APSN East Timor News Digest No 5

Dili -- Peacekeepers marked their withdrawal from Timor Leste yesterday, winding down a nearly five-year mission that ended Indonesia's brutal occupation and oversaw the birth of the world's newest nation.

In a simple ceremony, 95 personnel who served along the mountainous border with Indonesia were awarded United Nations medals, said Captain John Mcpherson, spokesman for the peacekeeping force.

The UN has been withdrawing its main peacekeeping force of about 3,000 troops since the mandate for their presence ended on May 20. The remaining contingent of about 1,800 soldiers is expected to be drawn down by mid-June, Captain Mcpherson said.

Last month, the UN Security Council agreed to a government demand to retain about 700 military and police advisers in Timor Leste into next year.

Responsibility for security along the border has already been handed over to the newly established East Timorese Defence Force, which consists of two regular infantry battalions and two reserve battalions.

Indonesia invaded and occupied the former Portuguese colony in 1975, sparking a guerilla war which killed up to 200,000 people.

In August 1999, the UN organised a referendum on self- determination in which 80 per cent of the voters opted for independence.

Indonesian troops retaliated by laying waste to the region of 750,000 people. The violence ended with the arrival of international peacekeepers in September 1999.

Timor troops stand to attention

The Australian - May 24, 2004

Sian Powell, Jakarta -- Backs straight, arms swinging, faces set: the East Timorese troops and police officers marched slowly past the assembled dignitaries at this week's independence celebrations in Dili's football stadium.

The smartly uniformed squads looked bold, brave and disciplined, but many doubt their ability to control the security of this tiny half-island with its bloody history, its internal feuds and its festering poverty. Yet at midnight on Wednesday, full control of East Timor's security passed into East Timorese hands for the first time in 500 years.

Australia's biggest military foray since Vietnam is now just about over. From a peak of 5700 Australian soldiers in late 1999, by next week fewer than 100 Australian troops will be serving in East Timor, and none of them will have a combat role -- they will mostly be concerned with engineering and logistics. All police control is now in the hands of East Timorese police commissioner Paulo Martins, and the UN police commissioner, Australian Sandra Peisley, has said her goodbyes.

Paul Retter, the Australian UN deputy force commander until last Wednesday, says the skeleton peacekeeping force remaining in East Timor will have the prime task of protecting 42 unarmed UN military liaison officers, drawn from a number of nations including Australia.

Only in the direst circumstances, and providing the East Timorese prime minister formally requests the UN mission commander, will the UN troops act in a conflict. So the East Timorese are almost entirely on their own if the worst happens -- if the former militias massed in camps and villages across the border try to return to repeat the havoc they wrought in 1999, or if frustrated and hungry East Timorese run riot again, looting and burning as they did in 2002.

Yet a giant question mark hangs over the heads of those who have the responsibility of maintaining order in the struggling nation, where unemployment is estimated at 50 per cent among urban youth.

In his recent report to the Security Council, UN Secretary- General Kofi Annan said East Timor's security policy and structure needed clarifying. He noted a battle between soldiers and police officers in the eastern town of Los Palos in January this year, a clash eerily reminiscent of the army-police conflicts that emerge sporadically in Indonesia.

Annan wrote that it appears East Timor's army still has big problems, including low morale, an uncertain respect for discipline and authority, lack of training, and difficulties with Indonesian troops. Of the army's two battalions, one has a large complement of Falintil veterans, the guerrillas who fought Indonesian troops throughout the occupation. And they are making trouble.

Retter says it has to be remembered that some of these veterans spent years fighting in the mountains; they are comparatively old, and in some cases their health has been affected.

In certain cases, though, the desire outstrips the reality.

"There are lots of people who claim they are veterans," he muses.

"But only a few were there right through the 25-year period."

Another couple of hundred veterans of the brutal years of guerilla warfare are not in the army, having disqualified themselves by leaving the cantonments before they were given permission in 1999. Led by the old soldier known as L7, or ElSette, they have been known to voice their dissatisfaction with their rewards in the newly independent East Timor.

The Government keeps a close eye on them and they are seen as potential trouble.

One international observer based in East Timor says discipline is often terrible. The veterans now in the army are simply not accustomed to following orders in any coherent way, and going AWOL is a serious infraction.

During the Indonesian occupation, if there was a problem at home, she says, a Falintil guerilla simply went off to fix it. And they still do. "They just see it as normal behaviour," she says. "It's what they always did before."

On a broader level, military experts worry that power corrupts, especially if it's wearing epaulets. The ability to exert authority without abusing is rare among the armies of developing nations, and many fear that without thousands of blue berets watching them, East Timorese security forces will succumb to the age-old temptations.

East Timor's Foreign Minister Jose Ramos Horta dismisses fears of insurrection, invasion and graft. "Talking about external threats is academic anyway," he explains, adding that he is confident the police force will be able to handle any disturbance within the country.

"Of course, if they do fail to handle it, for the next 12 months we will have a credible back-up [from the UN]."

The fact remains, though, that the police of East Timor, now in charge throughout the provinces, have had few -- if any -- lessons in ethics.

Most of the officers have had barely three months of training, stacked up against decades of enduring the laissez-faire and usually corrupt methods of Indonesian police. Their performance in the 2002 riots won them no laurels, and they were criticised for making a number of contradictory reports.

A special police detachment will guard the border, where a black market in petrol, oil and other goods thrives. On top of coping with that, they will have to beware of perhaps hundreds of former militia men clustered just over the river. These gang members helped lay waste to East Timor in the months before and after the independence ballot in 1999, and they now have their own problems, including unemployment and family stresses.

Arnaldo Tavares, a prominent member of a notorious militia family, says the brutal gangs funded by the Indonesian military in 1999 are now dispersed.

"We often go [to see other ex-militia], but we can't visit all of them because the refugee camps are divided and far from the villages," he says. "We want to make a kind of bloc; we want to explain the situation to them."

Tavares, son of the one-time militia king of East Timor's border districts Joao Tavares, insists his motives are strictly peaceful. "But it is impossible for me to hold all of them [the ex-militia]," he says. "Here there are some of them who were the victims of Falintil, so the element of revenge still there."

Retter says the border police will also have to overcome the Indonesian army's traditional disdain for all police, including their own. Yet by dint of sheer perseverance, the once poisonous relations between the Australian military forces and the Indonesian army are now thought to be smooth, and he considers that a good portent for future relations between East Timor border security and the Indonesians.

Certainly Djoko Setiono, the Indonesian military commander for border security, lauds the Australian plan of cross-border meetings, meetings and yet more meetings. He lists all the regular get-togethers, from the level of platoon commander right up to sector level.

"We discuss all the problems which exist in the border areas," he says. "And we fix all the problems that we find in the field."

East Timor's lonely future

Asia Times - May 26, 2004

Jill Jolliffe, Darwin -- Officially it was a day of celebration, but there was an undertone of pessimism at ceremonies in Dili last Thursday marking East Timor's second independence anniversary and the drastic cutback of the United Nations' peacekeeping mission.

The UN had planned to pull out of Timor completely on this date, but changed its plans because of ongoing political instability and the fragility of the young democracy. Staff numbers in the United Nations Mission of Support in East Timor (UNMISET) were accordingly cut from 2,000 to fewer than 700, of whom only 477 are soldiers.

This is a sharp contrast from 1999, when 3,500 armed peacekeepers entered the territory to end a frenzy of Indonesian-orchestrated violence following the August independence vote, backed by a contingent of civilians charged with building a nation from scratch.

The new UNMISET is the fourth UN mission in East Timor, and is led by Sukehiro Hasegawa, who served from July 2002 as deputy to outgoing head Kamalesh Sharma. East Timorese officers have now assumed full command of the police force and army from the UN, but with an acute sense of going it alone.

Lonely realities

As UN personnel and journalists head out of Dili after the anniversary hoopla, residents are facing up to the lonely realities of post-independence life. The sale of iron grilles for windows and gates is booming anew to rumors of unrest, as international editors redefine East Timor as a province of Indonesia by downgrading it to a story covered occasionally from Jakarta.

Two issues dominate the local agenda: the quality of political leadership, linked to controversy over oil resources, and justice for victims of human-rights violations. Elections are not due until 2006. The governing Fretilin party won the country's first free poll in August 2001 with 58 percent of the vote, while the Democratic Party placed a poor second with only 8 percent. The vote was for a one-year parliament to draft a constitution, after which regular elections were to be held.

With UN coaxing, parties signed a pre-election pledge to form a national-unity government regardless of the outcome, but when Fretilin leader Mari Alkatiri became prime minister he resisted requests by UN representative Sergio Vieira de Mello (who died in a Baghdad bomb attack last year) to form the agreed multi-party cabinet.

The UN caved in again when Fretilin later used its majority to insert a clause in the new constitution extending the parliament's life by five years. (In a memorial tribute to Vieira de Mello, the prime minister recently revealed they had argued strongly over these issues.)

To opposition politicians such as Mario Carrascalao, leader of the opposition Social Democrat party, the source of their young democracy's ill-health lies with these UN failures -- but that is also convenient.

Fretilin popularity lies mainly with rural voters grateful for its leadership in the resistance struggle, yet members of the opposition parties are reluctant to leave the comfort of Dili to contest the Fretilin government's supremacy. They accuse it of corruption and repressing political opponents but provide little credible alternative.

That is left to President Xanana Gusmao, who counters anti- democratic practices at every turn, but says he wants to retire from politics at the first opportunity.

The fight with Australia over maritime boundaries and Timor Sea revenues (flowing since 2000 and accounting for US$32 million in the current budget) has tended to unite both sides in a common national cause, diverting attention from government failings. Hasegawa is unphased by the acrimonious debate. "I'm confident the two governments will come closer," he told Asia Times Online.

The other issue of future concern is the prosecution of those responsible for the 1999 violence during the Indonesian army's scorched-earth withdrawal from Timor. Under a two-pronged system set up by the UN at that time, a special Jakarta court was to try Indonesian citizens, while in Dili the Serious Crimes Unit (SCU) would have organized trials before panels of international judges.

Five years on, observers consider the system a failure. While most Indonesian officials brought before the Jakarta court were either acquitted or given light sentences, the SCU filed 82 indictments involving 369 people, the vast majority Indonesian citizens whom Indonesia refused to extradite (among them former defense chief Wiranto, a candidate in the July presidential election). The result is that Timorese militiamen, bit-players in these crimes, are serving long prison terms while their commanders walk free.

In a report to the Security Council on April 29, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan hinted that the United Nations might consider long-term alternatives such as an international court, for which there is strong grassroots support in Timor, but such moves have received opposition from politicians anxious to please Jakarta. Annan won some funds for SCU prosecutors to continue their work meanwhile, but they are expected to resolve cases early, with no firm alternative in place.

Doubts and 'conditioned optimism'

"I know our police and army are technically capable of guaranteeing security," Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri said at Thursday's handover ceremony, "but are we capable of dealing with all the pressures on us?"

President Gusmao listed the shortcomings of the country's fledgling institutions, although his final message was that his troubled nation will overcome its problems. He spoke of a lack of professionalism in the justice system, deficient technical resources in parliament and a public service that doesn't deliver good governance.

He described corruption, and "political policing" -- which he said resembled practices during Indonesia's 24-year military occupation -- criticizing the Fretilin government's recent sacking of public servants for attending opposition rallies.

The pessimism of the Timorese leaders echoed Annan's unusually critical report to the Security Council on April 29. He asked the council for a one-year extension for UNMISET, but when it voted a fortnight ago it gave only six months, with the possibility of another six after review.

Annan criticized the quality of the new army, saying it was "confronted with ... serious institutional problems, including a poorly understood definition of its role, low morale, uncertain respect for discipline and authority, insufficient training of personnel and unresolved relations with former combatants".

The malaise in military ranks became evident in January when soldiers from the Defense Forces of East Timor's 1st Battalion rampaged through their base town of Lospalos and attacked the police station. It was an explosion of resentment against their police counterparts, which has simmered below the surface since the two forces were formed.

The secretary general mentioned the riot but did not spare the police either, referring to "disturbing reports of the excessive use of force, assault, negligent use of firearms, criminal activities, corrupt practices and violations of human rights".

He spoke of the potentially destabilizing situation on the border with West Timor, where 16,000 refugees, some in militia- controlled camps, have resisted best efforts by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to bring them home, and of the UN's unfulfilled commitment to deliver justice to victims of the 1999 violence.

New UN chief Hasegawa is undaunted by the problems. He has a history of service in hot spots such as Somalia and Rwanda, and knows East Timor's leaders well. He recently worked closely with Gusmao on an ambitious Japanese-funded project giving job training to ex-guerrillas.

"We should be proud of our accomplishments," Hasegawa told Asia Times Online. "We have been focusing on strengthening good governance, but will now focus on the justice system." He said the UN will appoint 13 international judges to work alongside Timorese judges to relieve the overburdened system, in which scores of people accused of crimes are languishing in prison awaiting trial.

For some, East Timor's problems five years after UN intervention have as much to do with UN errors as with Timorese underdevelopment or the negative effects of two decades of Indonesian military occupation.

Carrascalao described UN performance as lackluster. "UN people here earned wads of money while East Timorese starved," he claimed. "The troop reduction is premature because the border is not secure. Worse, democracy is dying -- we are on the road to an authoritarian regime. "I want to be optimistic, but it must be conditioned optimism," he added.

If some East Timorese are sad to see the UN reduced to a tiny advisory force and recognize its role in guaranteeing their freedom, others feel short-changed. All know they must stand alone eventually, but the next year is full of uncertainties. It could determine whether East Timor becomes a real democracy, and whether victims of the 1999 atrocities will see justice.

In his anniversary speech, Gusmao recognized the tough times looming. "Our fighting spirit ... should continue to illuminate our path ahead," he predicted, "and strengthen our courage to face difficulties."

East Timor takes over own policing and defence

Sydney Morning Herald - May 20, 2004

Matthew Moore, Dili and Craig Skehan -- Five years after more than 14,000 United Nations troops and police restored order to a devastated East Timor, and on the eve of the second anniversary of the country's independence, Dili has taken over responsibility for its defence and internal policing.

At a ceremony beneath the hills that gave Dili's residents sanctuary during the 1999 bloodshed, the commanders of the UN police and peacekeeping forces signed documents that gave East Timor's security forces their new responsibilities from midnight last night.

President Xanana Gusmao, the Prime Minister, Mari Alkatiri, and the departing UN police and peacekeeping commanders were all confident that the country's new police and defence forces were sufficiently well trained and equipped to cope on their own.

However, the UN will leave behind a much reduced force in case that confidence proves misplaced.

The UN has declared the next 12 months a "consolidation phase" during which about 400 of the 1750 peacekeepers can be called on by the Prime Minister in extraordinary circumstances.

In Canberra, the Defence Minister, Robert Hill, and Justice Minister, Chris Ellison, announced details of a smaller Australian contribution to the extended UN Mission of Support in East Timor (UNMISET).

Senator Hill said that by the end of June, Australia's military contribution would be reduced from 440 to 100 personnel, but this would still be about a quarter of the total UN military force.

The Australians will mainly be involved in headquarters, logistics, engineering and military liaison roles, with an army colonel the force's deputy commander.

An Australian Army Black Hawk detachment will return to Townsville this month.

The Australian Federal Police will provide 16 officers as part of a $6.5 million policing package, joining 140 international personnel in the UN police contingent.

The Australian deputy force commander in East Timor, Paul Retter, described the decision to keep a small rapid-response force as "a bit like weaning [the East Timorese] off the UN".

He said there were now good relations between the East Timorese and the Indonesian military and he was confident the Indonesian Army, just over the border that divides the island into two countries, wants peace as much as the East Timorese.

The force's commander, Lieutenant-General Khairuddin Mat Yusof, praised the efforts East Timor had made to build its own independent defence force.

"As a people you are taking a great step forward," he said. "There is no turning back; there are surely many more steps to be taken in the future."

In her speech to thank the 39 nations that had provided police under the UN umbrella, the UN police commissioner, Sandra Peisley, said 157 officers would remain behind, down from a peak of 1580. While great progress had been made, she cautioned, "a lot still remains to be done and this will not occur overnight".

Mr Alkatiri said he was "still concerned with the security in our country" and urged his people to co-operate to ensure the security forces could provide the stability needed.

In Atambua in West Timor, Indonesia's military commander, Colonel Djoko Setiono, said the change would make no difference to how his troops operated.

"For us it's the same whether it's the UN or East Timor's forces. The TNI [Indonesian military] also has a commitment to create a peaceful situation on the border, so there's no reason for the UN to worry."

Impoverished Timor celebrates anniversary of independence

Associated Press - May 20, 2004

Dili -- East Timor celebrated its second anniversary Thursday while its leaders called for patience in the face of a sputtering economy and a declining UN presence in Asia's poorest nation.

President Xanana Gusmao, a former freedom fighter jailed by Indonesia during its 24-year occupation, told thousands of revelers that the country's future was in their hands now.

"I appeal to you all, my brothers and sisters, to help rebuild this country with the skills and capacity that we have so that there will be a bright future for the next generation," Gusmao said. "Show the international community and the United Nations that we can govern our own country."

The crowd of former guerrillas and students rallied at Dili's municipal stadium and stood silent for a minute to honor the 200,000 victims of the country's long fight for independence.

Thousands of people gathered along the palm-fringed waterfront, picnicking, dancing and playing traditional folk music.

"This day makes me so happy," said Ernesto Sarmento, a 34-year- old government employee. "We struggled for so long to achieve independence. And in just two years, we've seen improvements in security, education and public health."

After four centuries of Portuguese rule followed by Indonesia's iron-fisted reign, East Timorese voted for independence in a 1999 UN-sponsored referendum. The Indonesian military and its proxy militias responded by laying waste to the former province, killing 1,500 Timorese and forcing 300,000 from their homes.

The United Nations administered the country for 2 1/2 years and then handed it to the Timorese on May 20, 2002. At the height of the mission, 9,000 UN personnel were deployed in the nation of 800,000 people.

Since then, a reduced UN military and technical mission has been helping the world's newest nation. This was set to end on Thursday, but the Security Council voted to extend a scaled-down operation for another year.

About 600 UN soldiers and police will serve as advisers to the Timorese security forces, and several dozen civilian technical experts will help the government in critical areas such as administration and civil aviation.

Although analysts say much progress has been achieved in the past two years, the government also has encountered serious problems.

Riots broke out in the capital in December 2002 and left scores of buildings in ruins, including the prime minister's house.

Security has since improved but the reduction of the UN force has set off fears along the border of renewed attacks. Many people are upset over an economy that is expected to grow a tepid 1 percent this year and by unemployment of over 20 percent in urban areas.

"Nothing has changed since independence," said Aitahan Matak, a former guerrilla fighter. "If you go to the villages in the rural areas, you see people are still hungry."

"The farmers cannot sell their fruits and potatoes because the government has not repaired roads in rural areas. People are asking why they cannot enjoy this independence."

Although tens of millions of dollars in oil revenues from the Timor Sea have dropped into the country's coffers, this has been overshadowed by a growing feud with Australia over ownership of the most lucrative fields.

Gusmao and other government officials have accused Australia of stealing the oil because the fields in question are located deep on the Timorese half of the 500-kilometer (310-mile) -wide waterway between the nations.

East Timor has also struggled to address the abuses that occurred in 1999.

A UN-backed Special Panels for Serious Crimes has indicted more than 380 people and convicted 52. But most, including Indonesian presidential candidate Gen. Wiranto, remain in Indonesia, which refuses to extradite them.

The issue came to head last week when a court in Dili issued an arrest warrant for Wiranto. Jakarta appealed to Dili to block the warrant, and Timorese leaders attempted to appease their larger neighbor by promising to find a solution that would be "acceptable to all."

East Timor and its former occupier are enjoying a burgeoning economic and political relationship, in contrast to the strained ties with Australia.

Rights activists say East Timor must push ahead with prosecution of all rights abusers. "Two years after independence, the people of East Timor still lack any semblance of justice for decades of atrocities," said John M. Miller of the East Timor Action Network.

Two years on, East Timor has reason for cautious optimism

South China Morning Post - May 20, 2004

Peter Kammerer -- East Timor remains among the world's poorest and least developed nations on the second anniversary of independence, but observers are not as gloomy about its future as might be expected.

As celebrations began last night, analysts suggested that prospects for the country's 800,000 people were finally lifting. Although much work needed to be done by the government to build infrastructure, create jobs and prevent corruption, conditions were improving, they said.

Their assessment appeared to be backed by a World Bank report released yesterday showing East Timor's economy, which contracted by 2 per cent last year, would grow by 1 per cent this year. International donors meeting in Dili said the government had cut the deficit and enacted laws to stimulate development.

The United Nations also gave a vote of confidence yesterday by handing over command of policing to a 3,000-strong East Timorese force, although an international contingent will remain as support for at least a year.

President Xanana Gusmao also acknowledged that many challenges remained, four years after the former Portuguese colony fought a bloody struggle for freedom from Indonesian occupation. Independence was finally won on May 20, 2002.

"Timor-Leste will continue to face many new challenges; in security, in development and in our struggle against poverty," Mr Gusmao observed. "All these cannot be overcome without ensuring stability."

A UN report last month indicated problems including "disturbing reports" of corrupt practices, criminal activities and negligent use of firearms.

Worsening the troubles are allegations that Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri took US$2.5 million in bribes from the oil and gas company ConocoPhillips in return for investment in the rich Timor Sea fields. He has denied the claims.

Oxford University researcher Peter Carey believes such problems are outweighed by the progress the government has made in the past two years. "East Timor started from zero minus 10," he said from Manatutu, the town most devastated by Indonesian-backed militias following an independence vote in 1999.

Dr Carey cited rampant poverty, disease and unemployment, especially among young people, as being among the biggest difficulties for the government.

The World Bank's report put the jobless rate at 20 per cent, although some estimates have put the combined unemployment and underemployment rates at 50 per cent.

Australian National University expert on East Timor George Quinn said the government was hampered by having a small budget and revenues moSuara Timur Lorosaey reliant on international donors.

Income from oil and gas reserves in the Timor Sea, seen as the nation's lifeblood for development, were being held up by a territorial dispute with Australia.

Without more revenue from oil, East Timor faced a "very difficult road", he believed. Nonetheless, there were signs of improvement. "At least it's getting back to where it was in the latter years of the Indonesian administration."

Not yet ready to go it alone

Far Eastern Economic Review - May 20, 2004

John McBeth, Dili -- When the clock strikes midnight on May 19, genuine independence will remain elusive for East Timor.

That was supposed to be the latest deadline for the United Nations to withdraw its contingent of about 2,100 military peacekeepers, civilian experts, police and police advisers and hand over all responsibility to the Timorese. However, concerned about the immaturity of the nation's security and civil institutions, the UN is likely to secure Security Council approval for a reduced nursemaid role for at least another year. That should allow the struggling nation enough time to reach what UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan calls "the threshold of self- sufficiency."

Given the litany of problems and challenges still facing the country, which won its freedom from Indonesia in a tumultuous, violence-filled vote in 1999, the East Timorese understand that they aren't ready to completely go it alone. "What we want to do is build the state as an institution," Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri told the REVIEW in a late-April interview in the same office where an Indonesian governor once presided over the former Portuguese colony. "The judiciary is our weakest point and parliament is still too weak to initiate its own laws. But the constitution is clear: What we're looking for is rule of law in a democratic country."

If the UN mandate is extended as recommended by Annan in a recent report to the Security Council, East Timor will still assume responsibility for internal and external security from May 20. That will leave the UN to provide military support in exceptional circumstances. The world body will drastically pare down its peacekeeping force and nearly cut in half the number of its civilian advisers. But the likely departure of the UN next year is being greeted, perhaps naturally, with a high degree of trepidation among many Timorese.

Critics worry about Alkatiri's hard-headed leadership style and penchant for micro-management. In a broad sense, many Timorese are concerned about corruption, which raises a worrying spectre once the UN ends its life-support. It is no coincidence that Western experts effectively still run the Finance Ministry and keep a tight rein on the nation's spending. Says one UN official: "People are concerned about the proclivity towards corruption because of bad habits learned from Indonesia."

Joao Mariano Saldanha, executive director of the Timor Institute of Development Studies, shares those concerns -- and worries about the chance for future unrest in a highly politicized society. "Our future remains a big question mark," he says. "Pessimism is growing. There is concern over the economy, there is concern over employment. Our democracy isn't in jeopardy, but it is experiencing tests, and when the UN leaves we are worried we will go along the path of authoritarianism." All the same, East Timor has come a long way since Indonesian-backed militia gangs laid waste to the territory in September 1999 after Timorese voted to free themselves from Jakarta's 25-year rule. More than 700 of the 900 schools burnt in the ensuing violence have been rebuilt, health centres are now spread across the country, cars and motorcycles crowd Dili's sun-drenched streets, and four-fifths of a budgeted 13,100 civil service positions have been filled.

Much remains to be done. East Timor's 18-year national development plan, launched after nationwide consultations in 2002, prioritizes health, education, infrastructure and agriculture in that order. The nation has, for example, only 20 doctors, with another 50 currently studying aboard. Alkatiri reckons it needs 250 to be self-sufficient. The nation's 6,000 teachers are deemed sufficient, but too many live in the nation's two biggest cities.

In economic terms, East Timor has some valuable natural assets, but it also must rehabilitate and develop several key sectors of the economy almost from scratch. The first revenues are coming in from the newly producing Bayu-Undan gas field in the Timor Sea, though international donors still contribute about two-thirds of the country's $90 million budget. East Timor is now engaged in testy seabed-boundary negotiations with Australia that could give it a larger share of the big Greater Sunrise field -- and a total revenue windfall of somewhere between $3 billion and $12 billion over the next 20-30 years.

Alkatiri has been tough in the negotiations, but he says that he knows the limitations of a one-product economy. "I don't want us to be a petroleum-dependent country," he says, ticking off fisheries, tourism and coffee as future foreign-exchange earners. For the moment, however, he will probably have to live with East Timor's status as the world's newest petroleum state, simply because natural gas provides the only financial lifeline that may eventually buy self-sufficiency.

Broadening the economy will take much work -- and money. Tourism is hostage to a lack of infrastructure and also to prohibitively high air fares from Darwin and Bali, which deter the backpackers that often pioneer new adventure destinations. In all of East Timor, only Dili has a regular power supply, and even in the capital it is turned off in the small hours of the night. Roads across the island's mountainous spine are often nearly impassable.

On the steep hillsides west of Dili, unkempt coffee bushes and the trees that shade them are testimony to years of neglect that have denuded East Timor's once-lush plantations of prized arabica beans. Last year, the poor quality of the harvest meant that East Timor exported barely one-fourth of the 8,000 tonnes produced. "The cost of rehabilitation is going to be huge," says Alistair Laird, an enterprise-development officer for the USAID-funded Cooperativa Cafi Timor.

Rice-farming has suffered

It has also been an uphill struggle for East Timor to attain self-sufficiency in growing rice. The irrigation systems around Viqueque and other rice-growing areas along the southern coast are still being rehabilitated, but only in a piecemeal manner.

Farmers lack the seeds, fertilizer and know-how to boost their yields from the current range of between 1.5 tonnes and 4 tonnes a hectare. And until that changes, East Timor will need to keep importing rice to meet the demands of its 800,000 people.

Beyond the economy, the country has enjoyed relative political stability in spite of lingering tensions between Alkatiri and President Xanana Gusmao. Their differences grew over the way that Alkatiri, leader of the ruling centre-left Falintel party, was widely seen to have used the party's 55 seats in the 88-seat parliament to ram through a new constitution that left Gusmao as an elected but mostly symbolic head of state.

The low point in the relationship came in November 2002 when Gusmao called for the resignation of Interior Minister Rogerio Lobato, Alkatiri's powerful ally. Gusmao eventually backed down, and diplomats say that the relationship between the two has steadied over the past year because they seem to realize that the country needs the strengths of each other: Gusmao's cult-like popularity and Alkatiri's capabilities as an administrator.

