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East Timor News Digest 6 - March 3-9, 2003
Radio Australia - March 5, 2003
United Nations General Secretary Kofi Annan has recommended to
the Security Council to slow the withdrawal of UN troops from
East Timor. Citing the frequency of security-related incidents
over the last three months, Mr Annan said there was a need to
readjust the downsizing plan.
Presenter/Interviewer: Kanaha Sabapathy
Speakers: Marcia Poole chief spokesperson of UNMISET; Professor
Jim Fox, director of the Research School of Pacific and Asian
Studies at the Australian National University
Sabapathy: When UNMISET, the UN Mission of Support in East Timor
was formed in May 2001 it was agreed that the four thousand-odd
troops and 2,300 support staff were to be phased out in four half
year stages with a completion date of June 2004.
The plan was based on the assumption that the threat from former
militias would gradually reduce, the new threats of a similar
scale would not emerge and that major civil disturbances would
not occur. But following the apprehension of five men for the
attack on a bus and truck last week, it's quite clear that the
former militias are still active. Marcia Poole is the chief
spokesperson for UNMISET in Dili.
Poole: This is actually the first time a PKF detained people
who've said that they were ex-militia. Prior to that there have
been reports of sightings to PKF in other districts of Timor, But
untill now we haven't actually caught anyone.
Sabapathy: Apart from this evidence, is there any other evidence
to show that perhaps the former militia and armed groups are
forming bases in the country?
Poole: The only evidence we have again comes from these attacks
in Attabai because in fact our troops ... PKF troops ... they
found a campsite, and in this campsite they did find military
equipment and clothing, webbing and food and they actually found
nearly 1,000 rounds of live amunition.
Sabapathy: East Timor's problems however are not all militia
related. In fact since independence there has been growing
dissatisfaction at all levels leading to events like the December
4th student protest which turned into a riot. Professor Jim Fox,
director of the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies at
the Australian National University, explains.
Fox: There are problems with ex-combatants of all kinds including
those who fought for freedom and feel very disgruntled over the
situation where they feel that they've attained very little from
the process of independence.
They've sacrificed a great deal and had very little return.
There was a great deal of what you would call millenarian
expectaion that when independence came, everything would
change ... this is very much in the rural areas. That hasn't
happened, and so there is a lot of say ... frustration.
Sabapathy: Professor Fox says lack of resources is at the root of
the problem, but he believes this would be rectified once the
East Timor Gap Treaty is signed with Australia and the money
begins to flow in.
Fox: Once that's signed there will be a go ahead for the
beginning of funds. Most of these funds will not really begin to
flow well until 2005, 2006, but at least there will be the
expectaion of these funds coming into the country, and on that
basis East Timor wil have a little bit more stability in
planning.
Sabapathy: So how much of a breather will the new phased
withdrawal give the East Timorese? Marcia Poole from UNMISET
Poole: At the moment they have 3,270 troops here in Timor, and
according to the current plan they were meant to be cut back in
June by about a thousand. And then again in December by about
another 1,000, and then hopefully for complete withdrawal by June
2004. Now what we are considering and what I think the Secretary
General is going to put to the Security Council, is that we keep
the same level of troops i.e 3,270 untill December this year, and
then review the situation.
Fox: President Gusmao said the next years to 2005 until some of
the oil revenues begin to flow, would be very difficult years. He
reminded the population that this was the time of struggle ... if
the struggle hadn't ended it was only begining ... and I think
that's true. And if anything that has happened over the past year
has simply made those conditions even worse.
Agence France Presse - March 2, 2003
Dili -- Sitting by the road on the Dili waterfront, Jose Belo
Pereira ekes out a living selling coconuts to passers-by. His
two-dollar-a-day profit is not exactly what he hoped for under
independence.
Although he supported the breakaway in 1999, Pereira was better
off financially under Indonesian rule. And he has little idea
what the future holds for him, apart from more coconuts.
It is a common story in East Timor these days, nine months after
it gained independence from United Nations stewardship.
"Before, I worked building the road. Now there is no work like
that. Even if we look for work, we don't find work," the
20-year-old told AFP. "They don't give it. If we ask, they say,
'There are lots of people.' If we don't know English they don't
give work. If people know English they give it."
Pereira's life is tough, even though he is single. He buys his
coconuts for 10 cents apiece and sells them for 50 cents. He
generally sells around 10 a day, he says, making a grand total of
four dollars profit -- minus the two dollars he has to pay for
transport to work. But at least he has some kind of work. An
estimated 70 percent of the population is unemployed. Students
are enrolling for courses at tiny "universities" that will never
bring them jobs.
Health services are still minimal and often non-existent outside
the main towns.
Analysts say the situation is a fertile breeding ground for
discontent with the government and may be storing up problems for
the future, which anti-independence forces in West Timor might
well seek to exploit.
In the parliamentary election of 2001 Pereira chose Fretilin, the
formerly socialist party now in power. In the presidential
election last year he voted for former guerrilla leader Xanana
Gusmao, who won by a landslide. But now he says his leaders are
only interested in their own positions.
He is far from alone in that view.
The biggest sign of dissatisfaction came last December when
rioters burned down the home of Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri and
targeted other properties linked to him and his family.
Despite Fretilin's election win in 2001, UN sources say people
voted for it largely out of loyalty to the party that originally
declared independence in 1975 -- rather than out of support for
its current leadership.
Many of its current leaders were abroad for the entire 24 years
of Indonesian occupation, when an estimated 200,000 Timorese died
at home of war, starvation and disease. Alkatiri spent most of
the occupation in Mozambique and despite his leftist past, is a
member of a wealthy Arab family of Yemeni origin. He is also a
Muslim whereas most East Timorese are Roman Catholic.
A hint of the danger appeared in the December riots. "It was a
riot that was not just running amok. It was able to pick out
Alkatiri targets separated by kilometers," said one UN source.
With UN funding still keeping the country afloat and substantial
oil revenue from the Timor Gap still some years away, the
question is whether East Timor will be able to cope after the UN
support mission withdraws. Under current plans, that should take
place on June 30 next year.
Party, said independence had come too early. The United Nations
simply wanted to ensure that its own operations in East Timor
were not labeled a failure, he said.
"You have to have a strong economy. Enough at least for the basic
things. You should not go to the international community," he
said. "Perhaps we needed about five years of reconstruction."
To compound matters, the Fretilin leaders from the diaspora were
out of touch with how the country had changed since 1975. "They
missed completely the new developments here in East Timor", said
Carrascalao.
West Timor/refugees
Timor Gap
Government & politics
Human rights trials
News & issues
International solidarity
International relations
Transition & reconstruction
UN chief says troop withdrawal should slow down
Timorese hopes fade nine months after independence
West Timor/refugees
Backbench upset over decision to deport Timorese
Sydney Morning Herald - March 6, 2003
Cynthia Banham -- The Howard Government is facing dissent from its backbenches over a decision to deport more than 1000 East Timorese refugees.
A delegation of disgruntled Liberals, who are believed to be unhappy with aspects of the Government's refugee policy including the number of children in detention, are due to meet the Immigration Minister, Philip Ruddock, today. The backbenchers include moderates Bruce Baird, Senator Marise Payne and Petro Georgiou.
The Government also faces heated criticism from opposition and church groups over its refusal to allow the East Timorese to stay in Australia. Many of them have lived in Australia for a decade and some were born in the country.
Labor yesterday announced it would introduce a special amendment to the migration laws compelling the Government to grant the East Timorese permanent residency. Labor's Leader, Simon Crean, said the proposed amendment would confer permanent status on the affected East Timorese and would be a "one-off situation".
