16.06.06

Conspiracy Theory 101

Posted in Culture/Society at 8:01 am by Squatter

I don’t do politics. For the life of me, I can’t think like a politician so just can’t come to grips with political blustering and double-speak.

I am doing no better here, but at the moment, it would appear all the action is happening in the political arena – or more accurately, not in the arena at all.

Of late, (courtesy of Google News) I have read quite a few “propositions”. I have heard most of them mentioned here but I have little feel at all for which one or ones may be closer to the mark. I have heard this mentioned a number of times here and can concur : “you just can’t use western logic and assumptions to make conclusions about what has or may happen here”.

Lets try some of the “propositions” (in no particular order) :

  • Prime Minister Alkatiri, either directly or indirectly through the ex-Minister of the Interior Lobato, hired hitmen to rough up and perhaps incapacitate political rivals.
  • The Dili Chamber of Commerce stand to gain an enormous amount from the huge windfall in foreign income from the foreign military presence.
  • The “rebels” are being co-ordinated by President Xanana Gusmao for his own political ends.
  • Australia is stirring up trouble in order to de-stabilise the current government.
  • Prime Minister Alkatiri is using the foreign forces to bolster his position by quelling some of his opposition.
  • Indonesia is stirring up trouble to de-stabilise the current government.
  • Prime Minister Alkatiri is hugely unpopular but will never give up his position based on this unpopularity.
  • The imminent departure of the UN and the associated UN economy was going to leave a huge financial hole which is miraculously now filled again.

    • Recently, I had to explain to an acquaintance that I think it is one thing to say a certain party benefits from a certain course of events but a huge leap to saying they orchestrated it. Similarly, don’t assume malevolent intentions when good old fashioned incompetence and ineptitude is just as valid a factor.

    I am collecting some of the press reports which propose some of these theories (and in some cases, present them as fact) and will mark them out of 10 when the air clears.

    But I got 8 out of 8 in a football tipping pool last week and while I could claim a high degree of prescience, basically it was a week of good guessing. Oh, I forgot … I had no political agendas guiding my football selections.

    3 Comments

    1. Thomas Carney said,

      17 June, 2006 at 1:44 am

      As some one who has devoted time and posts to the current crisis in East Timor I found your blog to be right on the money on several issues. I have made your reporting a regular part of my posts on “Mad as Hell”. http://tc451.wordpress.com/
      Please link to my blog as I will Yours.
      Thank You,
      Thomas Carney

    2. Dave Riley (Australia) said,

      22 June, 2006 at 11:13 am

      Check this out as another POV:

      http://etan.org/et2006/may/20/24failed.htm

    3. Dili-gence » UN report released said,

      18 October, 2006 at 10:14 pm

      [...] And no, there is no suggestion of a foreign-initiated coup, something I have never heard seriously mentioned here.  On 16 June, I mentioned some of the possibilities doing the rounds http://wombathole.com/dili-gence/?p=115 and maybe I will have to mark the report card on who got it right. [...]