For all its many problems, East Timor has a tiny core of dedicated political leaders and civil servants that many small Third World nations can only dream of. The depth of expertise needed to run a country, however, remains a shortcoming. After May 19, the UN plans to reduce the number of its experts in the Dili administration from 100 to about 60, most of them working in financial, judicial and engineering positions for which there are still no qualified Timorese to take over.

Meanwhile, the UN peacekeeping force will be cut from 1,750 troops to a lighter, more flexible 300-man force that will respond only to big security threats and conduct reconnaissance. The UN also plans to retain a 125-man international police "response detachment" to plug what the UN refers to as "gaps in the security structure." That will be in addition to 160 police advisers, who will continue to help develop the 3,000-man Timorese police force.

The UN may feel that such a significant reduction in its peacekeeping force is justified by reduced fears of Indonesia- based militia activity from neighbouring West Timor. Western military sources say it is time for the UN to reduce its Level- Five alert status, which is in fact higher than in war-torn Baghdad. "I think the TNI [the Indonesian military] is trying to do the right thing," says one senior Western officer. "I don't think there is any real external threat to East Timor." The Timorese themselves only plan to maintain 200 Border Patrol policemen along the winding frontier.

UN officials say considerable progress has been made in demarcating the 170-kilometre border between East and West Timor, which was once seen as a source of potential conflict. But while about 90% of the technical work is done, it still has to go to the political level for approval. Says Alkatiri: "We need to improve our good relations with Indonesia and try and get the TNI to understand that the time for confrontation is over.

Security Council to drastically cut UN mission Timor

Associated Press - May 14, 2004

United Nations -- The UN Security Council voted to keep a drastically scaled back UN mission in East Timor to support the legal, law enforcement and security institutions that the government has established since independence two years ago.

A resolution adopted unanimously by the council Friday extends the mission for six months "with a view to subsequently extending the mandate for a further and final period of six months, until May 20, 2005."

In a report to the council last month, Annan said the international community's peacekeeping activities in East Timor have made "a crucial contribution" by providing security, facilitating the country's emergence from conflict, and supporting its political and economic development. "Nonetheless, there is a limit to what can be achieved in so short a time," he said.

The resolution welcomed Annan's recommendation to extend the mission for a final one-year "consolidation phase" to strengthen key sectors including justice, public administration, the national police and security.

Currently, the UN mission has more than 1,660 troops, more than 300 international police and 77 military observers. The resolution authorized a major cutback to 310 troops, a 125-member international response unit, 42 military liaison officers, 157 civilian police advisers and 58 civilian advisers.

The council asked Annan to review the mission every three months for possible further reductions before it wraps up next year.

Council members commended "the progress achieved by the people and government of East Timor, with the assistance of the international community, towards developing, in so short a time, the nation's infrastructure, public administration, law enforcement and defense capabilities."

But the council agreed with Annan that further assistance was needed to help build up key institutions.

When the people of East Timor voted for independence in 1999, the Indonesian military and its proxy militias responded by laying waste to the former province, killing 1,500 Timorese and forcing 300,000 from their homes.

The United Nations administered the territory for 2 1/2 years, then handed it to the Timorese on May 20, 2002.

East Timor will formally assume full responsibility for maintenance of security and stability throughout its entire territory on Thursday, exactly two years after independence.

But Annan stressed that "the development of its security capability remains at an early stage" and the United Nations should continue its support, and be ready to respond militarily to major security threats that exceed the current capacity of East Timor's security agencies.

Six-month extension for East Timor

Agence France Presse - May 14 2004

The UN Security Council is set to renew the mandate of the UN Mission of Support in East Timor (UNMISET) for a further six months, the United Nations said yesterday.

The resolution, to be adopted by the council in open session, states that the six-month extension of UNMISET's mandate be followed by a subsequent mandate extension "for a further and final period of six months, until May 20 2005."

UNMISET, whose mandate expires in a week, was set up under Security Council resolution 1480 on May 19 2003, when the former Portuguese colony, occupied for 30 years by Indonesia, gained independence under UN auspices.

In a Security Council report released earlier this month, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan recommended the UNMISET mandate be extended for a year.

An extension of the UN mandate would be expected to "accomplish essential tasks" and "reinforce those accomplished," Annan said, adding that this would help propel East Timor toward autonomy.

The resolution follows Annan's recommendations on UNMISET personnel to be set at 58 civilian advisors, 157 police advisors, 42 military liaison officers, 310 trained troops and a 125-person International Response Unit.

It also sets a final deadline of May 20, 2005 for the activities of the unit charged with investigating atrocities committed a day after the independence referendum in 1999 by pro-Indonesian militias organized by Jakarta's army.

On Monday, a UN-backed tribunal in East Timor issued an arrest warrant for Indonesian presidential candidate Wiranto for crimes against humanity in the territory in 1999, denied by Wiranto.

Indonesia rejected the warrant and the Dili government said it would work with the ex-general if he wins the July 5 election, for which he is the candidate of Indonesia's largest party, Golkar.

Wiranto was Jakarta's military chief when army-backed militiamen waged a murderous campaign against independence supporters in East Timor, then an Indonesian territory.

Some 1,400 people were murdered before and after East Timorese voted in the August 1999 referendum.

The Security Council, in the latest resolution, "reaffirms the need to fight against impunity and the importance for the international community to lend its support in this regard."

Australia plans to leave 100 troops in East Timor

Reuters - May 12, 2004

Canberra -- Australia will leave around 100 peacekeeping troops in East Timor if the United Nations extends its mission in the world's newest country for another year as expected, the government said on Wednesday.

The UN Security Council is due to consider this week a new mission in Southeast Asia's poorest nation to replace the existing peacekeeping operation that ends on May 20.

"Our force size will probably be reduced to about 100," a spokeswoman for Australian Defence Minister Robert Hill said.

"Maybe some engineers, maybe some headquarters people and some logistics support, and I think we will also provide some of the military liaison people." There are now about 1,750 UN troops and military observers in the tiny country, of which around 400 are Australian, down from a peak of 5,000 Australian troops in late 1999 when the country led a multinational peace operation into East Timor.

More than 1,000 people died in fighting in 1999 when East Timor voted for independence from Indonesia, with most deaths blamed on pro-Jakarta militias backed by elements of the Indonesian military.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has suggested keeping a force of 310 soldiers and an intervention force of 125 police to patrol the border separating East Timor from the Indonesian province of West Timor, as well as some civilian staff.

Many East Timorese fear the re-emergence of militias. "We haven't seen signs of the militia for a long time. We don't think that East Timor's challenges are external security challenge," Hill's spokeswoman said.

"Indonesia is being supportive and helpful. The biggest challenges to East Timor in terms of security will be law and order. That includes things like customs and border issues and people movements but not an armed threat."

East Timor is one of the world's poorest nations with a a population of about 700,000 and receives $150 million a year in aid from nations led by Australia, Japan and the United States.

Troops set to stay in East Timor

Australian Associated Press - May 4, 2004

A reduced number of Australian troops and police are set to stay in East Timor after United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today proposed that the UN extend its mission in the fledgling nation for another year.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer welcomed Mr Annan's call for a one-year extension of the UN mandate in East Timor.

Australian police and troops serving as peacekeepers were due to withdraw from East Timor when the UN mandate expired on May 20.

Mr Downer said a reduced number of Australian troops would remain in East Timor. "The number of troops will be substantially reduced but I think there's a general consensus now throughout the UN -- and certainly it reflects our view -- that there'll have to be some security presence maintained in East Timor, a smaller security presence," Mr Downer told reporters at Darwin airport.

"We haven't formally -- the government -- made a decision on precisely how big our contribution will be."

Mr Downer said militia activity had died away and the government currently did not have any concerns about cross border activities.

The focus should be on police and supporting the East Timorese police in domestic law and order, Mr Downer said.

From a peak of almost 5,000 troops in East Timor in October 1999, the Australian Defence Force deployment now stands at 440, the majority from the Brisbane-based 6RAR involved in patrolling the border region.

Activities of members of pro-Indonesian militias, who wreaked havoc following the 1999 independence ballot, had dwindled to near zero -- although there were concerns that the withdrawal of international security forces may encourage their comeback.

"A lot of the women are scared of the militia comeback, rape and everything," Australian soldier Corporal Scott Stone told ABC Radio today.

"I have concerns that when we leave we'll be called back in a year or so if the militia come back into the area -- and we have to come back to Timor."

The UN Security Council is likely to decide on a fresh mandate on May 10 with Australia announcing its formal position by May 20.

Mr Annan has proposed the maintenance of 42 liaison officers, a force of 310 soldiers and an intervention force of 125 police to patrol the border separating East Timor from the Indonesian province of West Timor.

There would also be 157 civil police instructors and 58 civilian specialists.

As of March 31, UNMISET comprised 1,666 troops and 77 military observers, 302 policemen and 316 civilian staffers.

Under the new UN mandate, Australia is expected to contribute around a quarter of the 310 troops and an undisclosed but possibly significant number of police.

Under separate bilateral arrangements, around 50 Australian soldiers will continue to assist in training the Timorese defence force after the expiry of the UN mandate. Australian police are also training their East Timorese counterparts under a $40 million four year program launched last August.

In discussions with the UN, Australia argued that there was no need for any military force and that the mission should be dominated by police who could assist East Timor with institution building.

Security & boarder issues

Dili, Jakarta said to be 'on alert' for militia activity

Lusa - May 20, 2004

Dili -- Both East Timor and Indonesia are "on alert" for any resurgence of anti-independence militia activity following Dili's assumption of full security control from the United Nations, says East Timor's foreign minister.

Josi Ramos Horta, in comments to Lusa Thursday, shortly after the formal handover of security responsibilities, underlined that East Timor's border populations, police and defense force were watchful for any sign of renewed militia activity from across the border with Indonesia.

Ramos Horta also expressed confidence that Indonesia would continue good-neighbor relations, including in the security field.

"Indonesian authorities", he said, "are on alert to prevent any infiltration and destabilization action in East Timor", which broke from Jakarta's rule through an UN-sponsored plebiscite in 1999.

The most radical anti-independence militiamen, who remain in Indonesian West Timor, have "no popular support" and do not have a "secure sanctuary" in Indonesia, the foreign minister said. Ramos Horta described the heavily reduced United Nations' UNMISET mission, which gave up responsibility for security matters Thursday, the eve of the country's second independence anniversary, as "entirely adequate" for Dili's needs.

But given the mission's limited timeframe, he said Dili must intensify the formation" of its police force and its rapid deployment unit.

The extended UNMISET mission now has a six-month mandate, which may be prolonged for a further six months.

Ramos Horta acknowledged that the country's long-term security was inextricably linked to economic development and the creation of jobs for the large number of unemployed youths.

"Economic development and the reduction of poverty are vital to creating a climate of peace and stability in the country", he told Lusa.

West Timor/refugees

Former East Timor refugees camp in Bali

Jakarta Post - May 26, 2004

Wahyoe Boediwardhana, Denpasar -- Around 300 former refugees of Balinese descent stayed overnight in tents at Niti Mandala square in front of the Bali governor's office on Tuesday, demanding compensation for their property abandoned in 1999 when East Timor broke away from Indonesia.

Protest coordinator Komang Sakrana Budi, 33, said most of those who had migrated to East Timor in 1982 wished to be compensated to the tune of Rp 50 million (US$6,000) per family.

"We have long complied with bureaucratic procedures, but we were always sent from one office to another without ever being paid," he said.

The demonstrators vowed to remain for a week. They were seen erecting five large plastic tents sufficient to accommodate 20 people each. Among them were toddlers and the elderly.

Because of the limited capacity of the tents, the Balinese protesters were not well sheltered from torrential rains that had poured in Denpasar since Monday night.

They were earlier invited to a meeting that became deadlocked so they eventually decided to continue with their protest rally. A representative was even asked to go to Jakarta to get an assurance on the matter, but they rejected the offer.

"We refuse to meet the governor. We want him to come to us here and talk," said Komang. As of Tuesday evening, the governor had not left his office to meet the protesters, who hail from nine regencies across Bali.

Minor tension occurred when public order officers from the Denpasar municipal administration, headed by Nyoman Brandi, tried to disperse the crowd. Brandi said that the former East Timor refugees had violated Bylaw No. 3/2000 on peace and public order, asking them to remove their tents from the square.

But after arguing with Komang, the security officers gave up and reported the latest situation to their superiors while awaiting further instructions. "We're just doing our job. The important thing right now is that we have told them that it is wrong to establish tents there. If they ignore it, that's their own problem," warned Brandi.

But he added that there would be a possibility of physical engagement if they were ordered to drive away the protesters forcibly, as the protesters admitted they were prepared in the event of a clash.

The demonstrators had with them supplies of sacks of rice, cartons of instant noodles and mineral water sufficient to last a week. Some were seen buying kitchen utensils such as pots, stoves and pans.

Their only problem was potable water for cooking. They once asked for water from employees of the governor's office but were given only two pailsful.

Ex-East Timor militia armed to teeth, set to attack

Jakarta Post - May 1, 2004

Yemris Fointuna, Kupang -- A joint military and police force in East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) are keeping a watch on pro-Indonesia militiamen suspected of attempting to create chaos in neighboring East Timor.

The militia are hoarding thousands of firearms, grenades and ammunition in NTT territory bordering East Timor, the Indonesian Military (TNI) said on Friday.

"There is the intention on the part of militia to create chaos in Timor Leste (East Timor). They still have many guns buried in border areas," said Wirasakti 161 military commander Col. Moeswarno Moesanip overseeing security in NTT province.

He said soldiers and paramilitary Mobile Brigade police stationed in the border area were intensively monitoring the activities of around 20 militia leaders and members reported to be gathering there.

The men often smuggle Indonesian goods into East Timor, while studying security conditions in the newly born country, Moesanip said, quoting TNI intelligence officers.

It was not clear why the militiamen were not immediately arrested when it was discovered they were smuggling goods into East Timor.

Why nor Moesanip divulged the plans of the pro-Jakarta militia group to launch an attack on East Timor, instead of keeping them secret to search for their guns and arrest them was not clear.

It had widely been reported earlier that the TNI hired militiamen to help soldiers challenge independence fighters in East Timor during Indonesia's occupation of the territory between 1970 and 1999.

The military-backed militia were blamed for the rampage that followed East Timor's vote for independence in August 1999. Only a number of militia leaders were jailed for the mayhem, while senior TNI officers who were then responsible for security in the territory remained free.

However, Moesanip refuted claims that the TNI and police backed militia to destabilize East Timor, and vowed to shoot them on sight should they perpetrate new violence there.

The most effective measure to prevent militia attacks, according to him, would be to reopen the three traditional markets in the NTT-East Timor border area, which were closed after a shooting incident last year.

"The Timor Leste government should support the reopening of the three legal markets, so the activities of traders including militiamen can be controlled," Moesanip argued.

Otherwise, illegal markets would increase and security forces would be unable to curb militia activities at border areas, he added.

Moesanip said the East Timor authorities were worried about increasing militia operations at border areas ahead of the pullout of the United Nation Peacekeeping Force from the neighboring country, which is scheduled for early June.

With the planned UN withdrawal threats of militia attacks in East Timor have increased.

Former militia may be caching weapons: military

Associated Press - May 1, 2004

Jakarta -- The Indonesian military is investigating reports that pro-Jakarta militiamen are stockpiling weapons along the border between East and West Timor, an officer said Saturday.

"We don't know how many are stashed. We suspect that the weapons were from past unrest," said Indonesian Army Col. Moeswarno Moesanip, who is in charge of security in the region.

Moesanip said the group may have caches of firearms, hand grenades, and ammunition buried along the mountainous border that divides the island, but added no weapons would have been hidden in Indonesia-ruled West Timor. He did not elaborate.

The Jakarta Post, quoting Moesanip in a report Saturday, said former East Timor-based militiamen may use the arms in raids into their one-time homeland from West Timor. Moesanip told The Associated Press Saturday he was misquoted. "We don't know what they are planning. They are lying low," Moesanip said.

A former militia chief, Eurico Guterres, now based in West Timor's provincial capital Kupang, denied the rebels were caching weapons or planning assaults in East Timor. "We have no plans for armed incursions," Guterres said. "We gave all our weapons to the military."

The Indonesian army recruited thousands of militiamen in the final days of its 24-year occupation of East Timor in 1999, in an effort to intimidate the population into voting against independence in a UN-organized referendum.

But four-fifths of the voters opted for independence _ and after the poll, Indonesia's army and its auxiliaries laid waste to the province, killing at least 1,500 civilians, destroying most of its housing and infrastructure and forcing nearly half of its 600,000 people into exile.

The reign of terror was cut short by the arrival of international peacekeepers, who promptly kicked Indonesian forces out of the territory they'd invaded in 1975.

Thousands of militiamen fled with the troops. Many have returned home in the past four years, but several thousand have stayed in Indonesia's West Timor province _ the other half of the island where East Timor is located, several hundred kilometers (miles) north of Australia.

Although some militia have made sporadic attempts to infiltrate East Timor, the border area has been mostly quiet since 2000.

Several thousand UN soldiers remain in East Timor. Most are scheduled to pull out in the next several months, when the newly established East Timorese army will take over security duties.

Australian intelligence 'cover-up'

Family of Merv Jenkins takes Government to court

ABC Radi PM Today - May 13, 2004

Mark Colvin: There's more trouble tonight for the embattled Canberra defence intelligence establishment. The family of Lieutenant Colonel Merv Jenkins, Australia's top spy in Washington during the East Timor crisis, is taking the Federal Government to court.

Jenkins, who provided liaison between Australia's Defence Intelligence Organisation and the CIA, killed himself five years ago after he was interrogated for handing classified information to the Americans, despite being cleared by his bosses to do just that.

For the past two years, Jenkins's widow, Sandra has been trying to win compensation from the Government, which she blames for her husband's death.

Mrs Jenkins's lawyer, Brian Hatch, says the Government is suppressing the information on the grounds of national security but he believes they're really covering up a government embarrassment.

He's talking to Andrew Fowler from the ABC's Investigative Unit.

Andrew Fowler: Brian Hatch, you are taking the Federal Government to court on Monday in Canberra, in an attempt to get documents to fight your case. Some of them are marked secret and some of them have parliamentary privilege, you can't expect to get all of those documents surely?

Brian Hatch: Certainly in relation to the parliamentary privilege, I'm not taking that issue on. I think it is appropriate that the Minister can get proper advice without that being made terribly public.

More importantly, however, is some of the documents marked secret and otherwise. I'm concerned that the Government is merely marking everything as secret until it can be shown otherwise.

Andrew Fowler: Which documents do you particularly want to see?

Brian Hatch: Well one of the difficulties with that is the descriptions given to the documents makes it very difficult to work out exactly what they are. Some of them, some of the queries I have raised with the Government is that the documents simply don't describe what might be in the document, so I don't know where I want it or not. So it is a matter of I need everything until I know otherwise.

Andrew Fowler: There is one document which is a Department of Foreign Affairs account of its involvement in the Jenkins' case. Why is this document so important do you believe?

Brian Hatch: I'm concerned that Foreign Affairs was upset that Mr Jenkins was passing over documents it didn't want passed over to the, whoever he was passing them to, and they then raised that issue with Defence and that's how the investigation started.

So, it would be helpful to know what Foreign Affairs' precise involvement in the whole process was.

Andrew Fowler: There is another document that you simply say that, if it is about East Timor, then it is not discoverable. What makes you think it involves Merv Jenkins?

Brian Hatch: The case we are running is not based on whether it's East Timor, or any other international issue. The issue is whether Mr Jenkins was able to pass over documents to allied forces.

One document that has been raised is only referred to as East Timor. If it only refers to East Timor then it is not relevant to the case. So if it refers to East Timor and they are telling me about it, it must say something about both East Timor, Mr Jenkins and the investigation.

We are interested in the fact that he was doing what he was told he was supposed to do, and then he got into trouble for it, to the extent that he was told he may go to jail, and eventually he ended up taking his life.

Andrew Fowler: What do you think you are dealing with here? Are you dealing with a case of the Government truly being concerned about national security, and they have every right of course, to protect their secrets?

Brian Hatch: I've got no concern about the Government and their secrets, because there are certain matters which should be kept secret from time to time. I'm concerned that the Government works on the basis that everything is secret and then you have to try and, I suppose, prise bits and pieces out of them.

Andrew Fowler: Do you believe that the Government is covering up because of national embarrassment, rather than national security?

Brian Hatch: I don't think it is national embarrassment, I think it is departmental embarrassment.

Andrew Fowler: In the end, what do you actually want for Sandra Jenkins and her children?

Brian Hatch: Sandra Jenkins and her family only started from the point that they wanted the Government to admit that they had made a complete mistake. They were never prepared to do that, which is why this court case started.

This case now, is simply about getting compensation for loss of support for the family, because the main breadwinner is now dead.

Andrew Fowler: Do you believe that it is not just compensation that the family wants, but they also want the truth?

Brian Hatch: The family wants the truth and the family wants an apology. With any government department, the hardest thing to get is an apology. The next hardest thing to get is the truth. It is always much easier for them to just pay money.

Andrew Fowler: When you say they want an apology, what do they want an apology for?

Brian Hatch: The apology for the way that they ran an investigation, and forced Merv Jenkins to commit suicide.

Mark Colvin: Brian Hatch speaking to Andrew Fowler from the ABC's Investigative Unit.

Difference of opinions

Sydney Morning Herald - May 8, 2004

Deborah Snow -- The then head of the Defence Department, Paul Barratt, was angry and perplexed in late December 1998. He had just learned of Prime Minister John Howard's letter to the Indonesian President, B.J.Habibie, suggesting he grant autonomy to East Timor in advance of an eventual act of self- determination.

Howard's letter overturned 23 years of Australian acceptance of Jakarta's illegal occupation, even though the Prime Minister indicated he hoped the Timorese would choose to remain part of Indonesia. The letter held profound implications for the Australian Defence Department. Yet neither Barratt, nor the then defence minister, John Moore, nor the military chief, Admiral Chris Barrie, had warning of it.

One senior source recalls Barratt saying he fronted the then head of the Prime Minister's Department, Max Moore Wilton, telling him: "I hope they [the PM's advisers] are aware it will be our people coming home in body bags, not theirs."

Consternation in government circles was compounded when Habibie decided to announce a referendum on East Timorese independence almost immediately - without the long lead time envisaged by Howard. Australian policymakers were plunged into panic.

Habibie's weakness as an interim president in the wake of Soeharto's fall was a core concern. It was uncertain how much the infamous Indonesian armed forces, the TNI, were really under his control. Defence in particular could not see that the Indonesian military would give East Timor up without a fight, no matter what Habibie said. In February 1999, Barratt, together with Barrie, went to cabinet to urge some quiet planning for an increase in the army's deployment readiness.

At the same time the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) was just as adamant there should be no talk of a peacekeeping force.

Insiders say the head of DFAT, Ashton Calvert, was fearful that even canvassing the option could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. He felt it could drag Australia into a long-term responsibility for East Timorese security which it could not afford.

Another argument was that overly tough talk, or even evidence that Australia was mobilising, could trigger a coup against Habibie, or force Habibie to adopt a more hardline position to fend off an army revolt.

Was this kind of thinking "pro-Jakarta" as some allege? Or was it a fundamentally different take on where the balance of Australia's long-term national interests lay?

Regardless of these differences of approach in early 1999, Defence and DFAT were united in advising cabinet of one thing: under no circumstances could Australia contemplate going in to East Timor without Indonesian consent.

They said it would amount to an invasion, as Australia's de jure recognition of East Timor's incorporation into Indonesia had not been withdrawn. More pointedly, Australia would lose if the Indonesians resisted.

"We did not have the military power to invade Indonesia," a former top Defence adviser says. "If we met armed resistance to landing a brigade (some 5000 troops), only 1500 of whom might be frontline troops, we knew we'd have a lot of casualties and the mission would fail."

This was the tense and somewhat schizophrenic policy atmosphere at the top as, deep in the bowels of Defence intelligence, a group of analysts was picking up intercepts and churning out assessments showing increasingly stark evidence of deep TNI complicity in arming and training anti-independence militias in East Timor.

Included in this network was the intelligence specialist Lieutenant-Colonel Lance Collins, then working for army headquarters in Sydney. As signs of a TNI-backed terrorist campaign mounted, he grew more agitated about what he felt was the "spin" being put on the field intelligence to make it more palatable to a group of "mandarins" uncomfortable about confronting Jakarta.

Collins liaised with, but was not part of, the Defence Intelligence Organisation (DIO). However, his claims alleging the existence of a "pro-Jakarta" lobby within DIO and other government organs were at the centre of a secret report leaked to The Bulletin. That report, by retired naval captain-turned lawyer Martin Toohey, backed many of Collins's claims.

Toohey and Collins level the strongest accusations at the head of DIO, Frank Lewincamp, which include claims (vehemently denied by Lewincamp) that DIO "muted" its intelligence on Timor, and that when Collins complained, Lewincamp initiated a payback against Collins which resulted in Collins unjustly becoming the subject of a police investigation. Toohey hit the airwaves last week calling for Lewincamp to be sacked. He and Collins are also calling for a royal commission into failures inside the intelligence agencies, amid claims of politicisation of intelligence advice.

It's possible to make a strong case for a judicial inquiry into the relationship between the Government and its intelligence advisers, particularly after the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

But in relation to Lewincamp, there are anomalies in the Toohey report and Collins's accusations that raise questions about whether they have zeroed in on the right target. (Two subsequent legal assessments of Toohey's report have produced one agreeing with it, and another seriously questioning its forensic standards.)

The Herald has spoken to one witness who is markedly unhappy with the way he has been quoted in the Toohey report and at least two others are said to have reservations about whether the Toohey report accurately reflected the flavour of their testimony.

The conundrum is that while Collins claims DIO was "muting" its intelligence on Timor during 1999 to downplay the role of the TNI, many other sources maintain DIO -- of all the government agencies -- was playing the straightest bat on what the Indonesian military was up to.

The public record shows a string of leaks to the Australian media during 1999 of DIO material which undercut Government statements at the time that only "rogue" elements of the TNI were involved in backing the militias.

The leaked DIO assessments acknowledged greater complicity of the Indonesia armed forces.

In May 2001 an Australian Army captain, Andrew Plunkett, went public on his belief that Australian agencies had not done enough to prevent a vicious massacre of civilians by anti-independence militia at Maliana in East Timor in September, 1999.

He said reports from DIO around the time had been accurate. But he claimed the Australian field intelligence had been "pushed up the chain of command, hosed down and politically wordsmithed by the Asia division of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade".

Says one senior military source, "Some people [around Collins] had a problem with the fact the DIO material was not as hard- edged as they would have liked it to be, but I don't believe there was any deliberate whitewashing within DIO. However, it might be a truer claim of DFAT or the Office of National Assessments."

Another factor Toohey did not examine was how far institutional rivalries and "culture wars" between civilian and uniformed personnel inside Defence might have contributed to tensions between Collins and DIO, especially once Lewincamp came to head it. In 1998, Collins was part of a new military organisation, Headquarters Australian Theatre, which had been set up in Sydney. His role was to provide intelligence to support army operations, but he began ranging into strategic areas which DIO regarded as its territory.

As Toohey's report reveals, DIO was having problems with the scope of Collins's Timor assessments as early as mid-1998 -- at least a year before Lewincamp got there. At that stage it was headed by Major-General Bill Crews (now head of the RSL) who has told the Herald he was "not aware of any such thing as a pro- Jakarta lobby" inside the organisation.

In May, 1999, the then defence minister, John Moore, and Paul Barratt decided to "civilianise" DIO which had been headed by military men for a decade. They believed DIO's product was substandard and poorly managed.

Crews disagreed with the civilianisation policy, and retired. The civilian appointed to take over two months later was Lewincamp.