"It's in recognition of the special circumstances surrounding the East Timorese -- people whose status has not been considered by successive governments and who, if it had been considered at the time, clearly would have been given refugee status," Mr Crean said.
The Immigration Department says 1095 East Timorese have received final decisions on their application for permanent refugee status -- all of which have been rejections -- with 500 still awaiting their rulings.
If the East Timorese decide to appeal to Mr Ruddock, they immediately lose their right to access the Asylum Seeker Assistance Scheme, which provides them with public financial assistance, Medicare, and the right to work. Church groups say this means there are now many East Timorese who have found themselves unable to work or go to school. Many depend on charities to survive.
A Josephite sister, Kath O'Connor, said the East Timorese had fled their homeland because of the suffering there -- only to face the "trauma" of waiting eight or 10 years to have their refugee applications processed.
"To be faced now with the prospect of being put out onto the street because of a lack of finance, when their Asylum Seeker Assistance fund is withdrawn ... is just patently inhumane," Sister O'Connor said.
Melbourne Age - March 2, 2003
Larry Schwartz -- The boys have been asking their father why they must leave family and friends in suburban Melbourne and go to another country.
Kium Kit Lim says: "They ask me, "Why must we go to East Timor? Why can't we stay here?" I say it's because we came here late. The little one says, "I'm an Aussie. You go back. I'll stay here."
The elder of the two boys, Tommy, 8, was just a few months old when he accompanied his father, a 39-year-old printer, and his mother, Man Ing Sam, as they fled their native Dili in 1994. Like his brother, Australian-born Jeffrey, 5, all that Tommy knows of East Timor is what he has seen on TV.
Tommy is troubled by images of conflict. What do they know of East Timor? "People fighting," says the youngster with Star Wars characters emblazoned on his yellow singlet. "Fighting," he repeats softly.
The Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs last month notified more than 1000 East Timorese asylum seekers that their applications for permanent residence had been refused and they had 28 days (plus seven working days from the date the notice of decision was sent) to appeal to the Refugee Review Tribunal or be forced to leave Australia.
Kium Kit Lim says he fears violence, despite the country's independence from Indonesia. He has heard that there are people in Dili who could "finish you up for maybe $100". "That's what I'm scared of," he says. Etervina Groenen is an early-1980s migrant from East Timor and was, until last year, its official representative in Australia. She devotes much of her time to helping asylum seekers at the North Richmond Community Health Centre and as lay minister at St Matthias Anglican church in Abbotsford.
"Many have suffered terribly," she says. She has found extreme distress among many still traumatised after years in Australia. Some have confided instances of physical and mental abuse, including torture and rape. Men have told her of digital rape by Indonesian soldiers "to break the spirit".
Most of the 1650 East Timorese asylum seekers live in Victoria. Some have been in Australia for more than a decade.
"It's a long time to put your life on hold," Ms Groenen says, "where you are wondering if something terrible is going to happen -- that you are gooing to be sent back.
"Maybe people in Australia think these people are just being paranoid. But if you live under that constant fear for a long time, and you don't have a chance to put that behind you because you worry about your future, it is very difficult to build trust."
Processing of cases recommenced last June after a delay of several years. The delay had occurred after the Refugee Review Tribunal in 1995 raised questions on whether East Timorese refugees should not instead apply for citizenship of Portugal, which administered East Timor for more than 250 years until Indonesian occupation in 1975.
A specially convened bench of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal in October 2000 heard a "test case" and decided the asylum seeker was a refugee and not entitled to Portuguese nationality. But the applications were not dealt with again until after independence.
Mr Lim and his family were among the first 168 applicants considered. Each was refused protection last September; none so far has been successful.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees late last year ended refugee status for all who fled in 1999, when militias backed by the Indonesian military carried out systematic killings and destruction after an overwhelming UN referendum vote for independence.
Among those seeking refuge then, 27-year-old Fivo Freitas hosts an East Timorese program on Radio 3ZZZ and has contributed so much as a voluntary community worker that he recently received an Australian of the Year award from the City of Yarra, whose mayor is among four in Melbourne actively lobbying on behalf of East Timorese residents.
"This was a shock for me," Mr Freitas says. "I received the award and only five days after received the letter saying, well, you have to leave in 28 days ... I came here [to] rebuild my life in this country. I wanted too start thinking about my future. [When] I heard that they want to send us back to our country, I thought, "Oh my God, what have I been doing?"
Most here had arrived earlier. Among them the Lim family, whose chances of remaining in Australia were further set back in January when the Refugee Review Tribunal upheld the department's decision to reject their application.
Mr Lim says he and his family fled East Timor because there was "no law and order". They had applied for asylum on arrival in 1994, citing Mr Lim's support for the resistance movement in East Timor.
As Hakka-speaking ethnic Chinese, the family fears harassment if forced to return. They have sent an appeal to Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock to intervene on humantiarian grounds. He fears he would have little prospect of finding suitable work or appropriate education for his sons. "I already have a house here," he says."I have a secure job. I'm set up nearly perfectly here in Australia."
Mr Lim says he knew no English when he arrived in Melbourne on a visitor's visa and found it difficult at first to distinguish between similar sounding words "chicken" and "kitchen" at weekly lessons in a Uniting Church hall. He has worked as a printer for six years, has a mortgage on the family three-bedroom, brick- veneer home and pays instalments on two cars.
The family lives close to cousins, aunts, uncles, parents and grandparents.
Most relatives are Australian citizens. Mr Lim takes pride in his financial independence and the achievements for his family. He has permission to continue work while awaiting the minister's decision.
Mr Lim's employer, Steve Michaelides, has written to authorities in support of the family's asylum bid. "I think it's extremely unfair and unjust," he says. "He came to this country a long time ago for protection. He was permitted to work and to establish a life here and ... he has become aa very constructive and tremendous contributor to our community."
For Mr Michaelides, Mr Lim's predicament recalls that of his own father, a Greek-Cypriot migrant who came to Australia in 1948 and founded a printing business and community newspaper.
"His [Mr Lim's] attitude towards life and his responsibilities towards Australia is fantastic," Mr Michaelides says. "He's a very genuine person. I think that his situation is very unfair as is that of many of the East Timorese that have been allowed to establish a life in our country b more than East Timorese and to all of a sudden pull all of that out from under them, I think, is unjust and incredibly disturbing."
The Government is believed to have considered pleas to create a special visa category along the lines of the 1997 visa for Chinese students in Australia at the time of the Tiananmen Square massacre. But a spokesman for Mr Ruddock, Steve Ingram, said federal cabinet had decided East Timorese asylum seekers "would be treated equally with other nationalities" and the Government did not favour a "discriminatory package".
Mr Ingram said "several hundred" had so far been notified by the department that they did not meet refugee criteria and "a couple of dozen" decisions had already been upheld in the Refugee Review Tribunal; asylum seekers could then either appeal to the Federal Court or directly to Mr Ruddock.
Mr Ruddock had intervened already in several cases and indicated that he was most likely to do so when asylum seekers including East Timorese had married Australian citizens, particularly where their children were citizens. He would also look favourably on those who had set up businesses or were able to show business skills or acumen.
Mr Ingram said the minister had indicated he would find it most difficult to justify intervening on behalf of a single person without relatives in Australia and with most family in East Timor.
Solicitor David Manne, co-ordinator of the Fitzroy-based Refugee and Immigration Legal Centre, which represents more than 600 East Timorese on refugee and immigration matters, says there is an urgent need for the Government to reconsider its policy on East Timorese asylum seekers. "The clear and compelling solution is to create a special humanitarian visa that would grant them permanent residence," he says.
