the other way. The fall of Suharto cleared the way for change, with Jakarta finally agreeing to the referendum - but preparing to meet a vote for independence with repression. On 20 September the United Nations finally sent in a multinational force (Interfet) under Australian command. This cannot deal with the problem of the 300,000 Timorese deported to West Timor nor bring the torturers before an international tribunal. Nor should it make us forget the West’s 25-year complicity with the Jakarta dictatorship.

It is the Indonesian armed forces who planned, organised and coordinated the rising tide of violence since the referendum. It is they who from the 1970s onwards set up and trained the militias to intimidate the Timorese and, in more recent times, force them to support integration with Indonesia. Then they made them pay for choosing independence.

The Timorese resistance is made up of groups that are united in denouncing the Indonesian invasion and occupation, and joined in adversity to thwart the genocidal tendencies at large. Yet the resistance is not a single entity. Rather, it seems woven from a thousand strands, each drawn from a key episode in the history of East Timor.

China is trying to strengthen its hold on its “natural sphere of influence” in East Asia, while the United States is determined to maintain the status quo that existed at the end of the cold war. Thus relations between the two, sharpened during the Kosovo war, are increasingly ambiguous.

As the results come in from Hesse, the Saarland, Brandenburg, Thuringia and Saxony, the regional elections are turning into a nightmare for Gerhard Schröder. The Red-Green coalition is paying a heavy price for the last year’s “third way” policies. And for good reason. Not only has the government reneged on most of the reforms it promised but, despite Oskar Lafontaine’s warnings, it has imposed unprecedented austerity on a country already suffering from record unemployment. Ten years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and nine years after reunification, this crisis marks the completion of Germany’s return to normal. The “economic miracle” is over. The Federal Republic is encountering the same difficulties as its neighbours. Its famous political stability is now a thing of the past. In a matter of months the chancellor’s popularity has plunged as low as his predecessor’s after 16 years in office.

The regional elections are turning into a nightmare for Gerhard Schröder. The Red-Green coalition is paying a heavy price for the last year’s “third way” policies. And for good reason. Not only has the government reneged on most of the reforms it promised but, despite Oskar Lafontaine’s warnings, it has imposed unprecedented austerity on a country already suffering from record unemployment. Ten years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and eight years after reunification, this crisis marks the completion of Germany’s return to normal. The “economic miracle” is over. The Federal Republic is encountering the same difficulties as its neighbours. Its famous political stability is now a thing of the past. In a matter of months the chancellor’s popularity has plunged as low as his predecessor’s after 16 years in office.

Two years after the civil war that brought Laurent-Désiré Kabila to power in the former Zaire, the country’s descent into hell continues. Inexperienced government, human rights violations, Hutu refugees implicated in the genocide in Rwanda, warring rebel factions with disparate aims, all contribute to a chaotic situation in which six states in the region are involved on one side or another. Whole provinces are now under foreign control and abuses abound. Meanwhile, plausible arguments are deployed to conceal the greed and lust for power provoked by the immense wealth of this wounded giant of central Africa.

Successor to Nasser and Sadat, President Mubarak is Egypt’s longest-serving ruler since the 1952 revolution. Triumphantly endorsed on 26 September by a referendum in which he was the only candidate, he has now been sworn in for his fourth six-year term of office. Can this increasingly autocratic head of a rigid, decadent, unrepresentative political system accomplish the free-market economic reforms on which he has staked his future?

Although Ehud Barak has finally agreed to apply the Wye River memorandum signed by his predecessor he does not see the Palestinian problem as the key issue in the Arab-Israeli conflict. He is pinning hopes on an agreement with president Hafez Al Assad to secure peace with Syria and Lebanon. Resuming talks with Damascus, however, would require Israel to withdraw to the lines occupied on 4 June 1967.

In May this year the Swedish parliament decided to compensate the victims of Sweden’s forced sterilisation policy, which was introduced in 1934 and only abandoned in 1975. During the inter-war period, in the prevailing climate of feverish nationalism, policies were introduced throughout Europe to eliminate or control social deviants and foreigners. Under pressure from the new science of eugenics, they reached frenzied heights in Nazi Germany. But they were also pursued in other forms by the Swiss government, which applied them to the Gypsies.

Two bits of information that shed some light on the “American miracle” have been quietly released by the Western media. First, going against the world trend, working hours increased 4% in the United States between 1980 and 1997. And second, the income gap between factory workers and company bosses, already one to 42 in 1980, now stands at one to 419. Nonetheless, the US trade deficit is widening, economic growth continues apace and, 70 years after the 1929 crash, Wall Street is breaking all records.

The major threat to Azerbaijan’s stability is not external. Neither Russia nor Iran have territorial claims on the country, and Armenia has no interest in letting the situation escalate when it could try to exchange conquered territories for the de facto independence of Karabakh. Azerbaijan’s threats are internal. The population is losing patience as oil-related hopes evaporate. Social discontent could manifest itself in regionalist, centrifugal movements or growing Islamic activism. Meanwhile there is uncertainty over the succession to President Aliev.

Moscow has invaded a third of Chechenya, causing tens of thousands to flee, and imposed a total blockade on the rest of the republic. An escalation of the war would help Yeltsin politically in the upcoming elections (legislative in December, presidential in summer 2000). At the same time Moscow is anxious to avoid ’losing’ Daghestan, a key republic of the North Caucasus which may become an indispensable route for Caspian oil to reach Russia. The Kremlin wants to put a stop to the fragmentation and anarchy in the region, not least the spreading Islamic fundamentalism. But is this within the reach of the ageing regime?

On 13 July KPFA, the United States’ best known leftwing radio, located in Berkeley, California, was taken off the air by its parent organisation, the Pacifica Foundation. With its radical mission and popular appeal that allow it to be run on a largely voluntary basis, with strong community support, it has been Pacifica’s cash cow. So how come KPFA and Pacifica are at war?