This attracted hostility from many in the military, who thought a uniformed officer, or at the very least an intelligence professional (which Lewincamp was not) should have been placed in the job. Fears that Lewincamp would bring a new culture into DIO, one more responsive to bureaucratic and political pressures, no doubt fanned the suspicions of Collins and the group around him.

Even without the Collins accusations, it was a torrid time for anyone taking over the organisation. Australia's Interfet expedition to Timor was due to leave within weeks (with Collins accompanying it as chief intelligence officer). There had been an espionage scandal involving a DIO staffer just two months before. A defence intelligence attache in Washington had committed suicide after being accused of showing Australian-only secrets to the Americans. And there were the ongoing leaks of defence intelligence, bringing Lewincamp under intense pressure from ministers to find the source. Even under these conditions, Lewincamp's supporters are adamant he is, and was, not the type to bend to politicians.

But if one thing does emerge indisputably from the Toohey report, it's that five years down the track the whispers and suspicions over who was or was not doctoring intelligence from Timor remain a corrosive element within parts of the military. Collins was not the only one convinced it happened.

And for that reason alone, a full-blown judicial inquiry may be the only way of resolving a conflict which otherwise continues to eat away at the morale of Defence's intelligence apparatus.

Howard ignored spy warning: claim

Melbourne Age - May 5, 2004

Jason Koutsoukis, Canberra -- Prime Minister John Howard may face further pressure to call a royal commission on Australia's intelligence services following new claims that the Defence Department for six weeks ignored warnings that a spy was operating in the army with impunity.

The allegation is one of several new claims to come out of a Defence Department inquiry into the treatment of disaffected intelligence officer Lieutenant-Colonel Lance Collins to be published in today's Bulletin magazine.

The claims are made in transcripts of interviews from a Defence Department inquiry by naval barrister Captain Martin Toohey into the case surrounding Colonel Collins.

Captain Toohey interviewed top Defence officials including Defence Force chief Major-General Peter Cosgrove and Defence Intelligence Organisation head Frank Lewincamp.

In his interview with Captain Toohey, Colonel Collins is reported to have said that six weeks after he passed on suspicions that a mid-ranking army officer in East Timor was spying for a foreign government, no one from Defence had followed up. "I reported back to the Director of Army Security... I didn't hear back from him, so I rang him some six weeks after that and asked whether there'd been any follow up and he claimed not to know about it," Colonel Collins said.

He also alleges that a Defence Department official, Jason Brown, now an assistant secretary in the department, tried to pressure him to reveal his source and indicated to him he had such "coercive" power that "things he set in train could even force people to commit suicide".

Colonel Collins understood this to refer to the 1999 suicide of former DIO officer Merv Jenkins who was accused of inappropriately sharing intelligence with US officials.

Colonel Collins precipitated the existing sense of crisis surrounding the intelligence services by writing to Mr Howard several months ago urging a full, impartial royal commission on the "putrefaction" of the intelligence system.

Mr Howard replied to Colonel Collins last week, rejecting his request.

In his interview with Captain Toohey, DIO chief Lewincamp is reported to have told him that federal cabinet wanted to close the agency down because of "130 leaks" of DIO product to news organisations.

"Cabinet was on our backs, they wanted to close this organisation down, we were on the nose basically... it was all our product over all of the national newspapers. I had (Foreign) Minister (Alexander) Downer on the telephone saying what an awful organisation I was running," Mr Lewincamp said.

In Captain Toohey's interview with General Cosgrove, the Defence Force chief is reported to have admitted that the 4500 Australian InterFET soldiers in East Timor had been cut off from intelligence, saying, "We wondered whether they'd gone silent in Canberra."

When Colonel Collins confronted General Cosgrove with his assessment that DIO had been infiltrated by a pro-Jakarta lobby, General Cosgrove is reported to have said: "This is pretty red hot, mate. Are you sure you want to send this?"

A spokesman for Mr Downer said The Bulletin story was "another beat-up in a series of beat-ups by the magazine". Mr Downer had "full and complete confidence in DIO as an organisation", the spokesman said.

No spy royal commission: Howard

Melbourne Age - May 1, 2004

Brendan Nicholson -- Prime Minister John Howard has rejected the calls of army intelligence analyst Lieutenant-Colonel Lance Collins for a royal commission into Australia's intelligence agencies.

Mr Howard dismissed Colonel Collins's claims that there were serious systemic failures in the military intelligence agencies.

After releasing his letter to Colonel Collins rejecting his plea, Mr Howard said he did not expect it to be the end of the matter. "I don't think it will be the end of discussion within the intelligence community and neither it should be," he told reporters in Brisbane.

"I promised him a conscientious, courteous reply and that's what I've provided to him. I'm satisfied on the information available to me that there is no case to have a royal commission."

The Prime Minister attached a copy of a previously confidential report prepared by the former inspector-general of intelligence and security, Bill Blick.

Mr Blick was asked to assess claims that the Defence Intelligence Organisation (DIO) failed to predict Indonesia's response to East Timor's move to independence, and that it told the Government what it wanted to hear.

Mr Blick's report from May 2003 found that those concerns of Colonel Collins were sincere, but did not stand up to scrutiny.

"What Colonel Collins interpreted as an attempt to quash contrary views appear to be legitimate expressions of concern about parts of the content of his assessment and about his wide distribution of assessments and comments," Mr Blick said.

Mr Howard wrote to Colonel Collins to tell him he did not agree there had been intelligence failures on East Timor, Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction and the Bali bombings.

"In reaching your conclusions, you may not have always had the benefit of access to all the available intelligence material," Mr Howard said.

"You conclude your letter with a call for the appointment of a royal commission to consider the performance of the intelligence community. I do not agree with this proposal."

Colonel Collins' lawyer, David Rofe, QC, said his client would now appear at a special sitting of the military justice committee.

It is also likely that Defence Force lawyer Martin Toohey, QC, will also appear before the committee. Mr Toohey said this week he had been subjected to a witch-hunt by defence security officers after supporting Colonel Collins's calls for an investigation into the agencies -- and for calling for DIO director Frank Lewincamp to be sacked.

Mr Toohey had earlier written a report on Colonel Collins' treatment by his employers. In his letter, Mr Howard said Defence Force chief Peter Cosgrove said Mr Toohey's report on Colonel Collins's treatment was invalid.

"The chief of the Defence Force has decided that the investigating officer's report is a nullity as his appointment went beyond the appointing officer's authority." Mr Howard said.

Mr Rofe said it was time the Government disentangled itself from the John Laws and Alan Jones imbroglio and got onto national security. "Only the media can force this Government to have an inquiry that will clean up the defence intelligence services of this country," Mr Rofe said.

Spy chief kept Timor intelligence link cut

Sydney Morning Herald - May 1, 2004

Tom Allard -- Defence Intelligence Organisation chief Frank Lewincamp ordered that a crucial flow of intelligence to Australian troops during the East Timor conflict remain shut down, in an extraordinary act that came amid a major row among Defence spies.

The Herald has also learned Mr Lewincamp instructed that the intelligence flow remain shut down until he had relayed his anger at Lieutenant-Colonel Lance Collins, then the senior intelligence officer in East Timor reporting to the operation commander, General Peter Cosgrove, for criticising DIO's reports.

The findings -- which cast doubt on the completeness of recent statements by General Cosgrove, now the Chief of the Defence Force -- were contained in a May 2003 review of the grievances of Colonel Collins, the army whistleblower who has called for a royal commission into the nation's intelligence agencies.

The classified review by the inspector-general of intelligence, Bill Blick, released yesterday, is generally unfavourable to Colonel Collins's claims, but provides an intriguing insight into arguably his most disturbing allegation.

That claim, backed by a review by navy barrister Captain Martin Toohey, was that Mr Lewincamp "caused the flow of intelligence to East Timor to be suspended" for 24 hours in December 1999 when about 5000 Australian troops were fighting militia remnants, a potentially life-threatening act.

The Blick report reveals the top secret intelligence database -- one of several serving East Timor -- went down on December 20, 1999.

Engineering staff in East Timor quickly found it had been turned off by Mr Lewincamp, a view relayed to DIO headquarters by an angry Colonel Collins.

The next day, the project office looking after the Joint Intelligence Support System in Australia confirmed, via email to Colonel Collins, that the loss of access to the database was "not a technical matter but a DIO policy decision".

That view appeared to be reinforced by the deputy director of the DIO, Doug Kean, who wrote to Mr Lewincamp: "When we get those security aspects fixed, I believe we should turn [the database] back on."

The Herald understands that those issues related to concerns Colonel Collins was accessing intelligence beyond that immediately relating to military activity in East Timor and sending missives back to Canberra about its quality.

It is understood Mr Lewincamp considered removing his right to see the material. There were also concerns in Defence about leaks of highly classified documents, although Colonel Collins has never been under investigation for this.

Amid vociferous complaints from Colonel Collins about the shutdown, Mr Lewincamp instructed another officer to tell Colonel Collins that, despite the previous email, he had not turned off the database but had "asked that it not be turned back on" until Colonel Collins had "certain messages" conveyed to him.

The reason for the delay in turning it back on was subsequently confirmed in a note by Mr Lewincamp that upbraided Colonel Collins for his criticism of DIO's intelligence reports.

While all these emails and notes were provided to Mr Blick, he found it was impossible to "determine conclusively" the reasons for the loss from written records.

He relied instead on later statutory declarations from Mr Lewincamp and others to find there "was no policy decision" to cut the intelligence flow.

Colonel Collins and Captain Toohey have both expressed deep disquiet over Mr Blick's review, saying his findings did not accord with the facts.

Regardless, Mr Blick did not dispute that Mr Lewincamp demanded that the intelligence flow from the database remain turned off once the shutdown had been detected.

However, General Cosgrove and the secretary of the Department of Defence, Ric Smith, last week failed to acknowledge this crucial fact when they disputed claims that Mr Lewincamp had "placed in jeopardy" the lives of troops by denying them access to intelligence.

They said only that the loss was due to "technical problems and a number of power outages" and there was "simply no basis" to suggest Mr Lewincamp was responsible. Defence rejects the shutdown could have cost lives but Labor's defence spokesman, Chris Evans, said: "That troops in the field were denied intelligence because of a spat in Defence is deeply disturbing.

"This report doesn't ease my concerns about what occurred. It still leaves many questions unanswered."

Timor: Envoy claims US kept in dark

The Bulletin - April 28, 2004

Lt Col Lance Collins' claims that Australian officials attempted to suppress crucial intelligence about East Timor may have found an unlikely new ally -- a diplomat at the US embassy in Canberra. Paul Daley reports.

Allegations that AUSTRALIA withheld critical intelligence information from the United States during the East Timor crisis have resurfaced, amid continuing calls for a royal commission triggered by the Lance Collins affair.

According to the claims, made to the Inspector General of Intelligence and Security, a senior officer of the US embassy in Canberra said American intelligence agencies were concerned that Australia had withheld important material relating to East Timor.

The claims have been made in a confidential letter to the then inspector general, Bill Blick, by Dr Philip Dorling, an adviser to the opposition's foreign affairs spokesman, Laurie Brereton, at the time of the East Timor crisis.

Dorling wrote to Blick last July in response to an IGIS report that dismissed media allegations that the Defence Signals Directorate intercepted the communications of Brereton as part of an investigation into damaging intelligence leaks about East Timor and the Indonesian military. "I should take this opportunity to advise that during the latter part of 1999 and early 2000, concerns about possible technical surveillance of Mr Brereton's office led a senior officer of the United States Embassy in Canberra to take considerable security precautions in holding discussions with myself as Mr Brereton's adviser," Dorling wrote.

"The diplomat in question conveyed to me the concern of the United States intelligence agencies that, notwithstanding public statements to the contrary, the Australian government had withheld or otherwise delayed the sharing with the US of important intelligence material relating to Indonesian military and militia activities in East Timor. The diplomat specifically indicated that the Australian prime minister's press release of September 17, 1999, and a US State Department release of the same day concerning bilateral intelligence co-operation were misleading, indeed untruthful.

"The diplomat indicated that on the basis of conversations with other US officials, he knew Mr Brereton's office to be the target of intelligence collection by technical means and accordingly wished to take security precautions in his contact with us."

From early August 1999, some Australian newspapers began reporting serious differences between the US and Australia on how to approach the looming East Timor crisis. In a meeting between senior Australian military personnel and their American counterparts in Hawaii on June 21, 1999, the US representatives professed their preference for a swift military deployment of up to 15,000 US troops -- with Australian support -- to provide security in the province before an independence ballot.

At a meeting in Washington in February 1999, US Assistant Secretary of State Stanley Roth and Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade secretary Ashton Calvert seriously differed over the type of military force appropriate for East Timor. The government denied newspaper reports about the discussions between the US and the Australian officials.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer was later forced to concede there had been such discussions when the diplomatic cables recording their details were leaked.

On September 17, 1999, The Australian reported that the US was angry because Australia had withheld intelligence material on East Timor.

John Howard issued a statement on the same day "categorically" rejecting "the suggestion that Australia has held back from the United States information and intelligence on East Timor".

"On the contrary, exchanges have been amongst the most intense that we have ever had," Howard's statement said.

The US State Department also issued a statement saying Australia had fully co-operated with the US "on the entire range of issues" regarding East Timor "and any report to the contrary would be misleading or false".

But according to Dorling's diplomatic source, both statements were untrue.

Australian Federal Police and Defence Security Branch officers raided Dorling's Canberra home in September 2000 in an unsuccessful search for leaked Australian intelligence material on East Timor after he was named on a search warrant together with defence intelligence whistleblower Lieutenant Colonel Lance Collins, several public servants and several journalists.

The leaked intelligence assessments showed that the Indonesian military (TNI) was carefully organising and funding the violent, pro-Indonesian East Timor militias at a time when the federal government maintained that only "rogue elements" of the TNI were involved.

Had Dorling gone public then to say that his source in the US embassy claimed that Howard -- and indeed the US State Department -- had misled the public, the impact would have been incendiary. Indeed, had Dorling -- or Brereton -- gone public at any point, the claims would have had greater political impact than they do today, 10 months after they were made privately in a letter to Blick. It can only be assumed that Dorling didn't go public at the time because he was trying to protect his source.

Blick's written response to Dorling did not address the claims about the US diplomat.

Today, Dorling, a historian and former DFAT officer, won't comment.

Dorling, whose work on revising Labor's East Timor policy in the late 1990s earned him the ire of some in the ALP, stopped working for the opposition in 2003.

But his allegations will resonate with two groups of people: Lance Collins and his supporters, and the family of Merv Jenkins, the Defence Intelligence Organisation attachi at the Australian embassy in Washington who committed suicide in June 1999 while under investigation over his handling of Australian intelligence material relating to East Timor.

Jenkins had been interviewed by DFAT for allegedly passing AUSTEO (Australian Eyes Only) intelligence material, relating to East Timor, to the US. It had been the custom for such material to be passed to the US previously. But, perhaps underscoring the sensitivities of the Australia-Indonesia bilateral agreement over East Timor, the federal government maintains Jenkins was only permitted to pass the AUSTEO material to the US with appropriate clearance of the type he did not have.

Much of the material he handed over related to TNI's collaboration with the East Timor militias.

Collins, who became the chief Australian military intelligence officer attached to Interfet in East Timor in late 1999, was an early advocate of TNI's base-level involvement with the militias. When some of his assessments to that effect -- and others suggesting the TNI's chief General Wiranto was directly responsible -- were leaked, the federal government continued to insist only "rogue elements" of the TNI were involved.

The inclusion of his name on the AFP-DSB warrant implicitly -- and without justification -- pointed to his complicity in leaking the intelligence material. Collins' career has suffered and he continues to seek redress.

Wiranto, who was criminally indicted over the East Timor violence, has emerged as the fiercely nationalistic Golkar Party's candidate for Indonesian president. "We have to work with whoever wins," Downer said last month when asked about Wiranto. l

Paul Daley was also named on the AFP warrant, having published highly classified Australian intelligence material from 1998 to 2000 while foreign affairs and defence correspondent at The Age.

The captain and the cover-up

The Bulletin - April 28, 2004

The senior officer who wrote a damning report on the Australian intelligence services says he has been made a scapegoat in a "shabby, tawdry cover-up". John Lyons reports.

The controversy surrounding high-ranking army intelligence officer Lance Collins is set to re-ignite with the author of the report damning Australia's intelligence services now saying that his own treatment by the federal government has been "despicable".

In a powerful counter-attack on those who have criticised his report, Captain Martin Toohey has broken his silence to say the Australian Defence Force and the government are engaged in "yet another shabby, tawdry cover-up" over the Lance Collins affair. He says there is a "cabal" of senior officials in Canberra who write intelligence estimates with the aim of protecting Indonesia's armed forces from being linked with atrocities committed by its Kopassus soldiers.

He criticises the Flood inquiry announced by Prime Minister John Howard which he says is "incestuous" and "will resolve nothing". He now supports Collins' view that a royal commission into Australia's intelligence services should be held.

Toohey was commissioned last year to investigate a complaint by Collins, a senior army intelligence officer who was hand-picked by defence force chief Peter Cosgrove to run the Interfet operation in East Timor. About 4500 Australian soldiers were sent to re-establish order after the Indonesian military and associated militia groups went on a rampage. The violence was in retribution for East Timorese voting for independence.

Collins' career took a dive after he criticised a "pro-Jakarta lobby" inside the Defence Intelligence Organisation. As part of the campaign against him, his name was wrongly included on a federal police warrant investigating the leak of confidential material. He has spent four years trying to find out who put his name on the warrant.

Last year, the ADF appointed Toohey, a distinguished naval barrister with top-secret security clearance, to investigate. He concluded that Collins had been "disgracefully" treated. Those in the ADF who did not like the report prevented Collins from seeing it. They then commissioned another report by Colonel Roger Brown, which backed Toohey's conclusions. They then commissioned yet another report, by Colonel Richard Tracey, which challenged Toohey's report.

After The Bulletin published the entire 32-page Toohey report two weeks ago, Defence Minister Robert Hill released the Tracey report to discredit the Toohey report. But he did not even mention the Brown report, which he was forced to release 48 hours later.

Toohey has told The Bulletin the ADF has gone on "a fishing expedition" to find the legal opinion it wanted. "The relevant regulations require only one legal opinion."

He says: "I have never encountered a situation where a report I have prepared has not been released to all those directly interested in it, yet a report critical of my report has been commissioned by the Defence Force then released to the media."

He describes the Jakarta lobby, as "a cabal of both uniformed and civilian personnel within DIO and Defence who take everything emanating from the TNI [Indonesian military] at face value. This so-called 'intelligence' is written with the object of distancing the TNI from atrocities committed by the Kopassus [read 'terrorist'] arm of the TNI ... two basic premises of the Jakarta lobby are firstly to deny atrocities committed by the TNI, followed by publicly attributing those outrages including those human rights violations in East Timor [pre-Interfet] to 'rogue elements' of the TNI and not the TNI per se."

The Bulletin: What has been your reaction to the events of the past two weeks?

Captain Toohey: I am making this statement as a private citizen and not as a member of the Australian Defence Force. I am concerned that some media reports dealing with my inquiry into Lieutenant Colonel Lance Collins' grievance have criticised me in such a way that my professional reputation -- and even my personal reputation -- has been damaged. I am a lawyer in private practice and I have undertaken a number of similar inquiries on behalf of the Defence Force and I have never encountered a situation where a report I have prepared has not been released to all those directly interested in it, yet a report critical of my report has been commissioned by the Defence Force and then released to the media. I am appalled at this sequence of events and as a private citizen I believe that making this statement is my only avenue to protect my reputation. I am also highly concerned that a classified document authored by me has been placed in the public domain.

B: What was your reaction when the government issued a press release saying your report had been effectively discredited by Melbourne QC Colonel Richard Tracey?

Toohey: The conduct of the government was, in my view, despicable and duplicitous. I considered my reputation as a lawyer to have been besmirched. I was disappointed that Colonel Tracey, a professional colleague of many years' standing, did not have the courtesy to at least give me a call and provide me with the opportunity of explaining my approach to my inquiry. I am also concerned that Colonel Tracey does not appear to have had the benefit of the transcripts of evidence when preparing his critique of my report. As he acknowledges in his report, the assessment of witnesses -- their demeanour, their probity and the weight to be attached to their evidence -- is critical in an inquiry such as this, and obviously I had the benefit of seeing each witness and examining them.

Colonel Tracey did not have this benefit nor the benefit, apparently, of reading the transcripts of their evidence. I am concerned that as a consequence his evaluation of my findings must be questionable. I also find it interesting that Colonel Tracey refers to ADFP 202 [Administrative Inquiries Manual], para. 1.52, pointing out that the officer who appointed me to conduct the inquiry was required to obtain a legal advice on my report and that he did so. This is the Brown report, which the ADF released after it released Tracey's critique. The Brown report supported my report and consequently I believe there is no legal basis for the Tracey report.

It is merely personal advice provided to the ADF, yet the ADF appears to be representing it as having the legal status of overriding my report.

B: Why do you think they released the Tracey report but did not mention the report by Colonel Roger Brown?

Toohey: For purely political reasons. After all, this [election] year has seen them lurch from one political debacle to another. I think an apt description of their activities would be "oleaginous".

B: How much pressure was put on you after your report?

Toohey: With respect, I do not understand this question.

B: What do you think of Richard Tracey's written judgment?

Toohey: I am concerned he does not appear to have had the benefit of even reading the transcripts of evidence that were taken during the inquiry.

In paragraph 61 of his report he also appears to acknowledge that he was provided with an additional briefing prior to preparing his report. His interpretation of Defence (Inquiry) Regulation 70A (1) fails to address the fundamental issue whether Lieutenant Colonel Collins' ability to perform his duties had been affected by the manner in which the DIO dealt with him.

Colonel Tracey's narrow and overly legalistic interpretation of Regulation 70A would mean, if applied in future, that an inquiry could never undertake an examination of how defence force personnel operate within the defence forces. It is a very rare situation where serving officers do not have to interact with defence force members outside their immediate area of command. His failure to recognise the degree of elasticity in Regulation 70 A (1) has tainted his entire findings. I would have also thought that a barrister of his experience would have realised that the demeanour of witnesses, their body language and the manner in which they gave their evidence, are all vitally important in assessing the weight to be given to their evidence and that this provides the evidentiary basis for my findings. I am also concerned that even today the fundamental issue raised by Lieutenant Colonel Collins' grievance has yet to be met. Why was his name included in the search warrant? Colonel Tracey concludes that "the fact that his name appeared on a warrant obtained by the AFP does not necessarily point to the conclusion" that he was the subject of an investigation, yet, as Colonel Tracey acknowledges, his name could not have been included unless a magistrate, or a judge, was persuaded that it was proper to include it, and how could that have occurred unless someone in an investigating role made some allegation against Collins? What was said to the magistrate, or judge, is the crux of the matter and Colonel Tracey's report sidesteps this fundamental issue.

B: Do you think some in the system have considered making you the scapegoat in this affair?

Toohey: Yes.

B: How many other similar reports have you done in your capacity as a barrister?

Toohey: Approximately 10.

B: Was it unusual for the Defence Department to seek further opinions?

Toohey: Most definitely. The relevant regulations require only one legal opinion. This is a fishing expedition as described in the legal profession. Ask the same questions to five different lawyers and you are likely to get five different opinions.

B: Has anything about the general reaction surprised you?

Toohey: Yes -- with one exception, a total lack of support from the ADF or government. After all, I was merely doing a job they asked me to do and, further, the Defence Central Legal Office should have been more proactive.

B: When you began your investigation into the Lance Collins case what was your approach?

Toohey: Stay within the terms of reference, maintain total objectivity, apply natural justice and follow laid-down procedures.

B: What most influenced you in coming to your conclusions?

Toohey: The credibility of Lieutenant Colonel Collins and the demeanour, body language and "off-the-record" comments of the witnesses, most of whom appeared more than interested in climbing the greasy pole than protecting a comrade under siege.

B: How would you summarise your thoughts now about the Lance Collins case?

Toohey: The evidence I obtained during my inquiry led me to the conclusion that Lance Collins is an officer who tried to do his duty, tell the truth, protect Australia's national interests and who has been pilloried as a result. In summary, yet another shabby, tawdry cover-up by the ADF and the government.

B: Who do you think is responsible for the way he has been treated?

Toohey: The Chief of Army, DIO, DFAT and certain individuals in the Defence Department.

B: On what did you base your finding that the head of DIO, Frank Lewincamp, suspended the flow of intelligence to the troops in East Timor for 24 hours?

Toohey: This question will be answered by Lieutenant Colonel Collins when he gives evidence to the forthcoming Senate b- committee hearings.

B: You said DIO "distorts" intelligence estimates -- on what did you base that?

Toohey: What the government wants to hear. The old system of the Westminster process of free, fearless, frank and impartial advice is virtually gone. This, in turn, causes the Australian public to be continually misinformed and is against the national interest.

B: Several people you interviewed during your inquiry warned of the influence of "the Jakarta lobby". In your view, what is the Jakarta lobby?

Toohey: A cabal of both uniformed and civilian personnel within DIO and Defence who take everything emanating from the TNI at face value. This so-called "intelligence" is written with the object of distancing the TNI from atrocities committed by the Kopassus [read "terrorist"] arm of the TNI, not only within East Timor, but within the entire Indonesian nation.

Anyone within the intelligence community who held contrary views was looked upon with disdain and was ostracised. In essence, policy drives assessment rather than the reverse.

B: Based on your inquiry in the Lance Collins case, how influential is the Jakarta lobby?

Toohey: Expanding on the above, two basic premises of the Jakarta lobby are firstly to deny atrocities committed by the TNI, followed by publicly attributing those outrages including those human rights violations in East Timor (pre-Intefet) to "rogue elements" of the TNI and not the TNI per se.

B: Do you think from what you discovered that the Jakarta lobby should be of concern to all Australians?

Toohey: Most certainly. It is in the national interest that parliament and the Australian people be given the true picture of our relationship with Indonesia. If this picture is not painted by our intelligence services which do not carry out their task impartially, then who will?

B: From what you discovered during your investigation, do you believe that some senior public officials in Canberra may be in the pay of the Indonesian or other governments?

Toohey: No comment.

B: Is this something that should be investigated?

Toohey: No comment.

B: There has been some criticism that you found [DIO head] Mr Lewincamp not to be a credible witness after one meeting -- how did you come to that conclusion?

Toohey: By his demeanour, body language and certain 'off-the- record' remarks. I note that under Defence (Inquiry) Regulations, Mr Lewincamp was not compellable to give evidence to me during the inquiry. That said, I was grateful for his time.

B: Were you surprised by anything you found in your investigation?

Toohey: The antagonism of a significant number of senior civilian and uniformed [army] officers towards Lieutenant Colonel Collins.

B: Based on your investigation, what is your professional judgment about the way DIO works?

Toohey: I must stress that I am a lawyer, qualified investigator and former security officer. That said, from the outside looking in, DIO appeared to rely heavily on intelligence supplied by the United States and Great Britain. The summaries produced were of little strategic value. Indeed, one intelligence expert I interviewed "off the record" described DIO's intelligence summaries as akin to reading a comic book.

B: Finally, what needs to be done to fix the system?

Toohey: In my view, at the very least, the system needs to be the subject of a sub-committee of the Senate of the parliament of Australia. The proposed Flood inquiry is incestuous and will resolve nothing. I agree with Lieutenant Colonel Collins in that a royal commission is the most suitable vehicle to properly co- ordinate Australia's intelligence activities. If a royal commission is unpalatable, the government should give serious consideration to setting up an organisation along similar lines to the US Department of Homeland Security which would be responsible to the Minister for Justice. Lastly, on a more parochial level, the DIO's product should be assessed by a committee of former ADF officers, of at least two-star level and who are appropriately cleared.

[John Lyons is executive producer of the Sunday program on the Nine Network.]

Howard under renewed fire over spy network

Agence France Presse - April 28, 2004

Australian Prime Minister John Howard rejected allegations by another senior military officer that his government was involved in a cover-up over a critical report into defence intelligence.