Mr Manne says tribunal members routinely found that East Timorese applicants had strong cases for refugee status when they first applied for asylum and, had their applications not been "frozen", they would have been granted refugee status all that time ago.
"They are also finding that, despite the significant changes in East Timor since, these people overwhelmingly still have clear and compelling humanitarian claims," Mr Manne says.
"The urgent creation of a humanitarian visa class would not only be entirely consistent with what decision-makers are discovering as they examine East Timorese cases; it would also seem, as a matter of fairness, of decency, and of equity, the only solution to fully and properly recognise their special situation."
| Timor Gap |
Melbourne Age - March 6, 2003
Mark Baker -- East Timor has bowed to intense political pressure from Australia and will today rush through the signing of an agreement to clear the way for joint development of the vast oil and gas reserves of the Timor Sea.
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer will fly to Dili today to endorse a deal on the second-stage development, removing the last stumbling block after months of bitter wrangling between the two governments.
But senior Timorese officials claim the signing was agreed only after Prime Minister John Howard threatened to block long-delayed legislation before Federal Parliament implementing a treaty to enable first-stage development of the $20 billion Bayu-Undan liquefied natural gas project.
The officials told The Age Mr Howard warned that he would stall the treaty legislation, due in the Senate today after passing the lower house last night, unless the Timorese ratified a separate agreement on the longer-term development of the bigger Great Sunrise project, which straddles the treaty zone.
They said Mr Howard had delivered the blunt message in a telephone call yesterday morning to Timorese Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri, who had earlier refused calls from Mr Downer.
"It was an ultimatum. Howard said that unless we agreed to sign the new deal immediately, he would stop the Senate approving the treaty," a senior Timorese official said.
The official said that after a conversation late yesterday between Mr Downer and Timorese Foreign Minister Jose Ramos Horta, Dr Alkatiri agreed to call an extraordinary cabinet meeting this morning to endorse the Greater Sunrise deal.
Australian officials are understood to have been concerned that the Timorese might renege on the Greater Sunrise deal once the treaty legislation was passed.
Timorese officials said Dr Alkatiri had been deeply offended by Australian demands to fast-track cabinet approval of the Greater Sunrise agreement, reached late on Sunday after months of talks.
They said he had refused to take a telephone call from Mr Downer on Tuesday evening. "He told his staff that he had two messages for Mr Downer: he is not welcome in Dili and he should learn to trust the Timorese," said one official. "They were treating him as if he was a child and he is offended.
"The Australians have shown great disrespect to the institutions of another sovereign nation. This sort of thing goes down like a lead balloon in Dili. The Timorese were pushed around for too long by the Indonesians. We don't want another big neighbour telling us what to do."
A spokesman for Mr Howard would not comment last night on the Timorese claims that he had threatened Dr Alkatiri. "The Prime Minister spoke to him [Dr Alkatiri] and the Foreign Minister spoke to their Foreign Minister. I can't tell you any more than that, " he said.
Any further delay in implementing the Timor Sea Treaty could have torpedoed the Bayu-Undan project, seen as vital for East Timor's future economic independence. An options agreement, under which two Japanese companies have agreed to buy the entire output, would expire next Tuesday were the treaty not in place.
The Australian - March 7, 2003
Steve Lewis and Nigel Wilson -- Relations between Australia and East Timor have deteriorated even as they signed a breakthrough agreement yesterday paving the way for billions of dollars in shared revenue.
John Howard was forced to deny claims he had sought to "blackmail" East Timor into fast-tracking the agreement amid concerns that a delay could jeopardise valuable gas contracts with Japan.
But last night, East Timor's Prime Minister, Mari Alkitiri, admitted Canberra had used heavyhanded tactics to ensure Dili signed the International Unitisation Agreement (IUA), which will facilitate development of the Greater Sunrise gas field, about 450km northwest of Darwin.
After months of haggling between Australia and East Timor, federal parliament finally passed into law the Timor Sea Treaty. The related IUA sets out the legal and financial terms once the gas fields are operational.
Under a deal previously negotiated, 90 per cent of profits from the Bayu Undan project will go to East Timor, with Australian interests taking 10 per cent. However, under the latest agreement the 90:10 split applies only to 20.1 per cent of the Greater Sunrise project, which is some years away from becoming operational.
Opposition parties hit out at the Government's handling of the issue. Greens senator Bob Brown accused Mr Howard of using blackmail during a phone call to Dr Alkitiri.
"The motive of the Prime Minister was to coerce East Timor in terms of resources and money through a threat to withdraw this legislation if [Dili] did not agree to signing the agreement," he said.
"It's absolutely wicked, this stealing of resources of the poorest country in the region by the richest country in the region and the oil corporations behind it. It's illegal ... and John Howard has withdrawn from the International Court of Justice because he knows it's illegal."
Last night, Dr Alkitiri told ABC television the Government had applied a "lot of pressure" that was "not helpful for the whole process".
But Mr Howard denied he had used strong-arm tactics. "My call to Dr Alkitiri, which was totally civil and cordial ... related solely to formal processes and not to any of the substance of the negotiated package", he told parliament.
Ratification of the treaty still leaves a number of hurdles before a $20 billion export liquefied natural gas contract is completed.
The Darwin area manager for Bayu Undan joint venture leader ConocoPhillips, Blair Murphy, said the hurdles included a formal tax arrangement with East Timor, a formal production sharing agreement between the joint venture and the East Timor and Australian governments, and approval of the design of the LNG plant in Darwin.
Australian Associated Press - March 7, 2003
Prime Minister John Howard denied yesterday bullying East Timor over a lucrative gas project as Parliament passed the crucial Timor Sea Treaty.
The laws, rushed through on the last sitting day before a March 11 deadline to ratify the treaty, underpinned the $3 billion Bayu-Undan gas development in the seabed shared between Australia and the fledgling nation.
In the Senate, Greens Leader Bob Brown accused Mr Howard of blackmailing the East Timorese into signing a deal on the larger Greater Sunrise field, or risk losing the Bayu-Undan deal. Senator Brown was suspended from the Senate when he refused to withdraw the comments.
Mr Howard strongly denied threatening to scuttle the Bayu-Undan development unless the East Timorese ratified a second agreement on the 80 per cent Australian-owned Greater Sunrise gas field.
He had telephoned East Timorese Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri yesterday to ask whether the unitisation agreement on Sunrise could be ready to be signed by the afternoon, Mr Howard said.
"Allegations were made by Senator Brown that I have sought to intimidate, to strong-arm the East Timorese leadership over the Timor Sea negotiations -- both claims are totally false," Mr Howard told Parliament.
"My call to Dr Alkatiri, which was totally civil and cordial in accordance with our close relationship, related solely to formal processes, and not to any of the substance of the negotiated package."
The unitisation agreement, which determines East Timor's share of Greater Sunrise revenue based on the 20 per cent of the field that lies in the shared zone, had been finalised at the weekend, Mr Howard said.
The Timor Sea Office, which negotiates for Dr Alkatiri on gas and petroleum issues, accused Australia of applying unnecessary and disrespectful diplomatic pressure on the East Timorese government to sign off on Sunrise.
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer denied East Timor was bullied but said lively discussion had led to a fair compromise between Australian and East Timorese interests. Mr Downer flew to Dili to sign the Sunrise agreement late yesterday.
A partial transcript of Mr Downer's negotiations with the East Timorese appeared on the crikey.com.au web site, which accused yesterday the Foreign Minister of behaving like a pompous colonial git in the negotiations.
But the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said the transcript was clearly a translated and edited version of the negotiations, and denied the document had come from within the department.
