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East Timor, Kosovo, Iraqi Khurdistan and India's Problems

East Timor is an island of the Indonesian archipelago which remained a Portuguese colony at the time that the Dutch gave independence to Indonesia after WW2, just like Goa, Daman and Diu remained Portuguese colonies after Indian independence. The difference was that nearly all of the native population of East Timor had been converted to Catholicism and had taken Portuguese Christian names as well. Indonesia with the tacit support of America took over the island. India did the same despite Western opposition but there were a large number of Hindus and few Muslims in the Portuguese colonies of India. East Timorese were massacred by the Indonesian army and remained opposed to merging with Indonesia.  

When the Asian financial crisis in the late nineties devastated Indonesia like the later Tsunami, Indonesia needed IMF financing. The corrupt American puppet Suharto was ditched by the US just like Marcos in the Philippines, the Shah in Iran, Mobutu in Congo and many others previously and since. Around that time, possible oil deposits were discovered in the East Timor Sea. Suddenly the US and Australia, the American Sheriff of Southeast Asia changed their tune and influenced the UN to hold a referendum for independence during the presidency of the invalid Habibie in Indonesia. East Timor got independence in a referendum conducted while Australian soldiers policed the island under the UN banner. It had little choice but to sign an oil exploration agreement with Australia. Recently the island was further devastated by a civil war and is a basket case now.

Kosovo is a province of Serbia and the site of historic battle with the Turks, just like Panipat and Kurukshetra are for India. Over the years, neighboring Muslim Albanians have migrated across the border into Serb Kosovo and become an overwhelming majority, somewhat like Bangladeshis into Assam and West Bengal. Milosevic, the racist former Serb president condoned genocidal attacks on Muslim Bosnians and Kosovars. The atrocities against the Bosnians were mainly unprovoked, but the Kosovo Liberation Front, a terrorist organization indulged in violence against Serbs to provoke retaliation by Serbia, to create a situation to bring about NATO (EU and American) retaliation. Clinton actually put an arms embargo against Muslim Bosnia while the Serbian army carried out ethnic cleansing. He later on allowed clandestine arms support by Iran and Wahabbi Saudi Arabia. Since 1999 Kosovo is under UN mandate with an EU Czar and now on the verge of getting independence in stages. Thus Serbia will lose one of its provinces.

The Kurdish area of Iraq has been co-operating with the Americans because the US shortly after the 1991 Gulf War declared a no fly zone over Iraqi Kurdistan for Saddam's air force and forbade Iraqi troops from entering the area. The US agreed to a referendum for annexing the oil rich Kirkuk region if a majority of the population voted for it. The Kurds are bringing more Kurds into the area and displacing the Arabs that Saddam brought in during his rule and the Turkoman Shias and Assyrian Christians who live there. All this has to happen by the end of 2007 and will lead to the breakup of Iraq. If the Kurds get Kirkuk and its oil wealth, they will be able to have an economically viable nation state which maybe attractive to the Kurdish minorities of neighboring Turkey, Syria and Iran and destabilize those countries.

All of these cases have parallels for India in the secessionist Christian Northeast, ULFA being supported by Bangladesh and the Bangladeshi infiltration in Assam and West Bengal and Manmohan Singh considering joint control of Kashmir with Pakistan and talking of preferential advancement of Muslims to win the elections in UP. There is even oil in Assam. Thus giving in to US or UN pressure is a prescription for disaster with fissiparous Balkanization of India. A poor country with great susceptibility to conversion to Islam or Christianity by bribery and an uneducated populace easy to brainwash by those masquerading as do-gooder NGOs supported by foreign money, often from secret funds and intelligence organizations like the ISI, CIA or the former KGB. The Tulip regime change in Kyrghyzstan, Orange revolution in Ukraine and the overthrow of Sheverdnadze in Georgia need to be a serious warning. It also means that oppression of Dalits and discrimination against Muslims has to go. On their part the minorities must show unswerving loyalty to the Indian state. 

      

17-Feb-2007

More by :  Gaurang Bhatt, MD

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