Naval barrister, Captain Martin Toohey, has joined calls for a judicial inquiry into Australia's intelligence services, accusing the government of despicable conduct in an interview published by The Bulletin magazine.

Toohey investigated allegations against the army's top intelligence officer, Lieutenant Colonel Lance Collins, after he called for a royal commission, complaining of widespread intelligence failures over crucial events like East Timor and Iraq.

Toohey's inquiry not only found Collins' allegations to have been justified but concluded Australia's Defence Intelligence Organisation (DIO) distorts its assessments to suit government policy and found evidence of a pro-Jakarta lobby within the DIO.

Following Collins' call the government released another report, by Colonel Richard Tracey, which discredited the Toohey report, but was later forced to release a third report by Colonel Roger Brown backing Toohey.

In his first public comments since the scandal erupted two weeks ago, Toohey attacked the government over its treatment of himself and of Collins, saying he believed his reputation had been damaged by the scandal.

"The conduct of the government was, in my view, despicable and duplicitous," he said. "In summary, yet another shabby, tawdry cover-up by the ADF [Australian Defence Force] and the government."

Toohey said he agreed with a call by Collins for a royal commission into the intelligence services.

His statement was the latest in a series of strong attacks on the government and its intelligence services.

Another specialist in military strategy, recently retired Major- General Mike Smith, backed claims last week of failures by the intelligence network.

The US-based Rand Corporation also alleged glaring inefficiencies exist in Australia's spy network caused by inter-departmental rivalry and "jurisdictional jealousy".

Howard, who has repeatedly dismissed calls for a royal commission into the intelligence services, rejected Toohey's criticisms and denied the government had attempted to smear Toohey, saying lawyers often disagree.

"All that happened was that a contrary legal opinion contrary to Capt Toohey's opinion by the Army's senior legal consultant, a Melbourne QC was released," he said.

Labor backs Collins over intelligence 'cover-up'

Australian Associated Press - April 28, 2004

Federal Labor today supported a lawyer who wrote a damning report on Australia's intelligence services and who now claims the government has been involved in a shabby cover-up.

In his first public comments since the Lance Collins spy scandal erupted two weeks ago, Captain Mark Toohey attacked the government over its treatment of him and whistleblower Lieutenant Colonel Collins.

Capt Toohey, whose comments appear in today's Bulletin magazine, also accused the government of being involved in yet another shabby, tawdry cover-up over the Collins affair.

Col Collins, chosen by defence chief General Peter Cosgrove to oversee intelligence in East Timor, has been at the centre of allegations he leaked sensitive material.

But Capt Toohey's report cleared him of the claims and found evidence of a pro-Jakarta lobby within the Defence Intelligence Organisation.

Opposition defence spokesman Chris Evans said Capt Toohey had been treated badly in the way his legal opinion had been used and his reputation tarnished.

"So he's got a right to defend himself and I welcome that," he told ABC Radio.

Senator Evans said Captain Toohey's statement was confirmation that the Defence Force had used legal reports to suit its own cause.

"It's certainly raises further concerns about the military justice system and the way reports are treated, the way people are presented with information detrimental to them, where reports are not provided to those affected.

"More importantly, it heightens concern about the way the defence intelligence community is operating and Lieutenant Colonel Collins's original assertion."

He said all these issues added to community concern about where the government was going with defence intelligence.

"[It] heightens the need for a royal commission-type inquiry to clear the air, to answer the challenges that have been posed by Col Collins and others and to reassure Australia about the defence intelligence effort and that we are getting it right. If we're not, we're all at risk."

Senator Evans said he expected both Col Collins and Capt Toohey to attend the upcoming parliamentary inquiry into military intelligence.

Howard slams Collins with secret paper

The Australian - April 30, 2004

John Kerin -- John Howard has used a previously top-secret report to comprehensively reject explosive claims of intelligence agency failures by Lieutenant-Colonel Lance Collins.

The rebuff comes in a seven-page letter to Lieutenant-Colonel Collins, obtained by The Australian, in which the Prime Minister rejects the whistleblower's call for a royal commission.

But it also comes as the lawyer representing Lieutenant-Colonel Collins, David Rofe QC, accused Defence Minister Robert Hill of orchestrating a "cover-up of a cover-up" in refusing to release annexes of reports crucial to his client's claims.

In his letter, Mr Howard says he cannot share Lieutenant-Colonel Collins's judgment that there was a series of intelligence failures on East Timor militia violence, Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, the Bali bombing and a host of other incidents.

Mr Howard says intelligence forms only part of the picture that informs policy and Lieutenant-Colonel Collins could not have had access "to all the available intelligence material".

"On the basis of the advice I have received, I cannot share your overall judgment about the performance of the Australian intelligence community," Mr Howard says.

In rejecting Lieutenant-Colonel Collins's accusations that his warning of Indonesian-backed militia violence was ignored, and that a pro-Jakarta lobby existed within the Defence Intelligence Organisation, Mr Howard refers to the findings of a previously classified report carried out by the former inspector-general of intelligence and security, Bill Blick.

Mr Howard says Mr Blick was "unable to find evidence of a systemic or institutional bias in DIO reporting" in 1998-99.

"Indeed [Mr Blick] observed that the overall picture throughout the period is of conscientious (DIO) attempts to analyse what was going on," he says.

Mr Blick found that "what Colonel Collins interpreted as an attempt to quash contrary views appear to be legitimate expressions of concern about parts of the content of his assessment and about his wide distribution of assessments and comments". Mr Howard says he met Indonesian president BJ Habibie at the time and urged him to accept international peacekeepers before East Timor's independence ballot.

"Unhappily, he would not agree," he adds. "For us to have nevertheless inserted our forces without Indonesian acceptance would have amounted to an illegal invasion."

Mr Rofe told The Australian last night that the failure to release annexes to a report by Captain Martin Toohey, which backed the Collins claims about the DIO, was "nothing but a cover-up of a cover-up".

"Didn't Senator Hill say he didn't want any secrets? Then why won't he release the annexes?" Mr Rofe said.

Toohey continues attack on Defence Organisation

The Australian - April 29, 2004

Naval lawyer Martin Toohey today continued his criticism of Australia's spy agency the Defence Intelligence Organisation (DIO), saying it was politicised and misled the public.

Captain Toohey has attacked the Federal Government over its treatment of him and whistleblower Lieutenant Colonel Lance Collins amid allegations of failures by the DIO.

He said he believed the Government was involved in a cover-up over the Collins affair and said he wanted to appear at a parliamentary inquiry into the military justice system.

Lt Col Collins, chosen by defence chief General Peter Cosgrove to oversee intelligence in East Timor, was at the centre of allegations he leaked sensitive material.

But a report by Capt Toohey cleared him of the claims and found evidence of a pro-Jakarta lobby within the DIO.

The Government later released another report by Colonel Richard Tracey which discredited the Toohey report.

Capt Toohey said he disagreed with the Government and said the Tracey report was a cover-up.

He said the DIO was "misleading the Government and the people of Australia".

Capt Toohey said the politicisation of the DIO was life threatening and the head of the organisation should be sacked.

"I believe that the head of DIO is politicised, I believe that he really should be replaced," he told ABC Radio. "DIO has been politicised and that is a very sad situation and indeed a dangerous situation if we have another East Timor where the intelligence is of such a poor standard again lives will be at risk."

Capt Toohey said he wanted to testify before a parliamentary inquiry because the cover-up was a constant thorn in his side.

He also claimed to be the victim of a witch-hunt for the leaking of the Collins report to the media.

"I've had two investigators from the defence security interview me," Capt Toohey said.

"I have no idea how it was leaked, I told them so. They didn't appear to have any authority to be there. It was a witch-hunt and don't shoot the messenger."

Timor Gap

Woodside - A pawn in East Timor row

Australian Financial Review - May 31, 2004

Lenore Taylor -- Woodside Petroleum is increasingly wedged between a rock and a hard place as its multibillion-dollar Greater Sunrise joint venture becomes the bargaining chip in an increasingly bitter feud between the fledgling government of East Timor and Australia.

East Timor's President Xanana Gusmao and Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri have garnered significant international support and sympathy with their accusation that wealthy Australia is collecting $1 million a day in oil and gas revenue that rightly belongs to their impoverished state, and is paving the way to collect many billions of dollars more.

But they've infuriated the Howard government. With the war of words escalating, a resolution that would result in Woodside and its partners getting the end-of-year agreement they are looking for appears increasingly remote.

In an interview with Capital Moves, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said the Timorese leaders' tactic of launching "fusilladive" [all guns blazing] and "extremely aggressive" abuse against Australia was "sorely misjudged".

"Charm and flattery have more of an impact on me than fusilladive abuse. Whenever I am abused that's it, I don't like it," he said. "They are making a very bad misjudgement if they think the best way to deal with us is to abuse us."

Downer has sent the same message to Dili via a foreign affairs envoy and via the Timorese Ambassador to Australia, Jorge Teme. But to little effect. The Timorese genuinely believe an injustice is being done.

At the same time, Downer has rejected two "compromises" suggested by the Timorese to try to break the deadlock. Australia argues it has been generous to the Timorese agreeing they should receive 90 per cent of the revenues from the disputed joint petroleum development area a deal which results in a potential $6 billion income from the Bayu-Undan fields. But in order to clinch the deal Timor signed a treaty recognising, for now, the seabed boundary on either side of the JPDA.

And those boundaries mean 80 per cent of the as yet undeveloped Greater Sunrise field lies outside the JPDA, in Australian territory. Timor also signed a so-called unitisation agreement, agreeing on revenue sharing for the Greater Sunrise project.

But now it accuses Australia of dragging its feet on the negotiations for a permanent seabed border, and is arguing that a fair redrawing of the boundary would give it control over 80 per cent of Greater Sunrise, rather than the other way round.

The only ace the Timorese have in their hand is the refusal to ratify the unitisation agreement in their parliament without which Greater Sunrise cannot proceed. And that's the card they are playing. Woodside, and the Australian government, are so far calling their bluff.

Downer belittled the idea that Australia should give ground in the negotiations because of Timor's poverty. "They spend a lot of time running an emotive argument that we're richer than them and because we're richer we should give them more territory," he said. "This is not a principle that could ever be applied in international law, where two countries are adjacent, the richer should cede territory to the poorer. On that basis the United States should cede Texas to Mexico. And if it was to become a principle of international law it would have enormous ramifications for our maritime boundaries with other countries we are richer than many of our neighbours, Indonesia, East Timor, New Zealand so we are certainly not getting into that."

The Timorese have suggested that revenue from the Greater Sunrise fields could be put into a trust, or escrow account, until the seabed boundaries are finalised. "Absolutely not," Downer said. "Those resources are in Australian territory."

The Timorese also suggest that Australia submit the dispute to an international arbiter for determination. But Downer insists that "we conduct our negotiations on a bilateral basis, it's not for some third party to decide".

There remains time to find a resolution. And Downer said he could conceive of how the impasse could be broken, although he wouldn't say how.

Generous aid equals greater security

Melbourne Age - May 31, 2004

Pamela Bone -- Australia gives to poor countries with one hand and takes back with the other.

Next time you are tempted to think of foreign aid as a bottomless pit, consider this: for every $7 the poor world receives in aid from the rich world, it pays back $90 in debt repayments. It makes a mockery, doesn't it, of complaints about the corruption and incompetence of those countries that we, in our magnanimity, are striving to help.

The reasons some countries are luxuriously rich and others pitifully poor have to do with history, geography, politics, religion, colonialism, culture, climate and other very complex matters, such as luck.

But no matter who or what is responsible for today's gross global inequality, it has to be fixed. Because as others, including Tim Costello, have pointed out on this page recently, you can't win a war on terrorism without a war on poverty.

Alexander Downer, also writing on this page, believes Australians should be proud of our 2004-05 overseas aid commitment, which he says reflects our "generous spirit".

Well, let's have a look at it. For the first time our aid program has risen above $2 billion, and this does sound impressive. The increase is about 10 per cent in real terms over last year's budget. "Development co-operation" to Papua New Guinea has been increased by 27 per cent in real terms, and to the Solomon Islands by a whopping 425 per cent.

But to put this in perspective: the agreed UN target for aid from developed countries is 0.7 per cent of gross national income. During the term of the Howard Government, our aid as a proportion of GNI has dropped from 0.32 per cent to 0.25 per cent. Aid to Africa, the most desperately needy part of the world, has been cut by nearly half; and funds to UN agencies, the most effective of poverty-reduction organisations, have dropped by 52.4 per cent.

The Government makes "no apology" for focusing assistance on our own region, Downer says. It needn't. Australians can be proud of the efforts that have been made to restore law and order to the Solomons and PNG.

But in that case, what are we doing to our close neighbour East Timor? This is a country that is trying very hard to do the right thing by "responsible" country standards. It has a "no loans" policy. It doesn't want to be forever dependent on foreign aid. It wants to be able to use its own resources to develop.

Yet Australia is reaping $1 million a day in oil and gas in a disputed area of the Timor Sea that is much closer to East Timor than it is to Australia. How can Australians feel proud when we have received nearly 10 times as much revenue from Timor Sea oil and gas as we have given in aid to East Timor?

What might make more of us feel prouder would be to cede sovereignty over the disputed area and give East Timor half a chance to feed and educate its people.

This is not the only case where we give with one hand, take away with the other. We give aid to Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and others while demanding debt repayments from them.

The objection to debt forgiveness is that it's good discipline for countries to be made to pay their debts. Yet there are more constructive and less punitive approaches that can be taken: Germany, which is owed around a billion euros by Indonesia, has forgiven large amounts of debt on the condition half the forgone repayments are used for education and environmental projects.

British Finance Minister Gordon Brown recently described poor country debt as "the single greatest cause of poverty and injustice across the globe".

In many cases the debts have been paid over and over (Nigeria borrowed $5 billion, repaid $16 billion and still owes $32 billion) yet health and education programs have to be cut to service them. We can afford to write off much more debt. We can also afford to give more aid to Africa: ordinary Australians recognise this is where the need is greatest, and give considerably more to aid agencies supporting programs in Africa than does our Government.

Even if charity is focused close to home, it doesn't have to end there. In February the Netherlands, with a similar-sized economy, pledged eight times the amount Australia did to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

The main problem with our overseas aid is that, despite this year's increase, it is far too small. This applies on a local level or a global level: if you don't spend on creating decent societies, you have to spend on policing and law and order.

That is, what you can't bring yourself to do out of justice you must do for security. One would think the Howard Government, so imbued with conservative values, would recognise the value of the old maxim that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

[Pamela Bone is an associate editor of The Age.]

East Timor oil claim could hit US$6 billion

Courier-Mail (Queensland) - May 31, 2004

Nigel Wilson -- Australia could face a compensation claim from East Timor for up to $US6 billion ($8.4 billion) because Australia did not halt production in the disputed oil fields of the Timor Sea.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer was warned of East Timor's potential claim more than four years ago. But Mr Downer refused to order a halt to production in the Laminaria/Corallina fields in the Timor Sea, 500km north west of Darwin.

Mr Downer confirmed at the weekend he had a meeting in his Adelaide electorate office around March 2000 with Mari Alkatiri, now East Timor's Prime Minister, and Peter Galbraith, then minister for the Timor Sea in the United Nations Temporary Administration in East Timor. Mr Galbraith, a former US diplomat and now a member of a Washington-based international relations think tank, leads the East Timor team negotiating a maritime boundary with Australia.

East Timor politicians, including Dr Alkatiri, and the new nation's President, Xanana Gusmao, have attacked Australia for being greedy by refusing to accept a maritime boundary based on the mid-point between the two countries, about 350km north of Darwin.

They argue such a change would give East Timor access to upwards of $US30 billion in potential revenue from oil and gas reserves, making it independent of Australian and international aid. Australia, instead, insists the boundary should be the edge of the continental shelf which is as close as 50km from the East Timor coast.

At the time of the Adelaide meeting with Mr Downer, Laminaria/Corallina, owned by Woodside Petroleum, BHP Billiton Petroleum and Shell Development, was the nation's biggest producing oil field, pumping at a rate of around 170,000 barrels a day.

Speaking from Washington, Mr Galbraith said that apart from the continental shelf argument, Australia was refusing to countenance a reworking of the shape of the existing joint petroleum development area, set up in the 2002 Timor Sea treaty, so the east and west boundaries could be set further apart. This would give control of Laminaria/Corallina to East Timor.

"Australia is unique in the world in allowing development to continue where there is a dispute over boundaries and there are overlapping claims," he said. "We told Mr Downer at the Mayo meeting [Mayo is Mr Downer's electorate] that Australia should not allow production from Laminaria/Corallina to continue and that, if it did, East Timor would seek compensation after the boundary talks were settled. We estimate the Australian government has been receiving revenue at around $US1 million a day from the oil field and the commercial returns will be about twice this," he said.

Mr Galbraith estimated the total East Timor claim over the oil field could be as much as $US6 billion since the Adelaide meeting. "That's a potential claim Australian taxpayers should be aware of," he said.

Bedevilled in the Timor Sea

Weekend Australian - May 29, 2004

Sian Powell -- For the East Timorese, it's simple. Scratch a diagram of the Timor Sea into the dirt, with the island of Timor on one side and the great landmass of Australia on the other, and draw a line between them.

Everything on the East Timorese side of this median line belongs to East Timor, they say -- easy as that. Yet the map becomes fiendishly contentious if there's lucrative oil and gas beneath that median line, and if there are north-south considerations as well as east-west.

The difficulty is compounded if the disputing neighbour is Australia, a nation that sent in troops in East Timor's hour of need in the bloody months of 1999.

Australia prefers a maritime boundary based on its continental shelf, which stretches north far past the median line, and maintains this is in accordance with standard international maritime law. Yet the East Timorese believe they are morally and legally in the right in arguing for a border equidistant from the two nations, a border that would afford East Timor a much bigger slice of the oil and gas pie.

East Timorese leaders, notably President Xanana Gusmao and Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri, have been tenaciously fighting the East Timor corner, playing the shame game for all they're worth. Gusmao has even bluntly accused Australia of robbing East Timor.

In his welcome speech at last month's first substantive maritime border negotiations in Dili, Alkatiri laid it all on the line. "For Timor-Leste, this is not an academic exercise," he said. "A boundary determined in accordance with established principles of international law -- as embodied in the UN convention on the law of the sea and as spelled out in decisions of the International Court of Justice -- would triple the income of our country."

That's the difference between life and death for a nation as grindingly poor as East Timor, he says. According to an Oxfam report released a week or so ago, fewer than half all adult East Timorese can read or write and one in 10 East Timorese babies born today will die before the age of five.

Australia has been generous in other ways, the East Timorese say, but now the long-beleaguered people are demanding what they believe is rightfully theirs.

There is a broad consensus in East Timor, says Secretary of State for Investment Jose Teixeira. He has travelled extensively through the tiny nation, and says even the farmers who can't read and write know what's theirs. "These are our resources, and we have a right to them" is the common feeling, he says.

The students sat outside the Australian embassy in Dili's main street, and played loud songs and brandished placards saying "F -- - your petrol arrogance", "Don't steal our future" and "Where is our $US1 billion?".

Gaudencio Sousa, 21, a protest organiser, says he's not there for short-term gain of oil and gas riches. "It should be for the generations to come, for our future," he says.

The next set of border negotiations is scheduled for September, much to Dili's irritation. The East Timorese resent the casual arrogance of Australia's delaying tactics: they insist the border negotiations should occur more often than twice a year.

The tiny nation can't afford a 20-year negotiation; three years, the leaders say, would be good. The East Timorese Government has even offered to chip in if Australia can't afford the resources for more frequent meetings.

"We want this issue resolved in accordance with international law," says Teixeira. "We want a commitment to a speedy resolution of this issue."

Yet it's unlikely to be a judicial resolution. Just before the joyous celebrations of East Timor's independence in May 2002, Australia declared it would not be bound by International Court of Justice rulings on maritime borders. Even worse to the East Timorese, since 1999 -- when militias were devastating East Timor -- Australian-licensed exploitation began in disputed areas -- robbing the half-island of $US1million ($1.4million) a day or $US1.5 billion to date. The money from the disputed fields could be put into an escrow account until the dispute is resolved, East Timor has suggested. No answer so far from the Australians.

"Unfortunately, Australia has not only refused to exercise restraint in the disputed area, it has actually awarded new licences in this area since our formal protest last November," Alkatiri says.

The lucrative Laminaria-Corallina and Buffalo fields are in a disputed area immediately west of the joint development zone agreed to by East Timor and Australia. It's there that the lateral border dispute heats up, with East Timor saying its maritime borders should be pushed out to the west and east into the wealth of the Greater Sunrise field.

This could start getting tricky with Indonesia, presenting difficulties for East Timor, a baby nation whose leaders know very well that the might of 220 million Indonesians has to be courted assiduously. But these borders are made of liquid diamond: move them just a little to the east and west, and East Timor will rake in $US12billion over 30 years rather than $US4billion. Money in the bank, the East Timorese say, rather than cap in hand.

Tiny Timor treads warily among giants

Australian Financial Review - May 31, 2004

Rowan Callick -- Two years after guiding his country to independence, East Timor's Foreign Minister, Jose Ramos-Horta, is struggling to contain issues that threaten to set the impoverished nation at odds with both of its much bigger neighbours, Indonesia and Australia.

The row with Australia is over the sea boundary between the two and how to carve up the oil and gas fields that straddle it.

The potential dislocation with Indonesia has been over whether a warrant on war crimes charges will be issued against Wiranto, the former military chief who is one of three leading contenders for the Indonesian presidency on July 5.

But that issue appeared to be neutralised at the weekend by a meeting in Bali between East Timor's President, Xanana Gusmao, and Wiranto during which the two former enemies put on a public display of reconciliation.

Ramos-Horta says that before the weekend meeting the staff of Wiranto, the presidential candidate for leading party Golkar, had approached the office of President Gusmao seeking an informal meeting before the presidential election.

Ramos-Horta flew to Bali recently for two meetings with Indonesian leaders, President Megawati Soekarnoputri and Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda, during which he says the atmosphere was "very, very good at both".

The Indonesians were primarily concerned about the initiative of United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan to create an expert group of three people to evaluate the findings of the ad hoc tribunal on serious crime in East Timor -- essentially war crimes -- that was established by the UN when it administered the country from 1999-2002.

"The Indonesians are very much opposed to this. We also discussed our maritime boundary with Indonesia, but the expert group was their prime concern."

Ramos-Horta says: "The East Timor government does not wish to interfere in the judicial process. However, we have made clear we do not support the extension of the international tribunal, and I would refuse to lobby for it."

The serious crime tribunal has been absorbed, post independence, with two international prosecutors originally appointed by the UN, into the the Dili district court apparatus. One of the prosecutors, an American citizen, Philip Rapoza, recently issued a 20-page warrant for Wiranto's arrest, saying: "There are reasonable grounds to believe that the defendant, Wiranto, as a superior officer, bears command responsibility for the criminal actions of the military forces ... police and pro-autonomy militia under his authority."

However, the Attorney-General, who is responsible for endorsing the issue of such warrants, has declined to do so. And Ramos- Horta says that is how the situation will stay. "No warrant has been issued for Wiranto's arrest, nor will it be," he says.

But Ramos-Horta was less enthusiastic about the idea of a meeting between his President and Wiranto, arguing that: "Election time is sensitive in any country, and in Indonesia even more so.

"If Wiranto were elected president, East Timor would have to be realistic and pragmatic, and manage the relationship to the best of our ability. We are not going to be a Lilliputian judge of the wrongs of Indonesia or of the world."

Personally, Ramos-Horta says, he believes that Wiranto was ultimately responsible for the tragic events following the 1999 referendum. "But only a small minority of people here still clamour for international justice. The overwhelming majority prefer to let the past go by and concentrate on the day-to-day challenges of a new country."

What if Wiranto became president? "It would be very wise if East Timor were not to welcome him" if he wished to visit.

The other big issue is East Timor's maritime boundaries. Soon, he says, East Timor will make a comprehensive proposal to Indonesia about their common boundary. The problem for Australia, he says, is that the agreement made with Indonesia in 1972 "is now viewed in Jakarta as extremely disadvantageous to Indonesia. They say Australia essentially vacuum-cleaned Indonesia".

Canberra is worried, he says, that any boundary agreement struck with East Timor that is significantly different from the 1972 deal could lead Indonesia to demand renegotiation of the entire agreement.

In 1972, Ramos-Horta says, Indonesia accepted a boundary based on Australia's continental shelf claim, reaching in places up to 50 kilometres off its coast. "Today, Indonesians know it is a really bad deal for them. But East Timor is not prepared to repeat Indonesia's mistakes."

He says he asked Wirajuda why Indonesia accepted it, and he replied that Indonesia was politically very weak at that time, and was also especially concerned to gain recognition of its claim for an archipelagic concept, to treat the area between its islands as internal waters.

Australia supported this concept, says Ramos-Horta, in return for Indonesia's acceptance of Australia's continental shelf claims. "Now, the archipelagic concept is widely accepted, but the continental shelf claim receives less and less international validity."

He says: "We are sympathetic to Australia's dilemma. We have a very solid confidence in our legal claims, but we are also prepared to explore creative ideas to reach a satisfactory agreement. However, right now I absolutely have concerns about the poisoning of our relationship. I share the firm view of Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri, but I don't believe it is necessary for us to make such a drama of the situation."

The first round of talks has just concluded, he says, and "already some people are engaged in a hunger strike. I feel uneasy about our posturing that can inflame our youth, in particular against Australia".

"We leaders have to be careful about what we say in public. In private yes, we can be firm but polite, but without going to the point of really insulting the other side. I feel some unease about some comments of our own President about Australia.

"We may have fundamental disagreements, but at the end of the day we are two neighbours. We don't have too many more to choose from. We have to live with Australia, and Australians have been enormously generous to East Timor."

Is there a danger that East Timor, so determined to press its oil and gas claims, risks becoming too dependent on them? Ramos-Horta says East Timor is being advised by oil-rich Norway on how to set up a fund to quarantine resources flows, to sustain them and prevent their distorting the economy. "And if I had to choose between falling into an oil and gas trap or a poverty trap, I wouldn't mind the risks of the former."

He says he is also heavily involved in attempting to diversify the economy by attracting investors to a range of activities, including German giant Ferrostaal in agro-industry, intending to produce starch from cassava, and Kuwaiti interests.

Tough stance pushes the boundaries of goodwill with Dili

The Australian - May 29, 2004

Dennis Shanahan -- In a David and Goliath scenario, a row over oil revenues is threatening relations between Australia and its struggling neighbour East Timor

Many years ago I met the then esteemed governor of Yap, one of the four Federated States of Micronesia, drinking Australian red wine in an open bar in Ponape. He was astute, intelligent, friendly and highly regarded in the former US Pacific colony of the Carolinas. This was no meeting with a world leader where the feeling of power was palpable in the corridors. Quite the reverse -- the governor's power was in his weakness.

Every couple of years he had to go to Washington to justify continuing aid to the tiny federation. Instead of quietly throwing himself on the mercy of Congress, if that's not an oxymoron, the governor hired a public relations firm to announce his arrival. Donning a traditional lap-lap, wearing beads and flowers in his hair, the governor would arrive in Washington with a plaited palm-frond bag full of betel nuts.

He played the role of native chief to the hilt and appeared before Congress as a sympathetic public figure seeking help for his tiny nation. He may have been playing the fearsome warrior, but his weapon was publicity and he wielded it deftly. The FSM got its funds.

There is a similiar "David and Goliath" battle, as John Howard puts it, right now and Australia could end up with a public black eye. Worse still, it could sour one of Canberra's most popular initiatives in decades -- the creation of the independent state of East Timor. It is no exaggeration to say that Australia's bilateral relationship with East Timor is in danger -- that's what Australia told East Timor recently. East Timor is fighting for its future and Australia is playing hard ball with its fledgling ward, for which there is an inordinate fondness and sympathy within the Australian public.