The Greens and Australian Democrats also accused the Government of ambushing the Senate by allowing a single day for the treaty laws to be passed.
Radio Australia - March 5, 2003
The Australian Parliament is expected to ratify the Timor Sea Treaty this week, ensuring a 20-billion dollar contract for natural gas can go ahead. East Timor ratified the Treaty in December and has been nervously waiting for its bigger neighbour to do the same before a crucial March 11 deadline. East Timor stands to gain the bulk of tax and royalty earnings from the gas fields which straddle the maritime territory of both countries. But as one chapter closes on the sometimes rocky relationship between Australia and East Timor, another opens.
Presenter/Interviewer: Karon Snowdon, Finance correspondent
Speakers: Jonathon Morrow, Head of the Timor Sea Office of East Timor's Prime Minister; Australia's Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer
Snowdon: Next Tuesday is the deadline on which the economic future of East Timor hangs. Next Tuesday is when Japanese contracts for an estimated 20-billion dollars worth of gas from the Timor Sea can lapse if the Treaty hasn't been ratified by both Parliaments. Without the Treaty, no contracts, without the contracts no gas development and no money for East Timor. Under the Treaty, East Timor can earn around 180-million dollars a year from resource taxes when the gas starts to flow in 2006. Without it East Timor is almost broke.
East Timor ratified the Treaty in December, Australia says its legislation should pass through both houses of parliament this week. So why has Australia waited until the very last minute to put up its legislation to enable a treaty the two Prime Ministers signed a year ago at the Independence day celebrations in Dili?
The answer is found in Greater Sunrise -- the much bigger resource in the Timor Sea which lies mostly in Australian territory, with just ten per cent within East Timor's boundaries.
East Timor has always said the two issues are separate and besides it intends to challenge the boundaries and claim 100 per cent of Sunrise itself. Australia wanted to finalise an agreement to allocate the resources of Greater Sunrise before it ratified the Timor Sea Treaty -- its called a unitisation agreement.
Australia's Foreign Minister Alexander Downer says an agreement is close.
Downer: We have been finalising those negotiations on the Greater Sunrise Field and I think we've pretty much got there now.
Snowdon: Asia Pacific understands an agreed text was finalised last weekend which confirms Australia's claim to 80 percent of Greater Sunrise with 20 percent to East Timor. East Timor's negotiator, Jonathon Morrow, says Prime Minister Mari Alkitiri will take the agreement to his Cabinet on Friday.
Morrow: East Timor is happy or at least I should say the Prime Minister is happy and his negotiators are happy. Under this development it will lead to a just outcome, a fair outcome, and in particular a fair outcome for the people of East Timor.
Snowdon: So basically, East Timor has the 80:20 split roughly in favour of Australia, and you say you are happy about that when in the past East Timor has heavily criticised that split.
Morrow: That split favours Australia obviously. However the important thing to understand about that split in the Treaty and in this Sunrise agreement which reflects the Timor Sea Treaty is that its not a permanent agreement. It is truly without prejudice to the questiion of permanent maritime boundaries and East Timor intends to press Australia for a permanent maritime boundary delimitation in the near future.
Snowdon: Is there any pressure coming from Canberra for East Timor's Cabinet to sign the unitisation agreement prior to the Australian parliament ratifying the Treaty?
Morrow: What I will say is we'd be very disappointed if at this stage the Australian government were to try to link the Treaty ratification process to the approval of the unitisation agreement by the East Timor government. That would be very disappointing news indeed. And we trust and hope that no such linkage will be made, it would obviously be very counterproductive at this late stage as we are moving quickly towards the 11 March deadline.
Snowdon: With much higher potential earnings from Sunrise than the smaller Bayu Undan, locking in the unitisation agreement before it ratifies the Treaty would be in Canberra's interests.
In the critical matter of timing, Australia's Northern Territory where the gas is to be piped, is also waiting expectantly for the outcome of the diplomatic poker game being played out between Dili and Canberra. When both agreements are signed and sealed as they no doubt will be, the next round involving maritime boundary negotiations will prove much harder.
Sydney Morning Herald - March 6, 2003
Mark Baker, Singapore and Mark Riley, Canberra -- East Timor has bowed to intense political pressure from Australia and will today rush through the signing of an agreement to clear the way for joint development of the vast oil and gas reserves of the Timor Sea.
The Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, is expected to fly to Dili to endorse a deal on second-stage development of the reserves, removing the last stumbling block after months of bitter wrangling between the two governments.
But senior Timorese officials claim the signing was agreed only after the Prime Minister, John Howard, threatened to block long- delayed bills in Federal Parliament.
The bills implement a treaty to enable first-stage development of the $20 billion Bayu-Undan liquefied natural gas project.
Ratification of the Timor Gap Treaty would allow international oil giant Conoco-Phillips to begin building a pipeline from the Bayu Udan gas field to Darwin, where it will process liquefied natural gas for sale to the Japanese.
ConocoPhillips had warned that unless the bills supporting the treaty were passed this week, it would miss a deadline set by its customers and the multi-billion-dollar deal would collapse -- and with it the huge employment opportunities it offered in Darwin.
East Timor will receive 90 per cent of revenue from the project and Australia 10 per cent under a previously agreed deal. The combined worth of the two projects is put at $20 billion, with $18 billion of that going to East Timor.
It was expected that the massive revenue flow to East Timor would help it to bankroll its own development and ease pressure on Australia as its main financial backer.
The officials told the Herald that Mr Howard warned he would stall the treaty legislation, due in the Senate today, unless the Timorese rushed through cabinet ratification of a separate agreement on the longer-term development of the bigger Greater Sunrise project, which straddles the treaty zone.
They said Mr Howard had delivered the blunt message in a telephone call yesterday morning to Timor's Prime Minister, Mari Alkatiri, who had refused to take calls from Mr Downer.
"It was an ultimatum. Howard said that unless we agreed to sign the new deal immediately, he would stop the Senate approving the treaty," a senior official close to Dr Alkatiri said.
Dr Alkatiri had relented "under heavy pressure" after a conversation late yesterday between Mr Downer and Timor's Foreign Minister, Jose Ramos Horta, who agreed to call an extraordinary cabinet meeting this morning to endorse the Greater Sunrise deal.
Australian officials are understood to have been concerned that the Timorese might renege on Greater Sunrise once the treaty legislation was passed.
Timorese officials said Dr Alkatiri had been deeply offended by the Australian demands to fast-track approval.
"They were treating him as if he was a child and he is offended. The Australians have shown great disrespect to the institutions of another sovereign nation," an official said. "This sort of thing goes down like a lead balloon in Dili. The Timorese were pushed around for too long by the Indonesians. We don't want another big neighbour telling us what to do."
The Timorese were already angered by the Howard Government's failure to honour a promise to pass the treaty legislation by last December.
A spokesman for Mr Howard would not comment last night on the Timorese claims that he had threatened Dr Alkatiri, though he admitted "the Prime Minister spoke to him".
The Australian - March 4, 2003
Nigel Wilson -- Last-minute negotiations are taking place on arrangements between Australia and East Timor that could result in legislation implementing the Timor Sea Treaty being introduced into Parliament either today or tomorrow.
Parliament is expected to pass the legislation within two days under emergency procedures similar to those used to beef up immigration controls 18 months ago.
Negotiations on the international unitisation agreement covering the Sunrise reservoirs in the Timor Sea hit a road block last week when East Timor's prime minister Mari Alkitiri demanded an equitable share of the revenues from petroleum developments.
He implied that Australia's negotiating tactics were penalising East Timor and would restrict its capacity to be economically independent of Australian aid.
Australia has demanded the unitisation agreement be concluded before Federal Parliament ratifies the treaty.
Ratification is a pre-condition for two Japanese power utilities completing contracts for the supply of $20 billion worth of liquefied natural gas from the Bayu Undan reservoirs.
Sources yesterday used the legal phrase "largely agreed" to describe the status of negotiations but suggested the final haggling was over the amount of money that East Timor would receive from any development of the Greater Sunrise reservoirs. Owners Woodside, ConocoPhillips, Shell and Osaka Gas, are considering a $5 billion export development using the world's first floating LNG production facility.
It is understood the government is planning to introduce a package of bills covering amendments to taxation, customs, crimes at sea, and the petroleum submerged lands legislation will be affected by the treaty that was ratified by the East Timor Parliament on December 17.
| Government & politics |
Lusa - March 5, 2003
Dili -- East Timor on Wednesday created a new post of vice-prime minister in a bid to boost government efficiency in the world's newest nation.
Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri appointed Justice Minister Ana Pesoa to the new post. Pesoa, of the ruling Fretilin party, is to be replaced at the Justice Ministry by her deputy, Domingos Sarmento, the prime minister said.
Alkatiri said he hoped the change would improve his administration's efficiency.
East Timor became independent in May after three years of transitional UN administration, 24 years of Indonesian occupation and more than 400 years of Portuguese colonial rule.
The poverty-stricken country inherited a legacy of corruption and inefficiency from Indonesia. It was largely destroyed by the Indonesian military after choosing independence in a UN sponsored referendum in 1999.
Alkatiri also announced a new post of state secretary for telecommunications, and named ex-journalist Virgilio Guterres as director-general of television.
| Human rights trials |
Sydney Morning Herald - March 6, 2003
The formal indictment of Indonesia's former armed forces chief, retired General Wiranto, and seven of his senior military officers for war crimes in East Timor is no watershed in the quest for justice in the former Indonesian-controlled territory. Rather, the filing of charges against more than 40 Indonesian officials is a symbolic condemnation of Indonesia's Human Rights Court for its failure so far to identify or punish those responsible for the atrocities of 1999.
The indictments were issued last week by the UN-assisted Serious Crimes Unit in East Timor in respect of killings which marked the end of Indonesian rule there. They were not, as first reported, issued by the UN under international war crimes jurisdiction. The charges were laid by East Timor, which is being assisted in the establishment of its national institutions, including the judiciary, by the United Nations.
Under international law, sovereign nations must be given the opportunity to deal with such heinous crimes against humanity through their own legal systems, before cases can be referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague.
After the 1999 violence in East Timor, the Indonesian Government managed to deflect international demands for accountability by promising to exact justice. So far, its Human Rights Court has failed to punish a single Indonesian military officer. However, while East Timor has demonstrated the political will to prosecute, it does not have the means.
Technically, Interpol may now arrest those indicted. However, there are no extradition treaties in place to deliver them into the dock in Dili. Should a future case be filed in the ICC, on the valid grounds that the Indonesian and East Timorese legal processes have failed, Jakarta is expected to refuse to surrender its nationals to the court.
At the weekend, East Timor's President, Xanana Gusmao, said his poor young nation could not afford to divert its energy into such uncertain legal proceedings, nor further strain ties with Jakarta.
This is a hard truth, but not one easily accepted. Almost a quarter of East Timor's people died under Indonesian rule, and the desire for justice -- and revenge -- remains strong. More positively, however, the indictments of Wiranto and others should serve to embarrass the Indonesian Government internationally in a potentially constructive way. The indictments point to a wider issue. It is that the same politicised, corrupt and incompetent Indonesian legal system which is failing the East Timorese is also routinely failing the Indonesian people.
Associated Press - March 6, 2003
Jakarta -- A top Indonesian Cabinet minister warned East Timor not to press ahead with the prosecutions of several Indonesian generals for alleged crimes committed during the former province's independence drive in 1999.
"Indonesia cannot accept this ... I say that if this goes ahead, it will damage relations between Indonesia and East Timor," Senior Defense Minister Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said after a Cabinet meeting.
Last week, prosecutors in Dili, East Timor's capital, filed charges against a former Indonesian armed forces chief and six other generals, accusing them of crimes against humanity when their troops went on a rampage before and after a UN-organized independence referendum in East Timor.
Yudhoyono's comments came three days after East Timorese President Xanana Gusmao sent his Foreign Minister Jose Ramos Horta to Jakarta to defuse tensions.
Gusmao expressed concerns that last week's indictments could cause unnecessary strains with Indonesia, although political ties between the two nations have improved significantly over the past two years.
Indonesia is East Timor's largest trading partner, and the two governments are preparing an agreement on issues left unresolved from Indonesia's occupation of the half-island territory.
The indictments last week were issued with extensive assistance from the UN Serious Crimes Unit. Legal, and rights observers say it is unlikely that the charges will lead to trials.
The rampage by Indonesian troops and allied local militias left at least 1,000 people dead and much of the territory destroyed.
East Timor gained full independence last May following 2 1/2 years of UN transitional rule. Previously, it was occupied by Indonesia for 24 years.
Jakarta Post - March 6, 2003
Kurniawan Hari and Muninggar Sri Saraswati, Jakarta -- The recent indictment of several Indonesian military officers in East Timor shows that the international community has no trust in either the ongoing human rights trial or the country's judiciary, a noted rights activist says.
Sholahuddin Wahid, deputy chairman of the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM), said on Wednesday that the suspicion stemmed from the poor performance of the human rights tribunal, which had acquitted most of military and police officials prosecuted for gross human rights violations in East Timor in 1999.
A total of 18 military and police personnel, including three Army generals, and civilians were brought to trial for their role in the bloodshed in the run-up to, during, after the United Nations-sponsored referendum, in which the East Timorese people voted to break away from Indonesia in 1999.
The rampage, perpetrated by thousands of pro-Jakarta militias, claimed hundreds of lives and destroyed almost 80 percent of buildings and infrastructure there. It also drove some 250,000 East Timorese into West Timor, where they lived in squalid makeshift refugee camps. Most of them, however, have returned to East Timor.
The human rights court has acquitted most of the defendants despite international calls to bring to justice those responsible for the violence.
Sholahuddin said the human rights court was part of the country's judiciary, which is notorious for corruption and unfairness.
"Our judicial system is far from satisfactory, but that's what we have," he said, suggesting that East Timor should wait for the results of the human rights trial here. East Timor, Indonesia's former 27th province, had charged, among others, former TNI chief Gen. (Ret) Wiranto, Lt. Gen. Kiki Syahnakri, Maj. Gen. Zaky Anwar Makarim, and Maj. Gen.
Adam Damiri, with crimes against humanity and asked Indonesia to repatriate those implicated in the violence.
Sholahuddin said the fact that prosecutors failed to bring Wiranto, who had been considered by some to be the person most responsible for the violence, to justice showed that Indonesia was unable to administer justice. "But, maybe the international community would remain suspicious even if Wiranto went to trial as well," he said.
In 2001, the House of Representatives said the human rights trial was needed to prevent international intervention in the East Timor case.
House Deputy Speaker Soetardjo Suryoguritno said then that the case should be solved immediately in order to prevent intervention by outsiders.
On Wednesday, the House's defense and foreign affairs commission threw its support behind Wiranto, saying that an indictment by prosecutors in East Timor was simply a political maneuver to discredit Indonesia.
The commission suggested that all parties respect the ad hoc court specifically organized to try perpetrators of human rights abuse in East Timor. The meeting also recommended the government pay more attention to the East Timor issue and proposed the formation of a small team to assess the case.