Yet even as Australian troops continue to withdraw this week to allow the East Timorese to take more responsibility for their fate, the relationship is souring. There are signs of popular discontent with Australia in Dili, the East Timor leadership has been publicly scarifying the Australian Government, the Australian Government has heavied President Xanana Gusmao and Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri into silence, and some of our regional allies are concerned with adverse publicity over the deteriotating situation.

The fight is over money -- revenue from oil fields in the Timor Gap, some of which are shared by East Timor and Australia and some that are entirely Australia's. Australia insists the borders along the Timor Gap, negotiated with Indonesia, determine the oil rights. East Timor disputes the boundaries and claims they should be moved to give it more oil revenue.

East Timor claims it is losing about $1 million a day in revenue from oil taken in a disputed area of the Greater Sunrise field. Although Australia takes only 10per cent of one field and has agreed to East Timor taking 90 per cent, arrangements in nearby fields give Australia a far greater share of revenue from the region, virtually reversing the ratio overall.

Howard put Australia's position to The Australian as: "In the joint development area, we gave them a 10:90 split on that. Our view is that the original boundary is fair and reasonable. At the time of the Timor Gap negotiations, the idea of East Timor not being part of Indonesia was not something in the Indonesian government's contemplation, so why wouldn't they have driven a hard bargain?"

The East Timor response from Gusmao and Alkatiri is that Australia is at worst robbing East Timor while lecturing to it about corruption and at best being ungenerous after doing so much. East Timor wants to maximise the take from the oil revenue while negotiations over disputed claims are still under way. Give up now and East Timor can't expect anything more in the future.

The arguments in favour of being more generous are that it continues good relations, limits aid claims in the future, provides certainty that allows East Timor to borrow from the World Bank to rebuild its shattered life and prevents the development of a failed state on our doorstep, vulnerable to incursions from Indonesian-controlled territory, terrorist transit and Solomon Islands-style collapes and intervention.

The arguments against are that the deal is already fair to both sides, experience with Papau New Guinea and Nauru suggests aid bills are not limited in the future by generosity now, and endemic corruption is a threat without full accountability of revenue.

The overriding argument, which suggests any further act of grace will have to be outside the present border negotiations, is that Australia will not surrender its borders not only as a principle of sovereignty but also because such a renegotiation would infuriate Indonesia.

Already Gusmao is indicating, as reported this week in The Sydney Morning Herald, that "we can approach this problem with open minds. I believe there are other avenues to go down."

While the focus within the Australian Government is still on the boundary question, to which Australia is implacably opposed, Howard says any solution has to be fair and reasonable.

As for the publicity war and a public black eye, he says: "We can't allow ourselves to be too heavily influenced by that because it's still got to be something that is fair and reasonable to the Australian public as well."

Of course, the Australian public was prepared to heavily back Howard's support for East Timor against Indonesia despite being told by many it was not in Australia's best interests. Surely there's a way around the boundary impasse that gives East Timor a little more and preserves the good will between the two countries.

Secret Canberra envoy turns up heat on Timor oil critics

The Australian - May 26, 2004

Dennis Shanahan -- Australia has pressured the leadership of the fledgling state of East Timor, warning it that more public attacks over oil rights could severely damage the relationship.

In the fourth warning in six months to East Timor President Xanana Gusmao and Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri, a secret envoy travelled to the newly independent nation to pass on Australia's displeasure.

It was the strongest warning so far that the running dispute over billions of dollars in oil rights could spill over into Australia's broader relationship.

Australia supplies financial aid and has peacekeeping troops in East Timor. It led the UN-backed forces that gave the former Portuguese colony and Indonesian province independence in 2002.

East Timor is relying on revenue from oil production in the Timor Sea, in partnership with Australia, to fund its long-term economic development after the devastation of the battle for independence.

The oil rights, divided between fields near East Timor and the Australian continental shelf, are the subject of an acrimonious dispute that is souring Australian-East Timor relations.

East Timorese leaders have accused Australia of being "worse than Indonesia", stealing from East Timor, committing a "hostile act", being insulting over anti-corruption measures, ungenerous and behaving like a colonial power. There is a view forming among other countries supporting the emerging nation that Australia's popularity in East Timor and positive international recognition for helping independence are beginning to suffer because of the oil rights dispute.

Australia is insisting the borders along the Timor Gap, negotiated with Indonesia, must determine the oil rights. East Timor is challenging the boundaries and claims they should be moved towards East Timor to give it a greater share of the oil revenue.

East Timor claims it is losing about $1 million a day in revenue from oil taken in a disputed area of the Greater Sunrise field. Although Australia takes only 10 per cent of one field, and has agreed to East Timor taking 90 per cent, arrangements in other fields give Australia the greater share of revenue.

The latest warning by Canberra has been the most serious yet, suggesting that continued public attacks would harm the wider bilateral relationship.

Ungrateful Timor gets the Downer treatment

Sydney Morning Herald - May 28, 2004

Richard Ackland -- "After all we've done for them," moaned Alexander Downer, the Foreign Minister, on Four Corners a couple of Mondays ago. Those ungrateful East Timorese beating their wretched little chests and complaining about Australia wanting the lion's share of the oil and gas fields lying between the two countries.

"I think they've made a very big mistake thinking that the best way to handle this negotiation is trying to shame Australia, is mounting abuse on our country, um, accusing us of being bullying and rich and so on, when you consider all we've done for East Timor," Downer said with a pained expression.

All we've done? Such as 24 years of recognition of Indonesia's illegal annexation while the place was systematically pillaged and raped. The great Australian ugliness has continued even after East Timor's independence. There were reports in November 2002 that Downer was banging the table and abusing the tiny country's Prime Minister, Mari Alkatiri, over the seabed gas reserves.

This dispute is not all that complicated. There are oil and gas fields that lie substantially closer to East Timor than to Australia that are the subject of a "joint development zone".

Before East Timor's independence in May 2002 Australia and Indonesia were splitting the royalty revenues from this zone 50:50. It seemed like a very good deal for Australia.

Maybe in recognition of the geographic and legal reality, Australia changed the royalty split just before independence to 90:10. This has made Downer doubly hurt. As he said on Four Corners: "In the end we decided to give them 90 per cent of the government revenue on the basis of generosity."

There are other richer gas fields, such as the still underdeveloped Greater Sunrise, which is even closer to East Timor than the fields in the joint development zone. More than 20 per cent of Greater Sunrise lies in East Timor-controlled waters and 80 per cent in the joint development zone.

For East Timor it's a fight for its economic future, to be able to survive without having to depend on someone else's version of "generosity".

The legal argument boils down to how and where the seabed boundary is drawn. From 1958 the convention was to follow the continental shelf as the basis for our economic zone. Since then Australia has ratified the modern (1982) Law of the Sea convention, under which states have tended to adopt an equidistant line approach.

In relation to our seabed border with the Solomon Islands, with the French in the Southern Ocean and with the negotiations with New Zealand over the Tasman Sea, the equidistant line is the approach Australia has accepted.

With respect to East Timor we have adopted the continental shelf position. Happily for Australia our shelf protrudes quite a way to the north.

The reason has as much to do with our Indonesian relations as it does with East Timor. Between 1971 and 1973 Australia negotiated seabed deals with Indonesia based on the old continental shelf convention, which greatly favoured Australia. If we were to suddenly adopt an equidistant line approach with East Timor, Indonesia would be bound to jump up and down and threaten our vital economic interests secured in the early 1970s.

What is really irksome about the impasse is that Australia has withdrawn from the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice in relation to maritime boundary issues. We did this just before East Timor's independence in 2002. From now, these things are to be determined bilaterally, even if negotiations drag on longer than the exploitation of the finite resources in dispute.

As Downer put it, we don't want "courts and arbiters and, you know, people over there in The Hague deciding on our relationships".

It's an odd thing to say if one accepts that we are a nation governed by the rule of law.

Possibly it reflects a new international direction for Australia.

After all, the Justice Minister, Senator Chris Ellison, recently blocked the extradition of two Australians wanted in Hong Kong to stand trial in relation to the construction of faulty underpinnings in an apartment complex.

Nonetheless Australian jurists are exported to sit on international courts and tribunals, including Justice David Hunt and Sir Ninian Stephen. Sir Gerard Brennan sits as a judge of the Court of Final Appeal in Hong Kong. Others are expected to abide by their authority.

As Foreign Minister, Downer has a selective approach to the application of the rule of law when it comes to the interests of Australians. Only on Tuesday he was on the radio saying that the Kurds' continued detention of an Australian citizen has its limits. "If their concerns are sufficient and their evidence is sufficient they should bring charges against him."

Imagine holding an Australian citizen for an extended period without charges. How upsetting is that? The hypocrisy of this befuddled minister never ceases to amaze.

Fair go for East Timor

Green Left Weekly - May 26, 2004

[The following is abridged from a statement issued on May 20 by the Movement Against the Occupation of the Timor Sea (MKOTT).]

Dear Australian people,

Warm solidarity greetings from East Timor!

We hope you share our joy in celebrating the second anniversary of the restoration of our independence. As you know, a critical step in that achievement was when Interfet, led by Australian General Peter Cosgrove, came to East Timor in 1999 to ensure that atrocities carried out by the Indonesian armed forces and its pro-Jakarta militias were halted.

East Timor will always be grateful to Australia for that support, which has helped some of us to forgive Australia's complicity with the previous 24 years of Indonesian occupation.

But today, thousands of East Timorese people, who welcomed the international forces as their saviors in 1999, see that the Australian government is stealing revenue essential for the development of our newly independent nation.

We are outraged that, because of the Australian government's illegal occupation of our petroleum resources under the Timor Sea, more of our children will not live to reach the age of five, many more children will not be able to go to school, and our already high maternal mortality rate will increase.

Since our liberation in 1999, the Australian government has been stealing approximately US$1 million every day from East Timor. If this continues, and if your government succeeds in delaying a maritime boundary agreement for decades, Australia will have misappropriated approximately $7 billion that rightfully belongs to East Timor.

As an independent and sovereign country, Timor Leste has the right under international law to determine permanent seabed and maritime boundaries with its neighbours, and to manage resources contained in its territory. However, [Prime Minister John Howard's] government is obstructing this process by refusing to allow impartial arbiters to resolve the dispute, and by stonewalling serious negotiations.

Australian people are very proud of your "fair go" tradition, and we encourage you to apply it to the people of Timor Leste in relation to the Timor Sea.

The Howard government is occupying and stealing at least 60% of East Timor's rightful share of the resources beneath the Timor Sea between Australia and Timor Leste, which are worth about US$30 billion in government revenues.

Imagine how we could better our lives with this money. How many people will get access to basic health services or will finally learn to read? How many more children will survive their first year of life? How many other rights and services that Australians take for granted might become available to the people of East Timor? Last month, MKOTT launched a three-day protest in front of the Australian embassy in Dili. But so far, the Howard government has not changed its position. On May 19-20, East Timor's Socialist Youth Alliance and MKOTT are again demonstrating against your government.

We realise that it will take a binational campaign, in both East Timor and Australia, to change the position of your government.

We therefore welcome and highly appreciate the endeavors of Australian people joining the Timor Sea Justice Campaign to support us in the second anniversary of our restoration of independence.

In 1999, thousands of people in Australia and around the world took to the streets to urge the government to dispatch the Australian soldiers to Timor Leste. We now once again rely on you to change Australia's position and support justice for the people of Timor Leste.

The Australian government does not care about a "fair go" for Timor Leste and the international rule of law. The Howard government is using every opportunity to bully its tiny northern neighbour.

The government of Australia often says that Timor Leste is trying to win sympathy within Australia over the Timor Sea. Although Timor Leste is really small and the poorest country in South East Asia, we are not trying to claim Australian resources or ask for your charity. We just want our entitlement under international law.

Therefore, we urge the government of Australia to quickly and seriously negotiate permanent seabed and maritime boundaries with Timor Leste. But, as we have seen at the negotiating table, Australian delegates have no legal justification for their occupation of oil and gas reserves closer to Timor Leste's coastline than to Australia's.

This week in Dili, the Timor Leste Development Partners' meeting has begun. It is no secret that the newest country will experience a financial deficit in the coming three years, estimated at US$126 million. In 2003 alone, the government of Australia collected approximately US$172 million from the Laminaria-Corallina oilfield. If the Australian government had not stolen these resources, Timor-Leste would not have to beg donor countries for help.

Australia is one of the richest countries on earth per head in natural resources. The Australian government's budget for this year is about US$125 billion. But the natural gas reserves in Timor Leste's part of the Timor Sea, which are equal to less than one fifth of Australia's natural gas resources, will bring in about US$30 billion in government revenues over the next five decades.

The amount is relatively small compared to Australia's budget, and greed is the only word to describe this occupation. Timor Leste's budget is less than US$0.1 billion per year, and losing these revenues will have a tremendous impact on our people.

The Australian people should not lose face in the eyes of the international community because of the deeds of your government, due to its occupation of Timor Sea resources. However if the government of Australia continues to stonewall the negotiation process, it will be hard for Australia to escape global shame and condemnation.

As the relations between the people of our two countries date back to the second world war, Timor Leste is committed to being a good neighbour to Australia. We still believe that the government of Australia has the good political will to settle the dispute peacefully and follow international legal principles.

It took 24 years to bring Jakarta to the table -- but we are all better organisers now, and Canberra has less at stake than Indonesia did. Ending the Australian occupation of our sea will complete the victory which began when we ended the Indonesian occupation of our land, and it will be much easier.

We ask for your support for these demands on the Australian government: 1. Respect East Timor as an independent and sovereign state. Our government's legitimacy and authority are equal to Australia's.

2. Negotiate a fair maritime boundary with East Timor, according to contemporary legal principles, as expressed in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, based on a median line.

If both sides approach the process in good faith, meeting monthly, it should take no more than three years to reach an agreement.

3. Rejoin the maritime boundary dispute resolution mechanisms of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea and the International Court of Justice, so that East Timor and Australia will have boundaries consistent with the law if negotiations do not result in a just and prompt solution.

4. Stop issuing new exploration licenses in the seabed territory that is closer to East Timor than to Australia. During each of the last three years, Australia offered such areas to oil companies, and Canberra signed one contract just three months ago.

5. Deposit all revenues received by the Australian government from petroleum fields that are closer to East Timor than they are to Australia into an escrow account. When a permanent seabed boundary is established, this account will be divided appropriately between the two nations.

Thank you for your interest, support, and past, present and future solidarity. A luta continua!

Australia ripping off the poor

Green Left Weekly - May 26, 2004

Sister Susan Connelly This anniversary is tinged with a lot of embarrassment for us as Australians. Despite all East Timor has been through, more often than not with Australian connivance and reluctance to help or tell the whole truth, today the Australian government is once again in the role of spoiler regarding the just sharing of the resources of the Timor Sea.

Many Australians, however, are full of admiration at the courageous stand the people and the government of East Timor are taking over this issue.

Alexander Downer, speaking as the representative of the Australian people in matter of foreign policy, seems peeved and annoyed at the strong stand taken by the Timorese.

He utters the words, "After all we've done for them!" Well, we've "done for them" all right. We "did for them" in 1941 when we invaded their land as a way of protecting ourselves, and then left them to the anger of the Japanese.

We "did for them" in 1975 with the old "wink, wink, nudge, nudge" to Indonesia's invading forces.

We "did for them" when we officially refused to stand with them or speak for them for the next 24 years.

We "did for them" when we were the only nation to officially recognise Indonesian sovereignty.

And now our representatives are whingeing about what we did do for them at the end of 1999 when we finally came to their aid.

It must be recognised, however, that the expense undertaken by Australia to mount our belated assistance, has been more than paid for -- by the Timorese themselves.

What we have taken from the Timor Sea so far has more than paid for our involvement.

One of the worst features of this sorry business is that the Australian people have been led astray by the untruths and falsehoods uttered by our leaders on this subject.

The big lie is that we are "giving" East Timor 90% of the Timor Sea resources, and keeping only 10% for ourselves. They speak of one area as though it was the whole.

If the internationally accepted half-way line was the border, then not only should East Timor receive 90%, but they would be entitled to the other 10% too, because a half-way line would put all the resources in their hands.

On top of this, there are the rich fields on either side of this area, whose ownership should be determined by frequent discussions, with rigorous international scrutiny.

But no. Australia is cutting up most of the cake for itself, and allows Timor a mere slice. As always, we take the biggest cut for ourselves and run off. We've run off by refusing to have an international umpire in negotiations. We've run off by refusing to even discuss the issue with the Timorese more often than twice a year. And they say we don't cut and run! I was in East Timor in February and I met hungry people, people who can't afford to eat meat, and who told us that they would have a chicken to eat "on happy Christmas". There is grinding poverty in East Timor.

Education and jobs are what the people want. They don't want hand-outs or charity. They don't need to be looked after by Australia or the World Bank. They don't want paternalism or dependence when they are entitled to resources of their own.

We here in Australia are worried about our children's obesity while just over there in Timor, children suffer the physical and mental effects of not having enough to eat. We're seriously discussing the effects of bracket creep and who'll get the biggest tax break, while they are struggling to get a dollar a day for a bit of rice, some oil to cook it, and some salt to help it down.

In the so-called "national interest" we are ripping off the poor.

May our shame move us all to oppose those who do this in our name.

[Abridged from a talk given to the May 20 protest for Timor in Sydney.]

Gusmao lashes out over oil rights

Sydney Morning Herald - May 25, 2004

East Timor's independence hero is furious with Australia, he tells Peter Hartcher in Dili.

Xanana Gusmao, the President of East Timor, has accused the Australian Government of pursuing a policy on the rich seabed oil reserves between the countries that "offends our intelligence".

Mr Gusmao said he could not accept the Government stance in negotiations that opened last month, and he wants to break off the talks and begin afresh.

In an interview with the Herald he said the Government had failed to respect the legitimacy of East Timor's claim, and threatened to make his country "a permanent beggar -- we will be like the Solomon Islands, like Libya, like Haiti".

Denied access to its most valuable economic asset, the multi- billion-dollar oil and gas deposits under the Timor Sea, East Timor, one of the world's poorest countries, would depend on foreign aid permanently.

"Now, because of the generosity of Alexander Downer and John Howard they will keep forever generously helping us?" he asked rhetorically, a reference to Australia's $39 million aid to East Timor in next year's budget. "No, please, not because Australia is big, strong and rich. Our dignity is something we have to preserve."

Throwing up his hands in exasperation, he said: "Alexander Downer, I like him very much, but on this issue -- aaagh! I do not accept my friend Alexander Downer saying 'no, it's not yours'. We have a legitimate claim. How can we behave like beggars?"

East Timor argues that for every dollar of aid it receives from Australia, Canberra collects $10 in oil and gas revenues that are rightfully East Timor's.

Australia negotiated the seabed boundary between the countries when East Timor was still occupied by Indonesia. East Timor, which last week celebrated its second anniversary of independence, has repudiated that agreement as one conducted by an illegal occupation.

It has demanded that Australia draw a new boundary line. Canberra has agreed to negotiate, but Dili is angry at the pace of the negotiations, the forum in which they are held, and Australia's decision to continue issuing oil drilling licences in disputed areas. And in the interim, it claims, Australia collects $1 million a day in oil and gas revenues that rightfully belong to East Timor.

Mr Gusmao said his country now had democracy, but "without money, democracy can fail. When you go to bed hungry, how can you think, 'no, it's all right, I am democratic?' "

He said he already had difficulty containing expectations. "I say to people, 'calm down, calm down', but I don't know how long I can maintain stability. We are losing a million dollars a day but currently we have no schools, no roads, no jobs."

He said of the negotiations: "I say to my Government, I say to my Parliament, we have to have a pause. And to the Australian Government too -- a pause to talk better, so that we can approach this problem with open minds. I believe there are other avenues to go down."

East Timor officials already are debating alternative approaches to the negotiations, due to reconvene in September.

Mr Gusmao is incensed that Australia refuses to submit the dispute to international mediation. The Federal Government withdrew its recognition from the International Court of Justice and the International Tribunal on the Convention of the Law of the Sea two months before East Timor achieved independence.

Australian officials said that Australia always insisted on conducting its border negotiations bilaterally and would not submit to international arbitration.

East Timor also is frustrated that Australia will not agree to meet monthly and will only hold talks every six months or so.Mr Gusmao said that at this rate by the time the talks ended "all the resources will be gone".

In the interim, Australia has agreed that East Timor take 90 per cent of the revenue from a shared production zone, while Canberra collects the remaining 10 per cent.

In the agreement with Indonesia, the split for the same zone was 50-50. Australia calls the interim deal "generous".

"I get a little upset," said Mr Gusmao. "Australia says, 'because we gave 50 per cent to Indonesia, we're generous' in allowing East Timor 90 per cent. But the resources were neither Indonesia's nor Australia's to dispose of."

Separately, East Timor's Prime Minister, Mari Alkatiri, also insists on swift recovery of the resources, telling the Herald: "In a battle between David and Goliath, the tactics of each side cannot be the same."

East Timor has a population of 800,000 and a gross domestic product of $520 million. Australia's is $800 billion.

Mr Alkatiri said Australian officials, whom he declined to name, had asked East Timor to stop speaking publicly against the Australian position. But, he said, "if we don't do this, as David, we will die".

A fair go for East Timor

Sydney Morning Herald - May 25, 2004

Australia, already exploiting the wealth of the Timor Sea, has bright prospects of much more to come. East Timor, still waiting and dependent on aid from Australia and elsewhere, is impatient. Its determination to win a better deal on Timor Sea resources is straining relations with Australia in a way not seen since it won its independence, with Australia's help.

In July 2001 East Timor's unelected leaders and representatives from the United Nations signed a provisional agreement with the Australian Government to assure East Timor 90 per cent of tax revenues from oil and gas extracted from the so-called joint development area in the Timor Sea. That agreement changed the 50:50 split set down in the Timor Gap Treaty signed with Indonesia in 1989. The Australian Government says the new arrangement is generous and is dismayed that free, independent East Timor now accuses Australia of unfairness.

What has gone wrong? The Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, says Dili is trying to shame Australia. He deplores its claims of unfairness as a tactic, surprising and mistaken "after all we've done for East Timor".

The President of East Timor, Xanana Gusmao, says it is East Timor that is generous to Australia since East Timor's true entitlement is being denied it. Already, he says, Australia collects a million dollars a day in oil and gas revenues that rightfully belong to East Timor.

Production from the Corallina and Laminaria fields, both just south of Australia's border with Indonesia and just west of the joint development area with East Timor, began in 1999. The East Timor Government says revenue from this production -- now going entirely to Australia -- as well as 100 per cent, not 90 per cent, of what is in prospect from the joint development zone, rightfully belongs to East Timor. It wants its claim settled by the International Court of Justice and says that Canberra acted in bad faith by saying -- a few weeks before East Timor gained its independence -- that it would no longer accept that body's jurisdiction.

Many Australians will agree with Mr Downer that the present arrangements are generous and that East Timor is ungrateful. It would be shortsighted, however, in the negotiations to confirm or modify by treaty the arrangements provisionally agreed to in July 2001, to reject Dili's claims out of hand. It is not only in the interests of East Timor that it stand proud and self-sufficient, thanks to the bounty of its full, fair share of Timor Sea resources. It is in Australia's, too.

East Timor wants maritime boundaries renegotiated

ABC The World Today - May 20, 2004

Eleanor Hall: Today marks two years since the creation of the world's newest nation, East Timor. But it seems the euphoria that accompanied its political independence from Indonesia has given way to anxiety about its long-term future.

There are warnings today that East Timor is perilously close to becoming a "failed state", unless it can find a way to secure financial independence from aid donor nations like Australia.

East Timor's leaders maintain that Australia could give its neighbour greater assistance, by renegotiating the maritime boundaries between the two nations, and so delivering East Timor greater revenue from oil and gas deposits in the region. But that's not a position the Australian Government is willing to adopt.

Nick Grimm reports.

Nick Grimm: Two years after the chaotic and violent birth of the world's newest nation, East Timor is now facing the problem of how to pay for the freedom it won through years of struggle against Indonesian rule.

The World Bank's representative in East Timor shares the concern.

Sarah Cliffe: It is critical. Without oil and gas revenues, Timor at least at this point does not have a resource base to exist as an independent state.

Nick Grimm: Asia's poorest nation faces the torment of knowing it can only survive with the benefit of foreign aid, despite the presence just off its coast of vast reserves of oil and gas.

It's so close, yet still far out of the reach for the East Timorese, unless it can gain the upper hand in the territorial dispute with Australia over maritime borders.

East Timorese President Xanana Gusmao.

Xanana Gusmao: We are familiar with this kind of long-term struggle. Of course, this is a different struggle we have to fight for. We are ready to keep fighting. We will never surrender. We will never give up.

Nick Grimm: East Timor argues the maritime border with Australia should be set at the halfway point between the two nations, giving it ownership of valuable oil and gas reserves.

But Australia has maintained the border should lie at the edge of its continental shelf, much closer to East Timor.

BBC NEWS EXCERPT: East Timor is two years old today, but it's embroiled in a row with its major donor, Australia, over oil.

East Timor spokesperson (translated): If Australia keeps cutting aid we'll face huge problems, we'll end up being just one more failed state, just one more country for whom independence proved to be just a dream.

Nick Grimm: East Timor has been ramping up the international pressure on Australia to renegotiate its maritime border treaty.

Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri.

Mari Alkatiri: Yes, it was a big surprise for me because I was expecting from Australia a different attitude being a democratic country that is always teaching rule of law everywhere, transparency everywhere, including in Timor Leste.

It was a surprise for me how a democratic country has this kind of performance as others when billions of dollars are involved.

Nick Grimm: Australia's Foreign Minister Alexander Downer is currently in Europe, from where he has hit back at East Timor's territorial claim on the BBC's Newsnight program.

Alexander Downer: First of all, East Timor makes claims that we don't accept and we have very long maritime boundaries with other countries, in particular Indonesia, and we're not shifting all of our maritime boundaries and abandoning very long standing principles of international maritime law.

And secondly, it's a curious principle that if one country is richer than another and the two countries are adjacent to it, the richer country should cede territory to the poorer country and on that principle, I suppose the United States should cede Texas to Mexico or something. I mean, it's not the way that the inequities on wealth are addressed.

Nick Grimm: And later Alexander Downer attacked those who have been calling on Australia to take a more generous position in the negotiations with East Timor.

Alexander Downer: It is also obvious that Australia isn't going to suddenly move all of its maritime borders with other countries in the teeth of a whole lot of emotional clap trap which is being pumped up through sort of left wing NGOs.

Eleanor Hall: Australia's Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, ending Nick Grimm's report.

Australia responsible for hindering independence: Oxfam

ABC The World Today - May 20, 2004

Eleanor Hall: The Oxfam Community Aid Abroad report into East Timor is highly critical of the Australian Government, particularly its approach to the Timor Sea oil and gas fields. And the report says it's in Australia's national interest to be more generous and to help prevent East Timor from becoming a failed state.

Hamish Fitzsimmons spoke to the report's author James Ensor.

James Ensor: It's principally the result of declining aid and uncertainty over future oil and gas revenues from the Timor Sea. The uncertainty over oil and gas revenues in the future is linked to East Timor's budget projections where, under current arrangements, the country would receive about $1 million a year in oil and gas revenue.

But under arrangements that the East Timor Government believes would come into place if their maritime claim were to be adjudicated under international law, the country would be in a position in the medium-term to have an annual budget in the vicinity of $300 million with which to address the country's needs.

Hamish Fitzsimmons: Where does that $1 million a year come from. Doesn't the treaty with oil and gas revenues mean that East Timor receives 90 per cent of the profits from the reserves?

James Esnor: No, that's not true. In reality, East Timor receives 90 per cent of oil and gas revenues from one slice, if you like, of a larger Timor Sea oil and gas field cake.

The much larger slices of that cake are the Coralina/Laminaria oil and gas field, from which the Australian Government over the last five years has received nearly ten times of the amount of revenue from than it has provided aid in East Timor.

We've allocated about $320 million in aid to the country over the last five years and received a bit over $2.1 billion in oil and gas revenue from that contested oil and gas field.

Hamish Fitzsimmons: Where do you see East Timor going in the next three years?

James Esnor: The next three years are critical to the country's future prospects. We've seen last year, for the first time since independence, economic decline, the economy has shrunk by 2 per cent. We've seen income per person drop by 5 per cent last year and the development indicators moving forward, still alarmingly worrying.

We've got more than 50 per cent of adults that can't read or write, 40 per cent of the population living below the poverty line and still at this point, more than one in ten children who are born today will die before the age of five.

Eleanor Hall: James Ensor from Community Aid Abroad speaking to Hamish Fitzsimmons.

Tell Howard: Hands off the Timor Sea!

Green Left Weekly - May 19, 2004

Jon Lamb -- Not much has been publicly revealed about the mid- April negotiations between Australia and East Timor on the maritime boundary. The ABC Four Corners on May 10, however, made it clear that the Coalition government intends to continue to refuse East Timor sovereign control over its territory in the Timor Sea.

Australia's foreign affairs minister, Alexander Downer, claims that the East Timorese government is trying to "shame Australia [and] is amounting abuse on our country ... accusing us of being bullying and rich and so on, when you consider all we've done for East Timor".

Downer's comments are in line with the hard-headed position the Australian government has taken in negotiations since 1999. While the towns and villages of East Timor were still smouldering from the pro-Indonesian militia rampage, the Howard government was pressuring East Timorese political leaders to accept the terms of the now defunct Timor Gap Treaty, which Canberra had negotiated with Indonesia.

East Timor refused, and ever since, the Coalition government has used its substantial diplomatic and economic clout to bully and blackmail. East Timor was pressured into signing the Timor Sea Treaty on May 20, 2002. The treaty unfairly concedes 10% of royalties from the Joint Petroleum Development Area to Australia. The Howard government called this deal "generous".

East Timorese President Xanana Gusmao told Four Corners: "We can't understand Mr Downer, Mr John Howard saying they are being generous to us, we can't. According to international experts and international law, if the maritime border is the median line between the two coast lines, we are the one being generous with Australia. We are giving 10% of what belongs to us to Australia." Since 2000, Downer has also indicated that aid to East Timor from Australia would be reduced if East Timor gained greater control over the rich oil and gas fields in the Timor Sea that lie closer to East Timor.

Yet since 1999, Australia has received in excess of US$2 billion in royalties from the Laminaria/Corallina field, which would belong to East Timor if the maritime boundary was set to international law. The Australian government has taken nearly 10 times as much in royalties as it has provided in official "aid".

By refusing to accept the median line principle for the maritime boundary, the Australian government is attempting to swindle East Timor out of at least US$8 billion in royalties from oil and gas fields in the Timor Sea that lie closer to East Timor than Australia.

In the face of considerable antagonism and delaying tactics by the Howard government, East Timor's prime minister, Mari Alkatiri, has called for a quick resolution of the maritime boundary dispute. "For us, a 20-year negotiation is not an option. Timor-Leste loses [US]$1 million a day due to Australia's unlawful exploitation of resources in the disputed area. Timor Leste cannot be deprived of its rights or territory because of a crime", Alkatiri told Four Corners.

Downer has accused the East Timorese government of trying to "create public controversy in Australia by a lot of emotive criticism" and "strident rhetoric and denunciation of Australia".

His finger pointing is partly accurate. There is considerable public concern about what the Australian government is doing in the Timor Sea. Timor Sea Justice Campaign groups have formed in Melbourne, Sydney and Darwin and are organising public meetings and protests in support of East Timor's sovereignty in the Timor Sea.

As this movement grows in other cities and towns, expect the "strident rhetoric" to come thick and fast from the Howard government and its big business supporters.

East Timor could become failed state: aid agency

Reuters - May 19, 2004

Michelle Nichols, Canberra -- East Timor, the world's newest nation, is in danger of becoming a failed state because Australia is dragging its feet on maritime border talks and hindering the development of its neighbour, aid agency Oxfam said on Thursday.

An Oxfam report released to coincide with East Timor's second anniversary of independence showed less than half the nation's 760,000 people could read or write, 41 percent live below the poverty line and one in 10 children die before the age of five.

Australia and East Timor are negotiating a border in the resource-rich Timor Sea. At stake are billions of dollars worth of oil and gas royalties, which East Timor has vowed to use to alleviate poverty, create jobs and improve education.

"Two years after independence, the Australian government's approach to maritime boundary negotiations with East Timor is limiting East Timor's capacity to plan for and finance its future development," Oxfam and Australian arm Community Aid Abroad said.

"This could push newly independent East Timor to the brink of becoming a failed state through no fault of its own," it said.

Australia has said it is only able to meet East Timor twice a year, but East Timor wants monthly meetings in a bid to accelerate maritime border talks that began last month in the East Timor capital Dili. The next meeting is set for September.

Australia denies claims it is cheating East Timor out of A$1 million ($700,000) a day in disputed oil and gas royalties and says it has been more than generous to its tiny neighbour by giving it 90 percent of royalties from a joint development area.

A year ago the two countries agreed to a revenue sharing Timor Sea Treaty for a shared 62,000 square-km (23,900 square-mile) region that splits royalties 90:10 in favour of East Timor until a permanent maritime boundary is negotiated.

Big mistake

East Timor, which gained independence in 2002 after a quarter of a century of often brutal Indonesian rule, wants negotiations on a maritime border completed in three to five years. Australia has refused to put a deadline on an agreement.

"They've made a very big mistake thinking the best way to handle this negotiation is by trying to shame Australia, by mounting abuse on our country, accusing us of bullying, when you consider all we've done for East Timor," Australia's Foreign Minister Alexander Downer told Australian television recently.

"We will do what we believe to be right but, of course, in our interests," he said.

East Timor can claim a sea boundary 200 nautical miles from its coast, consistent with its entitlement under international law and the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. But Australia can also claim a boundary 200 nautical miles from its coast. At the closest point, the countries are about 230 nautical miles apart.

Timor Sea gas fields include the $3.3 billion ConocoPhillips- operated Bayu-Undan project and the $5 billion Woodside Petroleum-run Greater Sunrise venture.

East Timor is one of the world's poorest nations and gets $150 million ($113 million) in aid a year. Australia, Japan and the United States are main donors.

Rich man, poor man

ABC Four Courners - May 11, 2004

Four Corners investigates the increasingly rancorous fight between Australia and East Timor over the multi-billion dollar oil and gas bonanza that lies beneath the waters dividing them.

Jonathan Holmes, reporter: Three weeks ago, the Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, Dr Mari Alkatiri, swept into the lobby of Dili's best hotel. He'd come to open negotiations to establish a permanent maritime border between his nation, the smallest and poorest in the region, and his richest and most powerful neighbour.

East Timor wants the matter settled within three years. Australia has said it might take 20. It's a David and Goliath contest, and Mari Alkatiri had brought a sling full of verbal stones to hurl at his opponents.

Dr Mari Alkatari, Prime Minister of Timor-Leste (addressing conference): For us, a 20-year negotiation is not an option. Timor-Leste loses $1 million a day due to Australia's unlawful exploitation of resources in the disputed area. Timor-Leste cannot be deprived of its rights or territory because of a crime. JONATHAN HOLMES: To open negotiations by publicly accusing your opponents of profiteering from a crime is, by diplomatic standards, like chucking a grenade. The Australian team returned fire with the curtest handshakes in their armoury. Back in Australia, their boss would be even less amused.

Alexander Downer, foreign minister: I think they've made a very big mistake thinking that the best way to handle this negotiation is trying to shame Australia, is mounting abuse on our country, um...accusing us of being bullying and rich and so on, when you consider all we've done for East Timor.

Jonathan Holmes: But Mari Alkatiri is unapologetic. He claims his country is being cheated, and he's going to go on saying so -- to his own people, to Australia, and to the world.

Dr Mari Alkatari: I'm here to defend the interests of my people. Of course, there are many ways to do it, but I think that, uh, for a small country, a poor country to be listened to, uh ... we need to voice loudly our voice, and that's what I'm trying to do.

Jonathan Holmes: Meanwhile, the Australian Embassy has been besieged by angry demonstrators.

Protester (translation): We know we have profitable resources, but we know that you are exploiting our oil and stealing it.

Jonathan Holmes: Four years ago, these people hailed Australia as their protector. Now they say that they'll be forced to play the beggar unless Australia stops behaving like a thief.

Just over an hour's flight to the south, the gleaming little city of Darwin dreams of future greatness. Across the harbour, in what was pristine wilderness just a few months ago, they're building a plant to liquefy natural gas for export to Japan.

Clare Martin, Northern Territory Chief Minister: Four out of nine levels of the LNG tank has been constructed, and, uh, it really ... in many ways it could double up a sports stadium. I don't know how it compares with Colonial, but it's big.

Jonathan Holmes: The gas will arrive through a seabed pipeline from a giant gas field deep beneath the Timor Sea, 500km north- west of Darwin. The Bayu-Undan field lies substantially closer to East Timor than it does to Australia. But just south of Timor lies the Timor Trough, 3km deep in places. Far easier, the oilmen claim, to run the pipeline across shallow seas to Darwin and its First World infrastructure. And far better for Australia too.

Bruce Fadelli, President, NT Chamber of Commerce: So far there's been a large influx in construction into the Northern Territory. That's about to gear up even further in June with the start of the laying of the pipeline, so it's been a welcome boost to the construction industry.

Jonathan Holmes: But the potential bonanza for Darwin lies in a vast, still undeveloped gas field called Greater Sunrise -- three times the size of Bayu-Undan, and located still closer to East Timor. Territorians are fervently hoping that that gas will be piped to Darwin too.

Bruce Fadelli: It's got the potential to create 80,000 jobs Australia wide -- 20,000 in the Northern Territory -- and the tax revenue benefit from all that investment is in the order of $22 billion over the 20-year life of the project.

Jonathan Holmes: The Timor Sea could transform Darwin into an industrial centre, and the Territory into a State. The town of Suai, just across the Timor Sea from Darwin, has no such grand ambitions. This is a different world.

On the whole length of East Timor's south coast, there is not one natural harbour. The fishermen of Suai have to use canoes that are light enough to come in with the surf. These are treacherous waters. The fishermen never travel far from the beach. Their catch is correspondingly modest. Their incomes are tiny, their horizons limited.

You have no thoughts about the oil and the gas out there in the sea there, about who it belongs to?

Fisherman (translation): I'm sorry, we don't know these things. We don't know who it belongs to. But you can talk to us about fishing.

Jonathan Holmes: The women of Suai Loro take a still more modest share of the riches of the Timor Sea. Every morning they walk a kilometre from the village to collect water from the sea. And then, laboriously, they carry it back. Even the fresh water is brackish here. It's hard to eke a living from the salt-laden soil. So the women make their living from salt instead.

If you earn a dollar a day in East Timor, you're comparatively rich. These women make much less.

It's taken hours to gather enough firewood for the job. It will take hours more for the water to boil away, leaving a detritus of sea salt. Early next morning in Suai market up on the hill the salt can be sold, or more likely bartered for a handful of rice or a parcel of greens.

Keryn Clark, Oxfam Community Aid Abroad: East Timor is one of the poorest countries in the world. It ranks as the poorest in Asia. Very high levels of maternal mortality, a high level of infant mortality, really poor nutritional practices, very poor food security. So, I think in terms of where I've worked, with often being in-conflict countries, I think really it does compare, unfortunately, with those countries such as Angola, Mozambique.

Jonathan Holmes: East Timor, of course, is not in conflict now. But for 24 years it was -- until the final paroxysm in September 1999.

(Footage of burnt-out, semi-demolished buildings)

This is how the marketplace of Suai looked after the militia and the Indonesian military had finished with it. By the time the INTERFET peacekeepers from Australia and New Zealand arrived in Suai, the culprits had fled into West Timor. The young men who'd been hiding in the hills filtered back into the town to greet their new protectors. Then they went to the ruins of the church, where their wives, their children and their old people had sought the protection of the priests.

(Men wail in grief)

Eyewitnesses say the militia used machetes to hack down the priests.

The military tossed hand grenades into the church and used machine guns on those who ran out. The fleeing militia trucked corpses and survivors alike over the border to West Timor. Not all have returned. So no-one really knows how many were killed in Suai, but certainly hundreds.

The church has been repaired, the trauma has not and nor has much of the devastation.

Keryn Clark: Many buildings haven't been rebuilt. There was also massive destruction of people's own assets, so their, um ... for example, if they had ploughs or tools that they were working the land with, they've ... they've gone. They lost a lot of their animals. They just really lost everything.

Jonathan Holmes: But at least East Timor did gain the independence it had fought for so stubbornly for 24 years. With the flags and fireworks two years ago came heartfelt thanks to its neighbour across the Timor Sea.

Jose Ramos-horta (archival footage): John Howard, you are a friend of East Timor. Your support to our small nation is invaluable and we are delighted to welcome you among us tonight.

John Howard (archival footage): This is a very proud day for Australia but, more importantly, I know it is a very proud day for all of the people of East Timor. You deserve every moment of that warmth and pride.

Angry protester (translation): We'll scream with all our strength, together as East Timorese. We will never be slaves again. Never again, never again! Long live the people of East Timor!

Jonathan Holmes: But now, in many Timorese eyes, Australia has been transformed from saviour to ogre. The argument is ultimately about oil and gas and money. But it's rooted in history and geography and the law of the sea. The Timorese believe it's crucial to their fledgling nation.

Xanana Gusmao, President of Timor-Leste (translation): It is a question of life or death, a question of being continually poor, continually begging, or to be self-sufficient.

Jonathan Holmes: To find the origins of the dispute, we must go back more than 30 years to when the Portuguese still ruled in Dili. Coup leader, General Suharto, was still consolidating his power in Jakarta. And Australia had become aware that beneath the seabed to its north might lie enormous wealth in oil and gas. In the late '60s, Australia and Indonesia began negotiating a permanent seabed boundary.

Professor Gillian Triggs, International Law, Melbourne University: The legal background at that time was that the World Court in the North Sea continental shelf cases had just determined that the continental shelf is the natural prolongation of the land territory and that a state has sovereign rights in relation to the continental shelf.

Jonathan Holmes: If sea levels were 200 metres lower than they are, the continent of Australia would stretch far to the north. Only the narrow width of the Timor Trough would separate Australia from Timor Island. Australia argued that the Trough marked the edge of its continental shelf and the Indonesians essentially agreed.

Dr Hasjim Djalal, former Indonesian ambassador for maritime affairs: But that was the law then, you know. That was the existing Indonesian legislation and that was also, uh, the normal international legislation at that moment, so considering that one, I think it's somewhat fair at that time.

Jonathan Holmes: In 1972, the two neighbours agreed on a seabed border that followed the southern edge of the Timor Trough, much closer to Timor than to Australia. Opposite Portuguese East Timor, they left what came to be known as the Timor Gap. The Portuguese declined to negotiate with Australia to close the Gap. The law of the sea, they believed, would soon change in their favour.

But by 1974, after a coup in Lisbon, the Portuguese hold on East Timor was faltering. President Suharto's generals were advising him to annexe East Timor, by force, if necessary. Australia was trying to decide its own policy.

In August 1975, Richard Woolcott, Australia's ambassador in Jakarta, sent a secret cable to the Whitlam Government which contained a now notorious paragraph. Australia, he remarked, had an interest in acquiring as much seabed as possible.

Ambassador Richard Woolcott, cablegram to Canberra, Jakarta, 17 August 1975: This could be much more readily negotiated with Indonesia by closing the present gap than with Portugal or independent East Timor. I know I am recommending a pragmatic rather than a principled stand, but that is what national interest and foreign policy is all about.

Charles Scheiner, Institute for Reconstruction Monitoring Analysis: And that was Australian policy from that day until 24 years later -- at tremendous cost of human life in East Timor.

Alexander Downer, Foreign Minister: You can ask Whitlam and Fraser, but I think that is a complete myth. Um, that is, uh, selectively quoting one document. If that were true, then that would be a theme that ran through many documents and many public statements at the time. I don't think that that was something which would have been significantly in their contemplation. I'd be certain of that.

Charles Scheiner (addressing protest rally): The Government of Australia should be ashamed of what they've done.

Jonathan Holmes: But if you want proof that oil was the key to Australia's policy, say East Timor's supporters, look no further than the Timor Gap Treaty of 1989.

Charles Scheiner (addressing protest rally): And that treaty was illegal and the whole world knew it was illegal, but Australia and Indonesia wanted to take advantage of the dying and the killing and the suffering and the struggling that was going on East Timor.

Jonathan Holmes: The treaty was famously signed by Gareth Evans and Ali Alatas in a plane circling above the Timor Sea. It hadn't proved easy, in the end, to close the Timor Gap. The Indonesians had changed their tune, now arguing that the Timor Trough was a geological irrelevance. For years, neither side would give way.

Dr Hasjim Djalal, former Indonesian ambassador for maritime affairs: But in the end we come to the realisation, despite our disagreement in settling this geological quarrel and dispute, we need to do something, and one way of doing it which is justified under international law is to develop a joint development.

Jonathan Holmes: The treaty closed the Timor Gap not by drawing a line, but by carving out a joint development zone. Royalties from oil and gas found within it would be split 50/50. The northern border of the zone followed the edge of the Timor Trough. Its southern border marked the halfway point between Australia and East Timor, the so-called 'Median Line'.

Alexander Downer: The Australian Government at that time did strike a compromise with the Indonesians, uh, and the Indonesians with Australia, in creating a joint development area and that was a pretty sensible sort of a compromise.

Jonathan Holmes: But to Fretilin's fighters in the mountains and its leaders in exile, the treaty was simply a sell-out. The UN had never recognised Indonesia as the lawful ruler of East Timor, but now Australia clearly did.

Dr Mari Alkatari, Prime Minister of Timor-Leste: We immediately understood why, uh, at that time, Australia decided to recognise the illegal occupation and they ... their reasons are the resources in the Timor Sea.

Jonathan Holmes: The treaty gave the green light to serious exploration in the Timor Sea. Quite quickly, the oil companies struck viable deposits.

The Corallina and Laminaria fields began production in 1999. Fortunately for Australia, both fields lay just south of its border with Indonesia and just west of the new joint development zone. So the royalties flowed entirely to Australia. That same year, the East Timorese finally got to decide their own future.

Chaos and brutality followed. Australia's leadership of the UN intervention force cost the Australian taxpayer a pretty penny. But the Treasury was already recouping at least some of those costs from the royalties from the Laminaria field, which lay much closer to East Timor than to Australia.

Even as its soldiers were winning the gratitude of East Timor by securing its land borders, Australia was pushing hard for the continuation of the Timor Gap Treaty in the Timor Sea. But it found itself then, as it finds itself now, up against a feisty opponent.

Peter Galbraith, former UNTAET negotiator: It was the desire of the East Timorese and of the United Nations to negotiate about borders and we made that clear.

Peter Galbraith (archival footage): East Timor is the legal owner of this territory.

Jonathan Holmes: Four years ago, Peter Galbraith, at the time an American diplomat, was UN boss Sergio de Mello's choice as the man to take on Australia.

Peter Galbraith: He smelt a rat in the Timor Gap Treaty. He thought that the 50/50 split was something that Indonesia had agreed to because it had gotten something in return -- namely recognition of the annexation of East Timor -- but that under international law, that wouldn't be the right deal for East Timor.

Jonathan Holmes: Right from the start, claims Galbraith, he made it clear that East Timor claimed total sovereignty over an area much bigger than the joint development zone.

Peter Galbraith: It would be wider to the east and to the west, and it would extend down to the midpoint between the two countries. We showed them maps in October 2000 here in Dili at the start of the first formal round of negotiations on the Timor Sea Treaty. We showed them maps as to what we thought was the correct line and we tried hard to get that line.

Jonathan Holmes: But Australian negotiators adamantly refused to discuss permanent borders or anything outside the zone, until there was a sovereign East Timorese government to talk to.

Peter Galbraith: And so we had no choice. We had to negotiate about arrangements for this area, which is only part of Timor- Leste's maritime space, to see what kind of deal we could get relating to petroleum in that area alone.

Jonathan Holmes: On the face of it, they got a pretty good deal. In July 2001, Mari Alkatiri, representing East Timor's unelected leadership, and Peter Galbraith, for the UN, signed a provisional agreement with Australia which would later form the basis of a new Timor Sea Treaty. Instead of 50%, East Timor would get 90% of tax revenues from oil and gas in the joint development area. The Australians now claim it was a generous concession, which recognised the gross disparity of wealth between the two sides without entirely surrendering Australia's legal position.

Alexander Downer, Foreign Minister: We obviously had a robust negotiation, but in the end we decided that we'd give them 90% of the government revenue on the basis of generosity. I think when a country is generous to another country, to turn around then and accuse them of bad faith is probably not a brilliant negotiating tactic.

Jonathan Holmes: The East Timorese, even then, saw it differently.

Xanana Gusmao, President of Timor-Leste (translation): We can't understand Mr Downer, Mr John Howard saying they are being generous to us, we can't.

According to international experts and international law, if the maritime border is the median line between the two coastlines, we are the one being generous with Australia. We are giving 10% of what belongs to us to Australia.

Jonathan Holmes: Peter Galbraith, now a private consultant, has been brought back to Dili by Mari Alkatiri, to lead the East Timorese team in its border negotiations. But he's been making the same argument all along, based on the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which, since 1982, his team maintains, has changed the law entirely.

Peter Galbraith (addressing meeting): Nuno will outline the legal case.

Dr Nuno Antunes, maritime law adviser, Timor-Leste: Equidistance or very slight variations of equidistance -- over 60 cases. If two states lie less than 400 nautical miles apart, they claim, as Australia and East Timor do, the border should be drawn halfway between them, regardless of the shape of the seabed.

Peter Galbraith (addressing meeting): How many cases support their argument?

Dr Nuno Antunes: I only know of one, which is the Australian case.

Peter Galbraith: In fact the court, in a number of cases, including one between Libya and Malta, explicitly said that where states are less than 400 nautical miles apart, the underlying features are of no relevance whatsoever.

Jonathan Holmes: When Australia assigned 90% of the royalties to East Timor back in 2001, says Peter Galbraith, it was because it knew its legal case was fatally weak.

Peter Galbraith: They know full well that under international law a court would put the boundary at the median point between the two countries and that would mean that 100% of the resource in the area that was the subject of the Timor Sea Treaty would come to East Timor.

Alexander Downer: Well, he would. I mean, he is the negotiator for East Timor. And, I mean, you couldn't call Mr Galbraith an objective analyst or observer in this case.

Professor Gillian Triggs: I think Australia has a credible case to put.

Jonathan Holmes: Professor Gillian Triggs, who's been a commercial consultant to Timor Sea oil companies and advised regional governments on maritime law, believes Australia's claims still have validity.

Professor Gillian Triggs: But I think it also has to be understood that the 1982 convention still privileges those states that have a continental shelf. In other words, if you actually have a shelf, then you're entitled to the full extent of that shelf.

Jonathan Holmes: But the Timor Sea Agreement had its advantages for everyone. Crucially, it gave ConocoPhillips and their partners the security to pour billions into the big new gas field at Bayu-Undan, which lies entirely within the joint development area. The LNG plant and the pipeline to Darwin went ahead, bringing jobs and investment in their wake. By 2007, East Timor should be receiving tens of millions of dollars a year in royalties from Bayu-Undan.

But even back in 2001, there were plenty who believed that the secretive negotiations had sold East Timor short. Outsiders were beginning to realise what the negotiators had known all along -- that East Timor might well be entitled to total sovereignty, not just over the joint development area, but over tracts of the Timor Sea at either side. The argument is that the lines which define the eastern and western edges of the joint development area are not where they should be. They closely follow lines of equidistance between East Timor and Indonesia. In other words, every point on those lines is an equal distance from the nearest point of land on either side.

But according to Dr Nuno Antunes, a respected maritime law expert who's on East Timor's negotiating team, equidistant lines in this case don't produce a fair result -- and international law demands fairness.

Dr Nuno Antunes: For example, this line here, which is the line to the west of the JPDA, is completely influenced by one single point here, which is on the Indonesian coast, and why? Because if you ... if you notice, this point is very close to the boundary and is very prominent, and it has an undue impact that international lawyers identified as, uh, a special circumstance, and that special circumstance should be object of relief - i.e., in a way that would turn the boundary to this side.

Jonathan Holmes: Similar though different arguments apply to the eastern border of the joint development area, says Dr Antunes.

Dr Nuno Antunes: And that would be my opinion why these lines have to be opened to accommodate to a further extent the rights of Timor-Leste.

Professor Gillian Triggs, international law, Melbourne University: On the, um, authorities that I've read, that part of the coastline to the western side of East Timor is a relatively smooth coastline and is one from which an equidistant line can properly be drawn, but there is always another view, and indeed, if so, then that should be discussed and negotiated.

Jonathan Holmes: Even a small adjustment to the lateral lines could make a dramatic difference to East Timor. If a maritime boundary were agreed only slightly to the west, East Timor would gain all the royalties from the Laminaria oilfields -- perhaps another $300 million a year for the next few years. Far more lucrative is the massive Greater Sunrise field to the east.

Based on the current line, 20% of the field lies inside the development area, and 80% under the Australian seabed. The Timor Sea Treaty agrees to divide the royalties accordingly. But shift the line just a few kilometres eastward, and those proportions might be reversed -- putting billions of extra dollars East Timor's way over the next 30 years.

Jose Teixeira, Secretary of State for Investment, Timor-Leste: We don't take the view that these resources belong to us in this generation.

These resources belong to future generations of Timorese. We are committed to sustainable development of this country. We are committed to a permanent petroleum fund that will utilise these resources in a sustainable manner, not just for us, but for our children, our grandchildren, our grandchildren's children. That's what it's all about.

Jonathan Holmes: East Timor's total budget today -- for education, for health care, for infrastructure, for security -- is around $100 million - that's a good bit less than the Australian Sports Commission's. But even that much money is hard to find. From people as poor as this, there's precious little tax to be raised. International donors' funds are already drying up. The revenue from Bayu-Undan will enable East Timor to subsist for the next 20 years. But $8 or $10 billion extra, wisely used, could theoretically provide financial security and real development for the long term.

Xanana Gusmao, President of Timor-Leste (translation): We know we can develop this land, give our people a better life, and we feel that this opportunity is being taken away from us. And on top of that, it's something that belongs to us.

Alexander Downer, Foreign Minister: If there is an issue of economic disparity between Australia and East Timor, that should be addressed through aid programs, which it is, um...and other mechanisms. That should not be addressed through shifting boundaries and changing international law.

Jonathan Holmes: That professed regard for international law rings somewhat hollow in some ears, because in March 2002, just weeks before East Timor gained its independence, Australia announced it would no longer accept the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice on matters relating to its maritime borders.

Charles Scheiner, Institute for Reconstruction Monitoring Analysis: Australia claims to be a democratic country. It claims to be a law-abiding member of the world community. Uh, they've ... Australia has withdrawn from the courts. Can I commit a crime, then withdraw from the court and say, "No, the court had no jurisdiction"? My neighbours wouldn't be very happy about that.

Alexander Downer: We have said that we would rather negotiate all of our arrangements with other countries, not just with East Timor, but with Indonesia. And remember, we have to think about our other relationships when we think about this relationship. We will determine all of those on a bilateral basis. Not having courts and arbiters and, you know, people over there in the Hague deciding on our relationship.

Peter Galbraith, lead negotiator, Timor-Leste: Australia's decision to withdraw from the International Court of Justice reduced East Timor's opportunities to get a fair maritime boundary in accordance with international law. There's no question about it.