"The commission rejects any attempts to make [the legal case of] the human rights abuse into a political issue, mainly an indictment of Pak Wiranto and his associates," commission deputy chairman Effendy Choirie said, summarizing a more than three-hour long hearing with former defense minister and former chief of the armed forces Gen. (ret) Wiranto, former minister of foreign affairs Ali Alatas, and former legal adviser for the military Natabaya.
The hearing was held apparently to respond to the indictment by East Timor prosecutors of Wiranto for gross human rights violations after East Timor's break away from Indonesia. During the meeting, Wiranto insisted that there was no thought, intention, plan, or even action to decimate East Timor.
Lusa - March 5, 2003
Washington -- A US rights group has urged Washington and the United Nations to press Jakarta to colaborate with East Timor in trying Indonesian officials accused of crimes against humanity in the formerly occupied territory and called for the creation of an international criminal court.
John Miller, a spokesman for the East Timor Action Network (ETAN), recalled Tuesday that many of the alleged crimes were committed against the UN mission overseeing the 1999 independence plebiscite, including the killing of 10 Timorese UN workers.
"The nature of the crimes committed, the incapacity of the new nation of East Timor to seek justice by its own means and the violence that targeted the UN require the involvement of the international community", Miller said. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the Security Council should set up an international court with "the authority and sufficient means" to try those responsible for the atrocities committed in East Timor, he said.
ETAN's call came after Jakarta announced it would not recognize indictments issued last week by Dili's attorney general's office against eight senior Indonesian officials, including General Wiranto, the former defense minister and armed forces chief of staff.
Reuters - March 3, 2003
Jakarta -- The East Timor government on Monday sought to distance itself from indictments issued against a former Indonesian armed forces chief over violence that ravaged the tiny territory in 1999.
On a brief visit to Indonesia, East Timor Foreign Minister Jose Ramos-Horta said he had come to Jakarta to make clear that the territory's ties with its giant neighbour were too important to be undermined by issues such as the indictments.
Prosecutors from East Timor's Serious Crimes Unit last week charged scores of people, including Indonesia's then military chief General Wiranto, with crimes against humanity over the terrority's bloody 1999 vote to break from Jakarta's rule.
Indonesian reaction to the indictments has been relatively muted, partly because the government has already ruled out sending any of its former officials to East Timor to stand trial.
East Timor President Xanana Gusmao criticised the indictments last week.
But Ramos-Horta told reporters after meeting his Indonesian counterpart, Hassan Wirajuda, the East Timor government would not interfere with the work of the Serious Crimes Unit.
But Ramos-Horta said the government would try to find ways to pursue justice over the carnage without creating misunderstandings with Indonesia. He did not elaborate.
"The relationship between East Timor and Indonesia is far too important for any issue that might arise to ... derail this relationship," Ramos-Horta said.
The United Nations created the serious crimes unit when it ran East Timor in the aftermath of the violence in which more than 1,000 people were killed, according to UN estimates. East Timor become formally independent in May last year.
Most of the violence in East Timor was blamed on pro-Jakarta militias acting with Indonesian military backing.
Indonesian human rights courts have been running their own trials over the violence, so far handing down verdicts in the cases of 15 out of 18 suspects.
Those courts have only convicted four people so far, drawing criticism from rights groups. Wiranto himself was not charged in that process. He denies any wrongdoing.
| News & issues |
The Australian - March 7, 2003
Mark Phillips -- Australian troops in East Timor have broken up an organised crime gang after a gun battle that left a gangster dead and another fighting for his life.
It was the first live fire incident involving Australian troops in East Timor for almost two years.
Australian and Fijian soldiers serving as part of the United Nations peacekeeping force tracked down the gang in a mountain hideaway in the country's west after it had terrorised local villagers in a series of ambushes and robberies.
After a short gun battle last Thursday, one wounded gangster was captured. The body of another gangster was found nearby. He was still clutching a gun and a hand grenade. He is believed to have also been wounded.
The gang was believed to have been behind an armed hold-up of a bus at the remote village of Aidabeleten -- close to the border with Indonesia -- on February 24 when two people were killed and nine injured.
A major land and helicopter manhunt of the western Atabae and Bobonaro district was quickly launched for the group, led by the commander of the Darwin-based 5/7 Royal Australian Regiment, Lt- Col Michael Lean.
Army spokesman Brigadier Mike Hannan said yesterday that the joint Australian-Fijian battalion of about 300 soldiers swept through the district and cordoned off major roads.
They received an important tip-off two days after the bus attack from farmers living about 8km from the site of the hold-up about the theft of corn from their crops.
The next day, last Thursday, they discovered a small, hidden campsite not far from the farms. They came across an unoccupied sentry position, and then saw three or four people hiding out in a rocky outcrop who appeared to be preparing a meal before settling down for the night. The patrol emerged from cover and called for the group to surrender.
"While most of the group began to flee, it is reported that one member picked up a weapon and pointed it at the advancing patrol," Brigadier Hannan said.
"It's reported that the patrol members acted in self-defence and fired on the gunman and wounded him." The rest of the group fled, leaving a large amount of personal equipment.
The wounded gangster was taken back to the Moleana army base for emergency life-saving surgery. He is due to undergo further surgery soon.
The body of another member of the group was found about 80m from their hide-out, still holding his gun and hand grenade. Brigadier Hannan said it was believed both gangsters were shot by the Fijian soldiers.
Portuguese peacekeepers later captured another suspected member of the group trying to cross a river. Brigadier Hannan said the detainee was being questioned by UN authorities, who had launched an investigation.
He said the gangsters were not believed to be part of a pro- Indonesian militia, and East Timorese authorities were likely to charge them with criminal offences.
Australian peacekeepers were last involved in live gunfire on June 14, 2001, near Balibo. They exchanged gunfire and grenades with a militia group who evaded capture.
Agence France Presse - March 7, 2002
An Indonesian court has jailed a militiaman for six years for the brutal murder of a New Zealand peacekeeping soldier in East Timor in 2000.
Jacobus Bere was found guilty of murdering Private Leonard William Manning, 24, near Suai in East Timor on July 24, 2000.
Bere, 37, was convicted of murder and not the more serious charge of premeditated murder because he did not know Manning at the time of the killing, chief judge Nengah Suryade announced at Central Jakarta district court.
Three other defendants -- Fabianus Ulu, Yohanes Timo and Gabriel Halenoni -- will appear in court on March 14 for verdicts. They are accused of involvement in the murder.
Prosecutors had sought a 12-year jail sentence for Bere and 10 years for the other three after deciding that the killing was not premeditated.
The four defendants, along with two other men still on the run, shot Manning dead in the rugged border area near Indonesian West Timor, the trial was told earlier.
The six men were said to have crossed into East Timor to look for a stray cow when they encountered the United Nations peacekeeping patrol, which was tracking militia fighters in the area.
Prosecutors have said Bere made sure the victim was dead by cutting his throat with a machete and then slashing his ears off. The men also took his firearm.
Pro-Jakarta East Timorese militias, backed by elements of the Indonesian army, launched a campaign of murder and destruction after East Timorese voted in August 1999 for independence from Indonesia.
The six people in Manning's case were among militia members who fled to West Timor shortly after the arrival of international peacekeeping forces in East Timor in September 1999. Bere was arrested in West Timor and flown to Jakarta last October.'
South China Morning Post - March 6, 2003
Chris McCall, Laivai -- L7 is disgusted with East Timor's government. Its leaders ran away from war to save their skins, he said, and are now back to squabble over the spoils of independence.
"They went away and they did nothing for this country," he said. "In the end Falintil struggled on its own. In the end Timor was independent."