Jonathan Holmes: The eve of Independence, in May 2002. Behind the scenes, the new nation's leaders are under huge pressure. The oil companies and the international donors, as well as Australia, were insistent that their first action must be to sign and then ratify the Timor Sea Treaty.

A chorus of voices at home and abroad had been urging the new Prime Minister not to trust Australia, not to sign, to hold out. But he ignored them. A rival oil company has even filed suit in the USA recently, alleging that ConocoPhillips, the operator of Bayu-Undan, paid millions of dollars to Mari Alkatiri for his signature.

Dr Mari Alkatari: I never received any single coin from anybody.

Peter Galbraith: Those kinds of allegations are, um ... crap.

Jonathan Holmes: Alkatiri says his country desperately needed the money from Bayu-Undan and he believed the Treaty would give him the leverage to pressure Australia into negotiating new permanent borders. When Alexander Downer next came to Dili a year later, it looked as though Alkatiri had succeeded.

Dr Mari Alkatari (addressing press conference): It's formally recognised already that there are overlapping claims in the zone. That's why we're going to initiate a new process of negotiation on maritime boundaries. We will do it.

Alexander Downer (addressing press conference): We have lively negotiations, Australia and East Timor, because we're lively and interesting and entertaining people. So, um ... we'll look forward to that. (Laughs)

Jonathan Holmes: But Australia's been in no hurry. Two years after independence, the first substantive negotiating session's just been held.

At Australia's insistence, six months will pass before the next one. In East Timor, they plant and harvest a rice crop in less time than that.

From the paddy fields of Suai to the government in Dili, a sense of impatience and even betrayal has been growing.

Maria Amaral (translation): That's why I'm asking the Australian Government to resolve the oil issue quickly -- so that our young ones will be able to work and look after their younger siblings and we will be able to send our children overseas to study.

Jose Teixeira, Secretary of State for Investment, Timor-Leste: It's become quite clearly evident, particularly in the latter part of last year, that in fact what was always intended to be an interim provisional treaty was in fact going to be used to extract a permanent benefit.

Jonathan Holmes: East Timor claims Australia is in flagrant breach of international law by continuing to take the revenue from the oilfields of Laminaria. They're in an area, they say, which even Australia has recognised is in dispute. Yet in a few years, there'll be no oil left.

Peter Galbraith: I don't expect the Australians to come to some quick conclusion. I don't expect them to change their position, but I think they should be in the same position as East Timor -- that is, nobody gets the resource until we can agree who gets the resource, and that's exactly what has been required under international law.

Jonathan Holmes: Even Professor Triggs acknowledges that there's a case for putting the royalties from Laminaria into a trust account until the matter's resolved.

Professor Gillian Triggs: It's not for me to tell the Government what to do, but I think that if there is any credibility to the East Timorese argument on shifting that line further to the west, and if that were to be determined on any objective assessment of the law and of the geographical features that you mention, then there's a very good argument for putting the funds in escrow for a period.

Jonathan Holmes: But the Government doesn't appear to accept that East Timor's claims have sufficient credibility to justify any such action.

Alexander Downer: Well, our response is that we're there in the Australian area, in the Australian maritime area, and that we will treat them -- those areas -- as such. I do make this point. I don't think that the tactic of strident rhetoric and denunciation of Australia -- accusations of greed and ill faith and so on -- I don't think that tactic in the end, which is a big surprise to us after all we've done for East Timor, I don't think that is going to prove to be very successful.

Jonathan Holmes: It's true that East Timor has been blatantly playing to the gallery. It claims it has no other choice.

Dr Mari Alkatari (addressing conference): In addition to blocking a judicial resolution of our maritime dispute, Australia is unilaterally taking the resources from the disputed area.

Radio announcer (translation): Australia should respect the people and help us for the future. It shouldn't exploit a small, poor country. We are poor because our resources are in the sea. We are not able to exploit them.

Jonathan Holmes: But Mari Alkatiri does have one more card, and he's played that too. Investment in the all-important Greater Sunrise field can't go ahead until the East Timorese Parliament ratifies yet another complex treaty governing how it's to be taxed and the revenue divided. Dr Alkatiri's government signed the so-called Unitisation Agreement last year. But in the current sour climate, he claims, even his own party, Fretilin, would vote against ratification.

Alexander Downer: I think their idea here is that they think that they'll get more concessions out of us by delaying ratification of the Unitisation Agreement and, um...

Jonathan Holmes: Will they?

Alexander Downer: I think, um ... I think not, no. We've reached agreement on unitisation. The best strategy for them is to build good will.

Jonathan Holmes: But Sunrise can't go ahead, can it, unless that's ratified?

Alexander Downer: It won't go ahead, no.

Jonathan Holmes: When the border negotiations finally began three weeks ago - months later than East Timor would have liked -- the diplomatic niceties were observed. But only just. The talks themselves, from East Timor's point of view, were little short of a disaster.

Peter Galbraith, lead negotiator, Timor-Leste: I don't think these negotiations are going any place at all because the Australian side has refused to talk about the key issue, which is -- where are the lateral lines? And why is that the key issue? Because that's where the money is.

The location of those lines means the difference between $4 billion for East Timor and $12 billion for East Timor. The Australian position is that that is not on the table. That's not a matter that's subject to negotiation.

Alexander Downer: We will talk about anything, but we have our own claims, remember? I mean, I know they have their claims. I know they have their claims and I know they have their arguments, and I've seen in the media the fairly strident things that they've had to say, including denouncing my country. I've seen all that and I know all that. But, remember, we have our claims. And we want to stick with our international legal principles, principles that have served us in relation to negotiations with Indonesia, with Papua New Guinea, with New Zealand.

Jonathan Holmes: It's Indonesia, as always, that really matters to Australia. The next government in Jakarta may be still harder to deal with than the current one. Australia is determined that East Timor's border claims should not provide another source of friction with its biggest neighbour or, worse still, call into question its longest maritime border.

Alexander Downer: Some of the claims they're making in relation to the lateral boundaries will make those lateral boundaries closer to Indonesia than to East Timor. Well, that, of course, isn't a proposition ... that isn't a legal proposition that is going to stack up. And that's going to get them into a lot of difficulties with Indonesia.

Jonathan Holmes: Indonesia will argue that its seabed boundaries with East Timor should follow the lines of equidistance. Any concession by Australia on lateral boundaries would involve concessions by the Indonesians too. They're unlikely to be cooperative.

Dr Hasjim Djalal, former Indonesian Ambassador for Maritime Affairs: I cannot see the reason on what basis that line north- south on this side should be changed. I don't find any justification, and I think East Timor would have difficulty in arguing it.

Peter Galbraith: That is a matter to be negotiated both with Indonesia and with Australia, and, of course, East Timor wants to negotiate with both countries. But there's real urgency to the negotiations with Australia and there is no urgency with negotiations with Indonesia. Why is there urgency to the negotiations with Australia? Because, as we speak, Australia is pumping petroleum out of the area that is under dispute, the Government is getting $1 million a day, and so that already, since 1999, $1.5 billion is gone. Every day that we delay is $1 million less for this country.

Dr Mari Alkatari: I think that it is time for the Australian Government to listen to its own people. The people is voicing loudly on this issue and it's better to listen to their own people.

Jonathan Holmes: The Timorese seem to believe that the Australian public will be as sympathetic to their cause this time around as it was four years ago. But their loyal supporters in Australia are finding the going tough.

Man (addressing rally): Today is the formation of the Timor Sea Justice Coalition in Darwin, and this is our first action. Ironically, the enemy has changed from being Indonesia to Australia...

Jonathan Holmes: Massacres are one thing, maritime borders quite another.

So far, the issue has hardly set Australia alight. The Howard Government seems confident that most Australians will applaud it for hanging tough.

Alexander Downer: We will do what we believe to be right, but, of course, in our interests, we are on Australia's side. I'm the Australian Foreign Minister. The obligation on me is to negotiate for the 20 million people in Australia.

Peter Galbraith: All we ask is that Australia stop taking the resource until we have an agreement, or that Australia negotiate seriously and rapidly about all the issues, including the lateral boundaries, or that Australia agree to an impartial decision by an international court of Australia's choosing. Any one of those three.

Jonathan Holmes: A rapid resolution seems unlikely. There have been harsh words and bitter feelings on both sides. There's no mood at present for pragmatic compromise. It's undeniable that the relationship has soured.

Most Australians still feel proud of what their nation did to help its tiny neighbour. But for an Australian in East Timor these days, gratitude is hard to find.

Australia threatening Timor's existence: Gusmao

Australian Associated Press - May 10, 2004

East Timor's existence is under threat because of Australia's claims over the poor nation's natural resources, President Xanana Gusmao claims.

In a Four Corners report to be aired tonight, Mr Gusmao said Australia was defying international law with its claims over oil and natural gas deposits in the Timor Sea. Australia and East Timor are at loggerheads over the boundary that separates the two nations.

At stake are key energy deposits which, when developed, will be worth billions in tax revenues to the respective countries.

East Timor believes the border should be drawn in the middle of the 600km of sea separating the countries.

That would place 90 per cent of the oil and gas reserves on East Timor's side. Australia wants its continental shelf to be the border. In some places that is just 150km from East Timor's coastline.

Under the current agreement, East Timor gets 20 per cent of the Greater Sunrise gas field, the richest in the area. Australia takes 80 per cent.

East Timor also gets 90 per cent of several fields in a joint development area to Australia's 10 per cent, but those fields are not as lucrative.

Mr Gusmao said the money at stake was vital to his nation's survival. "It is a question of life or death, a question of being continually poor, continually begging or to be self-sufficient," he said.

Peter Galbraith, a private consultant working for East Timor on the issue, said international law was on the side of East Timor. "They [Australia] know full well that under international law a court would put the boundary at the median point between the two countries and that would mean that 100 per cent of the resource in the area that was the subject of the Timor Sea Treaty would come to East Timor," he said.

But Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer said Australia had done nothing wrong in its negotiations over the disputed maritime boundary. He said East Timor was wrong if it believed it could win support for its claims by attacking Australia.

"I think they've made a very big mistake thinking that the best way to handle this negotiation is trying to shame Australia, is mounting abuse on our country, accusing us of being bullying and rich and so on when you consider all we've done for East Timor," he said.

Australia accused of trying to steal oil reserves

Radio Australia - May 3, 2004

The language in the border negotiations between Australia and East Timor is heating up. East Timor says Australia is trying to steal its oil reserves while Canberra responds that Dili is trying to stir up emotion to create controversy. The latest idea from East Timor is a call for a third country or neutral umpire to step in to the border negotiations.

Presenter/Interviewer: Graeme Dobell

Speakers: Alexander Downer, Australia's Foreign Minister; Cecilio Caminha Freitas of the Independent Centre for Information on the Timor Sea Sound Effects: Xanana Gusmao

Dobell: East Timor's President Xanana Gusmao has stepped up the rhetoric telling his people that Australia is trying to steal Timor's oil in the negotiations over a sea-bed boundary.

East Timor says Australia wants to hold on to territory which could yield oil and gas worth eight to ten billion dollars to the newly independent nation. Australia's Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, responds that Australia has already been generous.

DOWNER: "The tactics that are being used by East Timor, a country Which we helped to bring to independence and to which we have been enormously generous and supportive over recent years and on oil and gas we have given them 90 per cent of the government revenue from the joint development area and we only get 10 per cent, whereas we had a 50-50 split with Indonesian before."

"The tactic here is to try to create public controversy in Australia by a lot of emotive criticism of Australia. I think in the end when two countries are adjacent with each other if one is richer than the other that isn't an argument for the poorer country being able to take territory from the richer country."

Dobell: The argument, though, is not about the joint development zone but about resources outside the zone -- claimed by Australia. East Timor says that a permanent seabed boundary set at the mid point between Australia and Timor in the Timor Sea would give it ownership.

Canberra, though, says its claim rests on the extent of Australia's continental shelf. Australia, two years ago, said it'd no longer accept the role of the International Court of Justice in determining border issues. Now, non-government groups from East Timor argue the best way to resolve the issue is to agree to mediation by a neutral third country.

Cecilio Caminha Freitas represents a coalition of non-government groups that have created the Independent Centre for Information on the Timor Sea.

Freitas: "And the best thing is probably we need neutral country to help out to be as a mediator, to mediate the whole negotiation process particularly for whole discussion how to figure out how to resolve and work out a settlement for the seabed boundary."

Dobell: Can East Timor put enough pressure on Australia? Is the relationship important enough for Australia for you to be able to force Australia to accept some outside mediation?

Freitas: "East Timor as a state, East Timor as a government I think we have very limited capacity, we have limited power to enforce Australia to change their mind. But at least the civil society has a very, very important role in this case to be neutralise, at least to deciminate it what is the bad thing, what then the right thing that is so far going on so far at the moment, particularly around Timor Sea Treaty ratification, that exploration so far."

"So I think in my visit also this is the part of our moral responsibility to try to recommence and I do believe because Australian people are a democratic people and they have to see, they have to create a strength in their good neighbour relationship in the future."

It's time to get creative on Timor Gap

Sydney Morning Herald - April 30, 2004

Louise Williams -- East Timor's rapidly souring stance towards Australia is all about money.

Oil and gas money. It's an emotive tale of the world's poorest and youngest nation confronting the region's richest nation over a fair share of the wealth beneath the Timor Sea.

That's how East Timor's Government is telling it, dispensing as it has in recent weeks with the diplomatic niceties. Dili argues the current revenue sharing arrangement breaches international law, to East Timor's considerable disadvantage.

A far more profound moral breach, however, is implied. For a poor, vulnerable, new nation the disputed revenue is, in the words of East Timor's Prime Minister, Mari Alkatiri, "literally, a matter of life and death".

This message is resonating loudly on the dusty, hot streets of East Timor where the high expectations of independence are slowly being swallowed up by those old enemies: grinding poverty, unemployment and inadequate basic services. The Australian Government, lauded for the 1999 military intervention which ended the chaos wrought by withdrawing Indonesian occupation forces, is now being recast as the villain.

It is Canberra which is said to be standing between East Timor's chance at self-sufficiency and a miserable future of aid dependency and, potentially, state failure.

But Australia's tough position can't be just about the money. The numbers don't add up. Estimates of the oil and gas reserves in the Timor seabed vary widely. The East Timorese Government is seeking to boost its share, over 30 years, from about $US4.4 billion to about $US12 billion. This money could, if properly directed, really buy life in East Timor in the form of the most basic of health services. East Timor's annual budget is only $US100 million, most of which is foreign aid. The oil and gas royalties are decisive for East Timor, but are equivalent over three decades to about half of what the Australian Government spends on health in a single year.

The legal position is, basically, this. In the 1970s the maritime boundaries between Australia and Indonesia were negotiated based on the 1958 Geneva Convention on Continental Shelves. Australia has an exceptionally broad and shallow continental shelf extending north towards eastern Indonesia, which was favourably reflected when the boundaries were drawn in 1972. At the time, East Timor was a crumbling Portuguese colony which Indonesia would invade three years later. The 1972 boundaries, however, encroached in part on what were East Timor's waters. A large gap, later called the Timor Gap, was left unresolved.

What East Timor wants is a permanent maritime boundary and international law requires Australia to open negotiations, as it did in Dili last week.

Changes to international law in 1982, however, mean every nation is now entitled to claim a minimum of 200 nautical miles offshore. In zones where claims overlap, such as the Timor Sea, a default line is set midway. It is this median line, should it be drawn, which would override the continental shelf principle and triple East Timor's income. Since 1999, Australia has earned about $1 million a day from one of the disputed fields and Dili wants this money back.

East Timor's position is simplistic and the benefits to the East Timorese people of oil and gas income are entirely dependent on prudent management.

One argument frequently raised against East Timor's claim is that small economies which rely on resource royalties are extremely vulnerable to corruption. Nauru and Papua New Guinea's political elite have squandered much of their natural wealth. But this is a question of governance, not a valid reason to maintain the status quo.

A spokesman for the Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, said the negotiations, which will resume in September, are confidential.

However, in an interview in 2002 Downer went some way to explaining Australia's intransigence. "If we were to change very substantially our boundaries with East Timor that would obviously have implications for our boundaries with Indonesia ... that would be a deeply unsettling development."

A solution, however, might lie in Alkatiri's statement last week that East Timor is "open to creative solutions". It really is about the money. It would be in Australia's interest to now clearly articulate its legal, moral and financial position and to investigate a "creative" path forward.

The Timor Gap dispute should be about East Timor, not Indonesia.

It's clearly in Australia's interests to have a stable, viable new neighbour to the north.

[Louise Williams is a Herald editorial writer and former Indonesian correspondent.]

Cracks appear as Australia, East Timor talk borders again

International Oil Daily - April 26, 2004

James Irwin, Singapore -- Some cracks are appearing in Australia's refusal to renegotiate the Timor Sea Treaty with East Timor -- the latest being the emergence of past testimony from a key member of the Australian negotiating team, Dean Bialek, that his country should negotiate in good faith with East Timor and not deplete resources in disputed areas.

In addition, Australian Senator Bob Brown late last week addressed a crowd in East Timor's capital, Dili, criticizing Australia's "theft" of East Timor's oil and gas revenue from the Timor Sea. Brown spoke to a group of protesters who gathered outside a hotel, where Australian negotiators were attempting to convince East Timor to ratify the agreement to develop the Greater Sunrise gas fields. Under that deal, the Australian government would reap 80% of the estimated $10 billion in royalties over the next 20 years, leaving East Timor with a 20% portion. Greater Sunrise lies closer to East Timor than to Australia.

"Australians will not back the [Australian Prime Minister John ] Howard government," said Brown. "100% of the royalties are yours [East Timor's ] because 100% of the resource is on East Timor's side of the Timor Sea."

The comments made by Bialek, however, may do more damage to the Australian government's position. Brown represents Australia's Green Party, whereas Bialek, an international law expert with Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), also represents the Australian government in talks with the East Timorese.

Bialek made the comments supporting East Timor's territorial claims while working as a law lecturer at the University of Melbourne. In a written submission, as well as in testimony to an Australian parliamentary committee, Bialek strongly questioned whether Australia had the legal right to insist on the "natural prolongation of its continental shelf," the country's main argument in the maritime boundary dispute.

Critics say the treaty recognizing the legitimacy of Australia's continental shelf is questionable, since Indonesia, which ruled East Timor in 1972 when it was signed, gave Australia a greater portion in return for Australia recognizing the legitimacy of the Indonesian occupation of East Timor. In his testimony to the parliamentary committee, Bialek said there have been 80 instances where median lines, drawn equidistantly between the coastlines of two countries, have been applied to resolve territorial disputes. The boundary drawn between Australia and East Timor, which the Indonesians signed, is the only example of a border being established on the basis of a continental shelf, according to Bialek's testimony.

"There is a general obligation under international law and international relations that there be good faith negotiations toward the conclusion of a permanent boundary. That would, I think, in international law, say that Australia should not drag its feet in terms of reaching a permanent solution," Bialek told the committee. East Timor has accused the Australian government of dragging its feet in the negotiations while continuing to exploit the disputed Laminaria, Corallina and Buffalo fields.

The Australian government withdrew from negotiations under the auspices of the International Court of Justice in the Netherlands two years ago, a step that Sen. Brown said was done because "it knew its actions were illegal" under international law.

Australia and East Timor began talks last week to establish a permanent maritime boundary in the oil-rich Timor Sea.

East Timor's refusal to accept Australia's position threatens the development of Greater Sunrise, which is being developed by a joint venture between Woodside, ConocoPhillips, Royal Dutch/Shell and Osaka Gas, all of which are reluctant to proceed unless the two countries reach a permanent agreement.

Government & politics

East Timor bishop rules out politics

The Australian - May 4, 2004

Lisbon -- East Timor's Roman Catholic Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo, who was awarded the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize, has ruled out running for president in 2007.

"I have decided to leave politics to politicians," he said today in comments broadcast on Portuguese state television RTP.

Belo, who stepped down from active duty in November 2002 citing poor health, in February said he would consider a presidential bid if he had strong popular support for the move.

But he said at the time he would only run if the Vatican did not oppose his bid and if Xanana Gusmao, the former guerrilla leader who became East Timor's first president in April 2002, decided to step down after completing his five-year term.

A poll carried out last year in East Timor found that more than 80 per cent of the population would like to see Belo run for president.

He told Portuguese state radio RDP in February he had been encouraged to make a bid for the presidency by a number of political parties in East Timor. He did not name the parties.

Belo was the spiritual leader of East Timor's roughly 800,000 people during Indonesia's brutal 24-year rule in the country, which ended in 1999 after the territory overwhelmingly voted for freedom in a UN-sponsored referendum.

He shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Jose Ramos-Horta, a prominent independence activist who is East Timor's foreign minister, for their non-violent resistance to Indonesia's occupation of his homeland.

East Timor spent about 450 years as a neglected Portuguese colony before it was invaded by neighbouring Indonesia in 1975 after Lisbon abruptly withdrew.

With much of its infrastructure destroyed by violence that accompanied its 1999 independence referendum, East Timor is one of the poorest countries in the world.

More than half the adults in the country are illiterate, only one in three houses has electricity and one in five has running drinking water.

Justice & reconciliation

Court clears three Indonesian officials in Timor violence

Associated Press - May 24, 2004

Jakarta -- The Supreme Court said on Monday it upheld a conviction of crimes against humanity by a special tribunal against three Indonesians officials for their roles in the church killings of 27 East Timor independence supporters in 1999.

Lt. Col. Asep Kuswani, Police Lt. Col. Adios Salova and district head Leonita Martins were declared free of charges of failing to prevent pro-Jakarta militias from attacking a church in the town of Liquica on April 6, 1999 where 27 people were killed, said Chief Judge Artidjo Alkostar told The Associated Press.

Alkostar said the Supreme Court in a hearing on Wednesday rejected an appeal made by government prosecutors to review the case. A special tribunal in Central Jakarta acquited the men in November 2002.

Local and international human rights groups have said the trials of those accused of violence in East Timor were a sham.

However Alkostar said that he was one out of five judges that has "a dissenting opinion" on the verdict.

"In my opinion, the men have to be punished because they were responsible for their men for the killing of 27 people inside the church," he said.

Nearly 2,000 civilians were believed killed and 250,000 forced to flee their homes when Indonesian troops and their militia proxies launched a campaign of terror before and after an independence referendum.

East Timor gained full independence in May, after a period of transitional rule by the United Nations following Indonesia's brutal 24-year occupation.

East Timor, two years on

Sydney Morning Herald Editorial - May 20, 2004

East Timor's Parliament has an unusual gift in mind for its people today, the second anniversary of independence. Since East Timor first raised its national flag in 2002, popular euphoria has been slowly but steadily seeping away. Last year the fragile economy declined. Poverty is growing, the urban unemployment rate stands at more than 40 per cent, and a bitter dispute with the Australian Government over oil and gas revenue in the Timor Sea is stoking frustration and resentment. There is not much the Government can afford to give away.

Its planned gift, then, is legal clemency. A general amnesty law passed its first reading in Parliament earlier this month in "the spirit of national reconciliation". It notes, in part, "the importance of forgiving without forgetting, even those who committed so-called serious crimes".

The law is intended to give a new start to all those who committed non-violent crimes before March 31 this year. International human rights groups, however, believe many of those involved in the carnage which marked the withdrawal of Indonesian troops in 1999 may benefit. The law may also hamper the very difficult task the United Nations-backed serious crimes unit is facing in securing even symbolic justice for past abuses.

But, the signal the new law sends is clear. East Timor's Government is determined to "bury the past", partly because it is seeking to reconcile its relationship with Indonesia as its most urgent diplomatic priority.

During the 24-year-long Indonesian occupation, about 200,000 East Timorese, or about a quarter of the population, died. Such overwhelming losses cast a very long shadow over many communities. East Timor's Government, however, argues the task of nation building is so urgent that it cannot afford to be diverted by sentiments of revenge. This means the Indonesian presidential candidate and former armed forces chief, retired General Wiranto, and many others, are unlikely to ever face trial over crimes against humanity.

For Indonesia, the loss of East Timor was a deeply humiliating moment.

Along the common land border, the remnants of the same militia gangs which razed East Timor's towns and villages in 1999 still linger. It is the imbalance of power between the tiny new nation and its vast neighbour which is fuelling Dili's concern for Jakarta's wounded pride. East Timor has no army. It knows that only good relations with Indonesia can secure the land border. Indonesia is also its most important source of desperately needed technical and further education for young Indonesian-speaking East Timorese.

There is another consideration -- Dili's reluctance to expose its former independence fighters to similar scrutiny. Pro- independence guerillas committed serious human rights abuses against fellow East Timorese during the protracted conflict. The well-documented role of the Indonesian military in the destruction of 1999 is one relatively clear-cut issue.

But when local loyalties are violently divided over decades of war, the moral boundaries blur. Many will still want to see serious crimes against humanity -- committed by Indonesian soldiers and East Timorese alike -- punished. Unfortunately, but for reasons Dili understandably sees as compelling, this appears increasingly unlikely.

New bishop promises to work towards reconciliation

Asia News - May 7, 2004

The newly ordained bishop of Dili, Alberto Ricardo da Silva, has promised to work for reconciliation between East Timorese living in and outside of the country.

"I am ready to open widely the door of reconciliation and peace for all East Timorese, regardless of their religion, group and political background. As a shepherd, I will unite all Catholics and nurture honest relationships with other believers," said the Bishop at his May 2nd ordination in Dili.

Pope John Paul II appointed him March 6th to head the Dili diocese, which has more than 500,000 Catholics. The Bishop's took for his new motto"Servus Verbi Domini" (Servant of the Word of God).

The 61-year-old Bishop was ordained by Bishop Basilio do Nascimento of Baucau, the other diocese in East Timor, in the presence of 7 bishops from Australia, Indonesia, Japan, Macau, and Portugal. Nearly 30,000 people attended the ordination at Immaculate Conception cathedral, including Secretary of the Apostolic Nuniature in Indonesia, Msgr. Novatus Rugambwa, the President of East Timor Alexandre Xanana Gusmao, Prime Minister Mari Alkatari, along with Cabinet members and foreign envoys.

In an address by President Gusmao, he stated that the event was historic for the largely Catholic country, officially recognized on May 20, 2002.

Bishop da Silva is the first bishop of the diocese, formerly headed by apostolic administrators.

After the 1999 vote for Independence, many East Timorese left for Indonesia. Some live in settlements arranged by the Indonesian government in the East Nusa Tenggara province, which includes West Timor across the land border on Timor Island. Still other joined the Indonesian government's trans-migration program and moved to other provinces.

"The most important point nowadays is that all people of [East Timor], regardless where they live, must have a common heart and spirit for reconciliation and peace." Bishop da Silva said. He also promised to visit East Timorese in Indonesia "as an expression of the sense of unity and brotherhood."

Bishop da Silva was the former rector of the major seminary in Dili, and was born in East Timor in 1943, when the country was still a Portuguese colony. Ordained a priest in 1972, he served as Vicar General of Dili from 1980-1992, following which he studied theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.

Members of East Timor's Parliament voiced their approval of the appointment of Bishop da Silva as an important step in fostering reconciliation among East Timorese. Clementino dos Reis Amaral said May 3rd that he welcomed the new bishop. Francisco Branco, another parliamentarian stated, "I do hope that the new bishop of Dili embraces all people of (East Timor) so that they can live in peace and respect each other."

Rights group criticizes amnesty bill for Timor atrocities

Deutsche Presse Agentur - May 8, 2004

Jakarta -- The US-based Human Rights Watch on Saturday urged East Timor's parliament to exclude serious human rights crimes from a general amnesty law now under consideration that proposes to pardon culprits in the country's 1999 bloodbath.

"The law could undermine the work of Timorese and international bodies investigating and prosecuting the grave abuses that took place in East Timor during the country's 1999 referendum on independence from Indonesia," said the human rights advocate group in a press statement made available in Jakarta.