A magical kakaluk, an amulet of wood and metal circles, hangs prominently round his neck. The man they call the "great boa constrictor" is a force to be reckoned with in East Timorese politics, even though he is officially out of politics these days. He cannot recall how many Indonesian soldiers he killed while with the resistance, but it was a lot, he says.
Several of his fingers are missing, blown off when a grenade he was making prematurely exploded. His body is covered with old bullet wounds. He claims several ricocheted off him without piercing his skin. Many East Timorese believe he has special powers.
And now, farming his traditional lands to the east of the second city, Baucau, he has become a focal point of dissent against the government. Go anywhere in East Timor, cite the name "L7", and no one will bother you, he claims.
The government has made several attempts to bring him on board, offering him official posts, which he has refused. Behind him is the quasi-religious clandestine movement Sagrada Familia, which he founded over a decade ago to undermine Indonesian propaganda against the resistance. It still exists and L7's supporters have been accused of stirring up riots that hit Baucau and Dili last year. L7 says the claims are lies and the ones who should be answering questions are the former exiles like Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri.
"Timor is independent so they have dared to come back. But at that time, when Indonesia invaded, they were scared of war. They were scared of dying," he said.
Now 59, L7's real name is Cornelio Gama. A childhood friend of Nobel peace laureate Jose Ramos Horta, he entered the Portuguese military in 1972 but later joined the resistance to fight against the Indonesian invaders. He spent 24 years in the bush.
Among L7's other claims is that current military chief Taur Matan Ruak owes his life to him. He says the resistance leader at one stage "surrendered" to Indonesian forces with weaponry, running back to Falintil a few months later when the Indonesians tried to kill him. He was taken in by L7.
"The other Falintil said he had to be killed, because he brought a lot of weapons and gave them to Indonesia," said L7. Despite their long association, feelings between the two men are not warm.
Mr Matan Ruak says some of L7's claims are not true. He himself did not surrender to the Indonesians, he says, but was captured. And as for L7's claims to have "hundreds" of Falintil supporters, Mr Matan Ruak says Falintil only had 900 fighters when the war ended in 1999. Of those, 600 have entered the new army and of the remaining 300, many have retired due to old age. L7 was a good fighter, Mr Matan Ruak says, but lacked discipline.
But exactly what the political views of L7 and his supporters might be have become a moot point in the new East Timor. No one is totally sure. L7 says a new civil war is possible in East Timor if the government is not wise. People are going hungry, he says, and veterans like himself have not been properly looked after
As L7 ate a simple lunch at a relative's house, with a shiny watch on his wrist, a government four-wheel drive was parked outside the house. According to one of his supporters, it has been provided for L7's personal use, even though he officially holds no government post.
| International solidarity |
Green Left Weekly - March 5, 2003
Kate Stockdale, Darwin -- Local community organisations, politicians and activists -- meeting regularly as the Refugee Action Network (RAN) -- are campaigning to allow all 1800 East Timorese asylum seekers to stay in Australia.
A public forum is being organised for March 23 to demonstrate the level of support for the Timorese, some of whom have been resident in Australia for many years. Most of the asylum seekers arrived after the 1991 Santa Cruz massacre in Dili and have rebuilt their lives while waiting for their applications to stay to be processed.
In a February 13 interview on ABC radio, federal minister for immigration Philip Ruddock speculated that 150 East Timorese asylum seekers will be allowed to remain in Australia. Despite this, all applicants will be forced to go through the trauma and expense of having their claims rejected by the Refugee Review Tribunal (RRT) and then lodging an appeal with the minister.
Lawyers representing NT asylum seekers at the RRT have said they don't expect any of the cases to succeed, but it is necessary to go through the process so that people can ask for special consideration from Ruddock.
So far, five applications have been rejected; two (an elderly couple) have received notice from the immigration department that financial assistance under the Asylum Seekers Assistance Scheme will be cut off. This casts doubt on whether the asylum seekers can survive financially while further appeals are considered.
On February 27, Labor's two federal NT MPs, Warren Snowdon and Senator Trish Crossin, stated that "to cut off financial and medical support is the beginning of a potential humanitarian crisis in the community".
"It is difficult to find anyone in Darwin who would argue that anything less than the creation of a special class of visa for this group of East Timorese is absolutely necessary", RAN's Anja Behlmer said. "What is difficult to understand is why has the federal government waited until now to process their claims, after people have made new lives and have have an important part of our community".
| International relations |
Melbourne Age - March 4, 2003
Reverend David Pargeter -- In 1990 a large regional military power, Iraq, invaded a small neighbour, Kuwait, after accusing it of stealing oil from an oilfield straddling their common border. Both major political parties in Australia supported military intervention to drive Iraqi forces from Kuwait.
Fast-forward to 2003. A large, wealthy regional power, Australia, is bullying a small impoverished neighbour, East Timor, over the sharing of oil and natural gas fields across a common border -- this time in the Timor Sea.
And, as with Iraq, a deadline is approaching that could throw one small country into chaos, this time in our neighbourhood.
The Australian Government is seeking to pressure East Timor to make concessions that will undermine its legal claims to the Greater Sunrise natural gas deposit in the Timor Sea.
The leverage comes from East Timor's immediate needs for the revenue from the oil and natural gas deposits. Because it needs money so desperately, it might be forced to sign away future rights. And Australia is being the bully.
Canberra is threatening to delay ratification of the Timor Sea Treaty, which could mean that the Japanese customers for the Bayu Undan deposit may walk away, by March 11. At present East Timor would get 90 per cent of the revenue from the Bayu Undan development, but to do so the Australian Government is trying to make sure that East Timor forgoes its claim to a larger share of the neighbouring, more lucrative, Greater Sunrise deposit.
Australia's aggressive stance on East Timor is not of the military kind, but of the economic variety. East Timor is far too weak to offer any resistance to Australia's war on its potential income.
Revenues lost by East Timor from the gas and oil of the Greater Sunrise area mean loss of money for essential healthcare, education and infrastructure in the fledgling democracy on our doorstep.
At stake is the future of East Timorese children, whose lives will be needlessly lost if their government misses out, because of Australia's tough tactics, on its fair share of the natural gas and oil revenues in the Timor Sea.
To its credit, the Australian Government has conceded a 90 per cent share to East Timor for those oil and natural gas deposits that it previously shared 50/50 with the occupying power of East Timor, Indonesia. However, more valuable deposits lie outside the shared area and these deposits fall within areas to which East Timor has legal claim.
As things stand, East Timor will get only 18 per cent of the revenue of the Greater Sunrise field (expected to deliver $8 billion in tax revenues to both governments over its life). However, legally East Timor may be entitled to all of Greater Sunrise.
More ominously, Australia is making claims to the edge of the continental shelf, in which case East Timor would get nothing, even from the deposits in the zone that is shared at present. In March 2002, Australia showed its contempt for independent arbitration by withdrawing from the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice on issues of maritime boundaries. So East Timor has legal claims but is being denied avenues for an independent umpire to hear them. Some friend to East Timor Australia is turning out to be!
The key issue here is not a legal one, but a moral one.
Will a wealthy power like Australia do the right thing and allow East Timor sufficient oil and natural gas revenues for development to be stable and self-sufficient?
The Australian Government clearly does not have the same need for the revenue, as demonstrated by the Prime Minister's public consideration of further cuts to the top income tax rate rate for wealthy Australians. It makes great play of its military (United Nations-backed) intervention in East Timor -- albeit after both Australia's main political parties turned a blind eye to the 200,000 who died during Indonesia's occupation of the country. But after the "battle" our actions have been less than honourable.
Our foreign aid to East Timor is pitiful -- just $44 million has been allocated in the 2002-2003 budget. And now there is this unseemly grab at oil revenues that rightly belong to a people in desperate need. The one thing Dili does not need is an aggressive regional power siphoning off its oil and gas reserves.
And, by the way, when will we hear more strongly from the Labor Party on this issue, especially as it too has a stain to wash away with regard to the first Indonesian aggression against East Timor?
[The Reverend David Pargeter is director of the justice and international mission of the Uniting Church in Australia (Synod of Victoria and Tasmania).]
Posted on the ASAP News List - March 4, 2003
Max Lane -- The article by Jose Ramos Horta defending the "aggressive strategy" of the US administration of George W Bush towards Iraq is not a surprise. Horta's approach to diplomacy throughout the struggle for East Timor's independence was always based on offering assurances to Washington that an independent East Timor would be friendly towards US interests. This approach was bound to lead to major defects of memory (and analysis) once Independence was achieved. These defects are most evident in his article "War for Peace? It worked in My Country", published in the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age on February 25.
Foreign Minister Horta tries in his article do equate the case of Iraq with that of East Timor. Of course, in this he follows in the footsteps of John Howard and Alexander Downer. Horta states: "In 1999, a global peacekeeping force helped East Timor secure its independence and protect its people." The truth is that the peacekeeping force, INTERFET, played no role in either securing East Timorese independence or protecting its people. INTERFET soldiers arrived in East Timor AFTER the Indonesian government and military had agreed to respect the referendum and withdraw. When INTERFET did arrive, they took no action to prevent some final acts of destruction by Jakarta forces. INTERFET's main role was to help rebuild some of the East Timorese damaged infrastructure, such as roads and bridges.
Throughout the struggle for East Timorese independence, right up until the arrival of INTERFET, the primary force that was exerted to defeat Suharto and then the Indonesian military was the mass street action by the peoples of East Timor, Indonesia, Australia and Portugal. In this struggle, the threat of military force played no role.
There were four major turning points in the struggle for East Timorese independence.
The first was mass demonstration in Dili in November, 1991 which ended with the Santa Cruz massacre. This demonstration and the televised massacre, which was the culmination of a series of demonstrations, including one during the visit to Dili of the Pope a year earlier, revived East Timor as an issue for international public opinion. The previous level of lobbying and other state level diplomacy in the United Nations had in the meanwhile totally failed to have any serious impact.
The second turning point was the mass upheaval in Indonesia in early 1998. The Indonesian student led anti-dictatorship movement forced the collapse of the Suharto dictatorship and its replacement by a much weaker government under continuing pressure to democratise and demilitarise.
Another wave of mass demonstrations took place in November 1998 demanding, among other things, a reduction on the role of the military in Indonesian politics. Facing a deep economic crisis and mass pressure for reform on many different fronts, and receiving advice from figures outside the old Suharto ruling circles, President Habibie decided to allow the United Nations to hold a referendum in East Timor. If the students had not overthrown Suharto, it is very possible that Xanana may still be in jail and East Timor still occupied.
The third turning point was the incredibly courageous mass mobilisation of East Timorese in the face of violent opposition by the Jakarta backed militia to participate in the campaign for the referendum and in the vote in September, 1999.
The fourth turning point was the mass protests in Australia and Portugal demanding international intervention in East Timor as a response to the Indonesian military's scorched earth policy and the mass forced deportations and the militia's violent attacks and murder of pro-Independence people.
In Australia, demonstrations escalated in size from a few hundred to more than 50,000 in Sydney and Melbourne each within just a six days. These mobilisations were not only driven by a sense of solidarity with the East Timorese people but with intense and growing anger with the Australian government for its inaction. This was an anger which had acumulated over two decades of inaction and complicity. These demonstrations threatened to escalate into even larger and angrier demonstrations, drawing in the trade unions, if the Australian government continued its defence of Jakarta and the Indonesian military. Howard lobbied Washington frantically to pressure Habibie to allow international forces to enter East Timor in order to stave of a political crisis in Australia.
Habibie made his decision not because of fear of some overhwelming military force about to descend on East Timor from Darwin. Habibie's decision was a response by a weak and crisis ridden government desperately looking for international support. It was threatened with increasing isolation as Western capitals, especially Washington and Canberra, were faced with rapidly increasing hostility from a mobilised public opinion.
So the INTERFET forces arrived in East Timor as a volunteer construction team and a border patrol unit. In this role, INTERFET has been involved in no military offensives and only in very rare exchanges of fire with remnant militias.
So it was neither the threat of force nor state level diplomatic lobbying that were crucial in this struggle. The failure of state level diplomatic lobbying was reflected most vividly in the incredible passivity of Washington and Canberra in the aftermath of the September 1999 referendum. Both Clinton and Howard were willing to accept the implementation of the scorched earth policy and the mass deportations in East Timor. Perhaps -- but only perhaps -- they may have later insisted in East Timorese independence, after the damage was done. In the meantime, it was the mass protests in Sydney, Melbourne and Lisbon that forced an end to that rampage.
There are obvious other differences between the case of Iraq and East Timor. Perhaps the most important is that the leadership of the National Council of Timorese Resistance (CNRT), which represented close to 100% of the massive pro-independence popular sentiment, supported the campaign for an international intervention.
In Iraq today, there is no clear overwhelming call from the Iraqi people for the United States, United Kingdom and Australia to invade, overthrow the regime, and set-up a temporary US military administration. Opposition groups in Iraq are divided on this question with many groups opposing the US plans. Furthermore it is impossible to say who has popular support and who does not.
The real lesson from the East Timor case is that democratic political change, including national liberation, will come about as a result of the oppressed people themselves organising and mobilising an opposition. The US "aggressive strategy", pursued by Bush and by Clinton earlier in the form of the embargo on Iraq, has in fact held back such a process.
The embargo and the bombing of the so-called no-fly zones have driven Iraqi society so dramatically backwards, socially and economically. Survival, rather than the struggle for democratic change, has become the necessary focus of so many people in Iraq. This, combined with pressures to unite to overcome the US driven, embargo and bombings, has strengthened the repressive regime in Baghdad rather than strengthened any struggle for change.
Iraq has long ceased to be a military threat to any of its neighbors. Its armed forces are half the strength they were at the time of the invasion of Kuwait. They are also much more poorly equipped. Iraq has no industrial infrastructure to back an aggressive military policy. Countries like Kuwait are now defended by the militarily superior United States.
Meanwhile we have the statements by earlier UN arms inspectors such as Scott Ritter that Iraq has been effectively disarmed of weapons of mass destruction. Even the French and German governments, in their current memorandum submitted to the UN Security Council, state that there is no evidence that Iraq continues to possess such weapons. On this last aspect, Foreign Minister Horta has swallowed holus bolus Washington's version of reality.
Horta cannot tell apples from oranges. Howard, Downer and Co. want us all to believe that apples are oranges. To date, the mass of people in Australia have not been confused by this deception (except for a few people here and there on the Left). When hundreds of thousands of people -- including no doubt all those who came out for East Timor in 1999 -- demonstrated around Australia against the US, UK, Australian invasion of Iraq, they voted with their feet against this spurious attempt to equate the case of East Timor and Iraq. It was good to see that such protests also took place in East Timor last February 15 as well.
[Max Lane chaired the 50,000 strong demonstration in Hyde Park, Sydney on September 11, 1999 demanding that Australia and the United Nations send troops to East Timor. He is currently a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Asia Pacific Social Transformation Studies (CAPSTRANS), University of Wollongong. He is also the national chairperson of Action in Solidarity with Asia and the Pacific.]