East Timor, a former Indonesian territory that became an independent country two years ago, is mulling legislation that would grant clemency for those who have committed "serious crimes" against the Timorese people in the bloodbath of 1999.

The amnesty is expected to be passed on May 20, marking the second anniversary of East Timor as nation.

"It is bitterly ironic to mark East Timor's second anniversary of nationhood by undermining justice for the most serious crimes that accompanied the country's independence," said Charmain Mohamed, East Timor researcher for Human Rights Watch.

"Reconciliation has a place, but there can't be reconciliation without judicial accountability for violations of basic international human rights," he added.

In a United Nations-backed referendum in August 1999, the East Timorese voted for independence from Indonesia, unleashing a wave of murder and mayhem perpetrated by pro-Jakarta militias which the Indonesian military did little to prevent.

More than 1,000 people were killed and 500,000 were forced to flee their homes in the ensuing anarchy, which had to be quelled by an international peace-keeping force.

A UN-created Special Panel for Serious Crimes in East Timor, comprised of international and East Timorese judges, has indicted four Indonesian generals, including retired General Wiranto who is now a presidential candidate in Indonesia, for committing "serious crimes" in the 1999 incidents.

The indictment has seriously tarnished the presidential candidacy of Wiranto, who was defence minister and military commander-in- chief in 1999. "The Timorese leaders should not pardon crimes in advance of trial and conviction," Mohamed said.

"Pardoning serious violators, especially before they've even faced a trial, contradicts the principle that time served should be proportionate to the gravity of the crime," he said.

Opinion: Wiranto, Susilo should speak out about the past

Jakarta Post - May 7, 2004

Aboeprijadi Santoso, Amsterdam -- Two former generals both have a strong chance of becoming the nation's new leader, even if they have blood on their hands. The rise of these generals-turned- party-leaders, however, rests on the shaky assumption that military leaders are more capable of providing stability than civilian leaders.

"A retired general, reflecting on his brilliant past, had forgotten how many souls he'd sent flying up to heaven -- Now, he realized that he had also spilt quite a lot of blood... [He] was still swimming in the rain.

The water -- turned red. The general was swimming in a sea of blood. The blood is red, general, he said to himself."

This powerful passage from Seno Gumira Ajidarma's anthology Eyewitness (1995, orig. 1994) reminds us that some generals, while proud of their dedication to the nation, are acutely aware of their painful past.

It is particularly poignant in the lead up to the presidential election, as it refers to a generation of soldiers who were ideologically raised by Soeharto's New Order, and lived through two of the country's most bloody episodes i.e. the mass killings of 1965-1966 and the situation in East Timor.

The story pointedly refers to East Timor -- a territory that was occupied and almost single-handedly managed by the Army for almost a quarter of century (1975-1999). For many officers, this period was a rich source of experience and served as a key steppingstone. Not all Army members should be burdened by this legacy, but some are likely to have been involved in abuses.

However, given the lack of transparency of the military as an organization, few details have emerged on "who did what, and on whose instructions" in particular cases of atrocity and abuse, including those possibly related to the two contenders for the presidency, Gen. (ret.) Wiranto and Gen.

(ret.) Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. Sources provide a more complete picture of Wiranto than of Susilo.

Masters of Terror (2002) -- a profile of key suspects of the 1999 violence in East Timor -- includes both men and concludes that Wiranto was "ultimately responsible for everything his soldiers did" as his men in the field "crop up in numerous reports of abuses."

Early in 1999, the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) named Wiranto a main suspect. "Not just because of sins of omission," Helmy Fauzi, a former staff member of Komnas HAM insisted.

In February 2003, the UN-sponsored special panel in Dili indicted Wiranto on charges of war crimes against humanity. An international warrant for his arrest "may be issued shortly," Dili prosecutor Nicholas Koumjian told Radio Netherlands recently.

The case of Susilo is less clear. The timing of two of his three missions in East Timor was crucial. In 1976 to 1977, he led the Yonif-305 battalion to the district of Lautem to consolidate the conquest of the territory following the Dec. 1975 invasion. In the end, the conquest amounted to Indonesia's second biggest massacre -- locally known as the "annihilation campaign" in Matebian, Central East Timor -- which claimed about a third of the local population. This was the result of several months of military campaigns, confounded by bad harvests and an epidemic.

Another disaster happened in 1979, the year Susilo started his second mission (1979-1981). As the Fretilin guerrilla collected its supporters and their families, but were forced to evacuate them to the mountain, the Army decided to launch a big campaign to exterminate them.

In one case, up to 800 to 1000 guerrilla fighters and civilians were killed in Lautem alone. However, according to researcher Douglas Kammen, it has not been confirmed as yet that the Susilo-led battalion of Yonif-Linud-330 was directly involved in the atrocities.

Similarly, it was not clear exactly what Susilo's role was as chief of staff of the regional command at the time of the military assault against the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) headquarters in Jakarta, on July 27, 1996. Susilo's darkest role, however, may be connected to Wiranto's controversial involvement in East Timor, and it is particularly important to explain how the scorched-earth campaign and mass deportation of 1999 were organized.

By then, as chief of Territorial under Wiranto, Susilo was formally responsible for the actions of regional and local commanders. Analysts, however, view that two chains of command -- the formal i.e. territorial one, and special intelligence links -- seem to have been at work. In any case, Wiranto and Susilo should clarify the matter.

Susilo's career has generally been viewed in mixed terms as the architect of both war and peace in Aceh, and of peace in Poso and Ambon. But critics say, while the 2002 ceasefire in Aceh was historic but short-lived (the rebels should be blamed too in this respect), the war and martial law have been too costly in terms of civilian lives, political and budgetary consequences.

Interestingly, the two former generals have successively been at the helm of the security apparatus during the most critical period post-Soeharto. No period since the 1960s killings has been as continuously tense and bloody as the post-1998 series of social protests, ethnic, political, religious, secessionist warfare and independence struggles in various places across the archipelago.

As chief of security in 1998-1999, Wiranto was not able to halt the escalation of urban riots and violence in the capital. Then, his failure to maintain peace in East Timor in Sept. 1999 embarrassed the nation, humiliated the corps and forced him to allow foreign troop, the Interfet, to intervene in order to help President B.J. Habibie save his credibility and the economy.

Susilo, in turn, has achieved more in Eastern Indonesia, but not in Aceh.

In both cases, though, the impact of the war and social dislocation has been tremendous. Sociologist Thamrin Tomagola has argued for Maluku, that peace could have been more durable if it incorporated local civil society instead of a state-imposed accord. Indeed, peace and non-violence have often been characteristic when civil elements hold sway.

This has been clearly manifested in the wake of the downfall of Soeharto in Aceh during the two years of massive pro-referendum rallies up to late 1999, and in Yogyakarta, when people led by the sultan demanded changes.

Non-violence was also reported during that period as numerous village heads in Java were forced to step down.

Violent upheavals in post-independence Indonesia mostly involved Army elements, or were linked to intra Army rivalries at national or local levels -- rather than characteristics inherent to civilian leader. In other words, contrary to the popular myth today, ex-military leaders do not automatically guarantee stability. Instead, what matters most is the principle of civilian supremacy, control and reform of the Army's territorial structure.

That said, in the lead up to the presidential election, the two ex-generals must confirm their records and accountability. If they, unlike Seno's general, have the courage to speak out, that would be a relief for the nation.

[The writer is a Radio Netherlands journalist.]

Amnesty bill squeezes through parliament

Lusa - May 5, 2004

Dili -- The East Timorese parliament narrowly approved Wednesday a controversial general amnesty for all crimes committed up to March 31, including the so-called "serious crimes" carried out by anti-independence militias and Indonesian troops in 1999. The bill, presented by Justice Minister Domingos Sarmento, passed in generality by 24 votes to 18 with 14 abstentions. It will face an item-by-item debate and vote next week.

The government, which had twice failed to get approval for similar bills in 2001 and 2003, justified its move with the need for national reconciliation.

The amnesty comes as the Timorese prepare to celebrate the second anniversary of their hard-won independence on May 20.

The bill's preamble underlined "the importance of forgiving, without forgetting, even those who committed so-called "serious crimes"(s) because the spirit of national reconciliation must also extend to them".

"Serious crimes" is the term applied in East Timor to crimes against humanity committed around the time of the country's 1999 independence plebiscite by the scorched-earth campaign unleashed by Indonesian occupation forces and proxy militias.

Opposition lawmaker Leandro Isaac questioned the government's initiative, asking how Timorese victims could "forgive the butchers" when they had yet to "recover psychologically from the crimes".

Many civil society organizations also denounced the amnesty, with some forecasting its application could provoke "chaos in the justice system".

Some 250,000 East Timorese were forced to flee their homes during the pro-Indonesia rampages that destroyed about 75 percent of the territory's infrastructures. More than 1,000 independence supporters were killed.nt-seat passengers to wear seat belts," said a national police spokesman, Zainuri Lubis.

bis said Jakarta drivers who refuse to belt up could face a fine of up to one million rupiah (115 dollars) or up to a month in jail.

Several other Indonesian cities will soon follow suit. Others, such as the second largest city of Surabaya in East Java, have already enforced the law.

The government in 1998 announced plans to enforce the 1992 law but drivers complained they could not afford to fit belts amid an economic crisis.

Despite Wednesday's belated crackdown, owners of cars without seat belts have been given until November 2005 to instal them.

Evidence damns Indonesia: UN refuses to publish report

The Gazette (Montreal, Quebec) - April 7, 2004

Jill Jolliffe, Dili -- A human rights expert has called for new charges to be laid against senior Indonesian leaders, based on war crimes evidence salvaged from smouldering barracks during their army's 1999 retreat from East Timor.

The call was made in a report by Canadian Geoffrey Robinson, an assistant history professor at the University of California. It is the most damning and rigorous assessment to date of the violence accompanying the UN referendum in which East Timorese voted overwhelmingly to end over two decades of Indonesian occupation.

About 1,500 people were murdered, most of the country's infrastructure was torched, and a quarter of a million citizens were deported during Indonesia's scorched-earth withdrawal from the territory. Much of the violence was committed by Timorese militia groups, who Indonesian commanders claimed were outside their control.

The report was contracted in 2002 by the Geneva-based UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, but the UN has refused to release it publicly since completion in July 2003.

Robinson called for charges against 75 Indonesian officers and politicians, including figures not previously implicated. These include three members of the 1999 cabinet and the present minister for National Security in the Megawati government, retired general A.M. Hendropryono.

The author said evidence he examined also supported charges laid by the UN-backed Serious Crimes Unit (SCU) in Dili against former defence chief Wiranto, who is running for presidential office in July. The SCU is seeking an arrest warrant against the retired general.

The author said his conclusions did not rest on "a smoking gun," but rather on "careful examination and analysis of the now substantial documentary and testimonial record." This included the "secret internal reports, memoranda and orders originating with Indonesian military, police and civilian authorities" retrieved from Indonesian barracks.

He had free access to internal UN documents, and also drew on the Indonesian material, held in the Dili archive of Yayasan Hak, a human rights organization.

Yayasan Hak spokesperson Jose Luis Oliveira said he and other activists had salvaged the documents from abandoned Indonesian barracks. "They fled without burning all their documents," he said, "and we recovered them after a search of the Korem and Kodim [regional and district military command] buildings."

They included payroll documents and military cables, which Robinson used to demolish the idea Indonesian army "rogue elements" were responsible for organizing the violence. He instead described a perfectly articulated chain of command, "conceived, created, and authorized by Indonesian authorities."

"Support for the militias was not provided simply by a handful of 'rogue elements' in the TNI [Indonesian army]," he wrote, "but constituted official policy, and had the backing of some of the highest ranking and most powerful officials in the country."

He traces the command chain to the office of President B.J. Habibie, but said his guilt was conditioned by his lack of authority over the army.

Hendropryono is accused of using his role as transmigration minister in 1998-99 to bankroll militia activities, and playing a close organizational role in the violence. Two other 1999 cabinet members are accused on similar grounds. They are Lt.-Gen. (retired) Feisal Tanjung, then co-ordinating minister for Political and Security Affairs, and former Information minister Mohamad Yunus Yosfiah. In 2000, Yosfiah was accused by UN investigators of involvement in the deaths of five Australian- based journalists in Timor in 1975, although no charges were laid.

All three men are veterans of Indonesia's military campaigns in East Timor, and the Canadian scholar said there was a pattern of involvement by veterans in the 1999 atrocities. Wiranto also served in Timor as a young officer, in the 1980s.

Others accused in the assessment include Maj.-Gen. Sjafrie Sjamsuddin, Maj.-Gen. Kiki Syahnakri, Maj.-Gen. Zacky Anwar Makarim, Maj.-Gen. Adam Damiri and Brig.-Gen. Mahidin Simbolon.

The report was restricted to UN circles until last week, when the original document was given to the UN-backed Reception, Reconciliation and Truth Commission in Dili after arriving by diplomatic pouch from Geneva. It bore a nonconfidential classification, won by champions of its release after long discussion, but "due discretion" was urged in its distribution.

This path guaranteed continuing secrecy. Reconciliation chairperson Aniceto Guterres said it would be treated confidentially, like all its submissions, and released only after the commission finishes work in October. He refused an interview request, saying he might "accidentally reveal details."

The leaking of its contents is embarrassing to the UN, given its role in East Timor is seen as almost finished. Personnel will be cut drastically in May, with expectation war crimes prosecutions might also be concluded soon (the SCU's mandate is likely to be extended by a year).

The author chides the UN for its failure to bring justice to East Timor, saying that in terms of a 1999 Security Council resolution pledging to bring perpetrators to justice, it has a "solemn duty" to set up an international tribunal, given the failure of the present system.

The resolution set up a two-tiered system of prosecutions. In Jakarta, the Ad Hoc Tribunal, which concluded its work last year, allowed Jakarta to try its own culprits. Of the small group indicted, most were either acquitted or given light sentences. Some are now directing military operations anew, against insurgents in Aceh and West Papua.

In Dili, the SCU issued its own indictments, prepared by UN investigators, against East Timorese militiamen and Indonesian soldiers alike. However, the Indonesian government has refused to extradite any of its accused, with the result only Timorese have been jailed, while their former commanders walk free.

Decisions over the future of prosecutions will be made in coming weeks, as the current UN mission draws to a close, but analysts are acutely aware East Timor's quest for justice may fall victim to the war against terrorism.

In the present atmosphere of realpolitik, satisfying Indonesia, the world's largest Islamic country, has priority over the grievances of citizens of one of the world's tiniest and poorest nations.

Indonesia

Demonstrators protest Wiranto meeting on Gusmao's return

Lusa - May 31, 2004

Dili -- East Timorese President Xanana Gusmao returned home Monday from a weekend meeting with former Indonesian military chief General Wiranto to face dozens of angry demonstrators, demanding justice for atrocities committed by Indonesian forces in 1999.

On leaving Dili airport, Gusmao got out of his car and briefly talked to the demonstrators, who waved posters and shouted slogans denouncing any "dialogue with criminal Wiranto", a leading candidate in Indonesia's upcoming presidential election.

"The explanations Xanana Gusmao gave us are convenient excuses", demonstration organizer Joaquim Fonseca later told Lusa. "I think the Timorese, who carried out a great struggle for independence and against [Indonesian] occupation, do not accept such initiatives", Fonseca added, referring to the president's meeting Saturday night with Wiranto in Bali.

A United Nations-backed Dili court issued an arrest warrant May 10 against Wiranto, Jakarta's defense minister and military chief at the time of East Timor's independence plebiscite, for crimes against humanity committed in 1999.

In brief comments to Lusa before leaving the airport and speaking to the demonstrators, Gusmao said he had not felt "used" or "intimidated" by his meeting with Wiranto at the Indonesian resort island, where he said he had gone on "vacation" with his wife and two children.

He downplayed the significance of the small demonstration, saying East Timor was a "democratic country" where people were free to "express themselves".

Timorese Foreign Minister Josi Ramos Horta told Lusa Sunday he understood the reasons behind the controversial Bali meeting but criticized Gusmao's timing.

"A meeting between the president and General Wiranto, which could be inevitable or indispensable, should only have taken place after the elections", Ramos Horta said, referring to Indonesia's July 5 presidential ballot. "Under these circumstances, on the eve of elections, I don't consider [the initiative] sensible", he added.

East Timor's two leading newspapers carried front-page reports Monday of the Bali meeting, featuring photographs of a smiling Gusmao and Wiranto embracing each other.

The arrest warrant against Wiranto has embarrassed Dili's leadership, who place normalized relations with Jakarta at the top of the diplomatic agenda.

Attorney General Longuinhos Monteiro, who has criticized the warrant as serving "foreign interests" at Dili's expense, said last week he had no immediate plans of formally informing Interpol of the arrest order.

Horta criticizes Xanana's meeting with Wiranto

Associated Press - May 30, 2004

East Timor's Foreign Minister on Sunday criticized his head of state's meeting with an Indonesian presidential candidate indicted for war crimes for his role in the killing of some 1,500 people during the half-island's 1999 fight for independence.

Gen. Wiranto held a "nostalgic" reconciliation meeting in Bali with East Timor President Xanana Gusmao, himself a former guerrilla leader, on Saturday. The men shook hands, hugged and laughed when they greeted each other.

Gusmao, who fought in the jungles for years during the independence war, had said he would not back the charges against Wiranto, arguing that improving relations with Indonesia is more important than seeking justice for the victims of the massacres.

"I don't agree with the timing of our head of state's visit with [such a controversial] presidential candidate," East Timor's Foreign Minister Jose Ramos Horta told reporters before leaving for a visit to Portugal. "The government of East Timor has to be prudent so as not to discredit ourselves and the judicial process."

Horta said East Timor would have to "be pragmatic in normalizing relations" with Wiranto if he was elected Indonesian president in July 5 polls.

A UN-backed special tribunal issued an arrest warrant for Wiranto in early May for his alleged role in the 1999 violence, when East Timor held a referendum on independence. Wiranto headed Indonesia's army at the time of the vote.

Indonesian troops and their militia proxies later went on a murderous rampage, killing some 1,500 people, and also laid waste to much of East Timor's infrastructure.

Last year, UN prosecutors working in the tiny nation indicted Wiranto for his alleged command responsibility for "murder, deportation and persecution" committed during 1999. He has denied any wrongdoing.

East Timor became the world's newest nation in 2001 after a period of transitional rule by the United Nations. The world body still keeps a small peacekeeping force, provides technical assistance, and funds efforts to bring those responsible for crimes against humanity to justice.

An estimated 200,000 East Timorese died during Indonesia's two- decade occupation as a result of military operations, starvation and disease.

Gusmao embraces Wiranto despite massacre claims

Sydney Morning Herald - May 31, 2004

Matthew Moore, Jakarta -- East Timor's President Xanana Gusmao has publicly embraced the man accused of responsibility for the deaths of 1500 East Timorese.

In a dramatic sign of his determination for East Timor to put the past behind it, Mr Gusmao met former Indonesian armed forces commander Wiranto in Bali for two hours late on Saturday night.

They hugged, shook hands and smiled for the cameras in gestures apparently intended to distance themselves from a recent warrant for the retired general's arrest, issued by an East Timorese court.

The former leader of East Timor's guerilla fighters and the former head of the Indonesian army apparently spent their time reminiscing about the past, not discussing Mr Wiranto's problem of the warrant, under which he would be arrested if he ever went to East Timor.

"Much of what we spoke of was nostalgic," Mr Wiranto said after their meeting as an upmarket hotel. "Before, we were the same in the forest, the mountains, in positions opposing each other. To see us now, it's quite funny. I think now we have become friends. We are two people who understand that war and battles are not good."

Their high-profile meeting, which received page-one coverage in Indonesia's papers yesterday, was timed to repair the damage to Mr Wiranto's presidential campaign caused by the warrant. It says he should stand trial for command responsibility for human rights abuses around the time of East Timor's 1999 vote for independence. Mr Gusmao left the meeting without speaking to reporters.

The formal campaign to elect Indonesia's next president begins this week. Many observers consider Mr Wiranto a good chance in the July 5 poll because he is the endorsed candidate of the Golkar Party, the biggest in the Parliament.

To win, he needs to neutralise the allegations of human rights abuses against him. And in trying to do so, he has found East Timor's leaders among his strongest supporters. East Timor's Attorney-General Longuinhos Monteiro has already applied, unsuccessfully, to the court to have Mr Wiranto's arrest warrant stopped and has promised publicly that it will not be passed on to Interpol.

Mr Gusmao recently met Indonesian President Megawati Soekarnoputri to discuss the sensitive issue and to stress his position that East Timor wants good relations with Indonesia above all and that human rights cases are being pushed by the United Nations.

In an interview with The Age 10 days ago, Mr Gusmao praised Indonesia's "courageous" and "admirable" actions in prosecuting some of its soldiers for human rights abuses in East Timor, even though the trials have been widely condemned as a sham.

Mr Gusmao also said good relations with Indonesia were vital to his country and it was time the UN war crimes prosecutors responsible for human rights abuses left East Timor and went home.

Gusmao to meet Wiranto despite Horta's caution

Jakarta Post - May 29, 2004

Jakarta -- Despite strong opposition from a senior minister, East Timor President Xanana Gusmao is being firm in his decision to go ahead with a scheduled Saturday meeting in Bali with presidential aspirant Gen. (ret) Wiranto, who has been indicted by a United Nations-backed East Timorese court for crimes against humanity in the former Indonesian territory.

Foreign minister Ramos Horta said he had told Gusmao it was not wise to meet Wiranto before Indonesia's direct presidential election on July 5, because it could send the wrong message to both countries.

"I would say it is not appropriate. If Wiranto really wants to speak to Xanana, they should wait until after the election. Election time is always a very sensitive period, it can send the wrong messages to one side and another," Horta told The Jakarta Post from his Dili office on Friday.

When asked about Gusmao's response to his advice, Horta said, "My president decided that he wishes to meet Wiranto. He probably will go ahead on the weekend and I respect (his decision)." Wiranto, nominated by the Golkar Party, was Indonesian Military (TNI) commander and defense minister during the 1999 East Timorese independence referendum, which was followed by massacres in the tiny territory.

An East Timorese court issued on May 10 a warrant for Wiranto's arrest for alleged crimes against humanity during the post- referendum violence.

Gusmao, however, has repeatedly pointed out that it would be more beneficial for both countries if they moved forward to promote bilateral relations rather than focusing on past bitterness.

While stressing that "I do not wish to make any judgment on Wiranto", Horta said, "East Timorese people and the families of victims would forgive Wiranto if he acknowledged his responsibility in the Dili incident".

"... It will also help East Timor leaders to resolve issues of justice with the United Nations," said the 1996 Nobel Peace co- laureate.

He said a public apology would help to improve Wiranto's image and boost his credibility in the international community.

The head of Wiranto's media team, Despen Ompusunggu, was quoted by the Agence France-Presse as saying on Friday that the meeting's agenda included discussing the charges against Wiranto.

The meeting comes just two weeks after President Megawati Soekarnoputri held bilateral talks with Gusmao in Bali.

The two presidents discussed issues including human rights and the case against Wiranto. Following the meeting, Gusmao said his government could not annul the arrest warrant for Wiranto. However, he added, it would also do nothing to realize it.

When asked why he did not oppose Gusmao's meeting with Megawati, Horta replied that the East Timor president met with Megawati in her capacity "as the President of the Republic of Indonesia".

He added, "if the Indonesian people elect Wiranto as the president of the Republic of Indonesia, the government of Timor Leste [East Timor] will respect their choice".

Lay off Wiranto, Gusmao tells law man

Sydney Morning Herald - May 25, 2004

Matthew Moore, Jakarta -- East Timor's President Xanana Gusmao says he has told his country's top law officer it is not in East Timor's interests to try to prosecute Indonesia's former military commander Wiranto for crimes against humanity.

Mr Gusmao said he raised the matter with the prosecutor-general, Longuinhos Monteiro, to make him aware of the damage that could result in East Timor's relations with Indonesia from an attempt to prosecute Wiranto, a candidate in the presidential election in Indonesia in July.

Mr Gusmao contacted Mr Monteiro to "remind the prosecutor-general of what is in the interests of the state".

His remarks appear to go some way to explaining Mr Monteiro's decision a fortnight ago to block attempts by United Nations- backed human rights lawyers working for him to prosecute Wiranto.

Mr Monteiro stunned his own staff members when he wrote to the Special Panel of the Dili Court, seeking to withdraw an indictment filed by his deputy prosecutor in February last year and used by the court on May 10 to issue Wiranto's arrest warrant.

The court rejected his request, but Mr Monteiro has since said he will not ask Interpol to issue an international warrant for Wiranto's arrest, a move that further undermines the pursuit of those responsible for the bloodshed in East Timor at the time of its independence vote in 1999.

In an interview with the Herald Mr Gusmao reiterated his view that good relations with Indonesia were vital for East Timor, especially in finalising the shared border and negotiating an agreement for people on both sides to cross it easily.

Mr Gusmao said it was time for the UN to put the money it uses to fund investigations and trials of suspected human rights offenders into projects to help East Timorese.

"For us, I would say I'd like to help out the judicial system, the local courts." He said people were spending eight or nine months in jail, awaiting hearings over minor thefts for which they were subsequently given a two-month sentence.

He questioned the point of issuing indictments and arrest warrants against suspected offenders living in Indonesia when Indonesia had refused to send them to East Timor to be prosecuted.

"I want to be realistic. If we issue here an indictment, can we go to Indonesia to catch anyone there? Very realistically, we can . . . sign [indictments] every day, every hour. We sign indictments and the world will continue to pay the people with big wages and we wait, and if they come across the border we can arrest them."

Mr Monteiro has been unavailable to the foreign media to explain his decision to abandon the pursuit of Wiranto. As late as last month he was a strong advocate of attempts to prosecute a group of former and serving senior Indonesian military officers accused of responsibility for the bloodshed.

East Timor can't annul arrest warrant for Wiranto

Deutsche Presse Agentur - May 16, 2004

Jakarta -- East Timor's President Xanana Gusmao said his government could not annul an arrest warrant for Indonesian retired General Wiranto issued by a United Nations-backed human rights tribunal based in Dili, Indonesia's news agency reported Sunday.

Gusmao, who met with Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri, Saturday night on the resort island of Bali, said his government had no authority to annul the arrest warrant issued for Wiranto by the Serious Crimes Unit (SCU) on May 10, but it would do nothing to "carry it out," reported the state-run Antara news agency. The two leaders met to discuss on-going problems in resolving cases of human rights violations perpetrated in East Timor, a former Indonesian territory that suffered a bloodbath in 1999 after the populace voted for independence from Jakarta in a UN-backed referendum.

East Timor was under UN supervision between 1999 and May 20, 2002, when it became a sovereign state. While still under UN control, the international community helped set up the SCU human rights court in Dili, East Timor's capital, to investigate human rights abuses allegedly committed by Indonesian officials and East Timorese militia during the 1999 mayhem in which more than 1,000 people died.

The SCU, which includes foreign and East Timor judges, on May 10 issued an arrest warrant for Wiranto, a popular candidate in Indonesia's upcoming presidential election on July 5, following up on an indictment of the retired general issued by the same court in February, 2003.

The arrest warrant has strained Indonesian ties with East Timor, putting the tiny nation in a tough spot diplomatically, since the territory remains dependent on its giant neighbour for trade and transportation links. "The [East Timor] government does not always follow or recognize SCU's decisions," Gusmao told Antara.

While Gusmao acknowledged that his government could not annul the arrest warrant for Wiranto issued by the SCU, he said they would not do anything to carry it out.

For the arrest warrant to apply internationally, East Timor's government would need to officially present it to Interpol. This would, in theory, make Wiranto eligible for arrest and deportation in all countries around the world.

Both government leaders agreed that they did not want the issue of past human rights violations to disturb their bilateral relations.

Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda, talking to reporters after the meeting of the two presidents, said that both governments had agreed they did not want the East Timor human rights cases, such as Wiranto's, to be taken to an international tribunal.

"It in both nations' interest that the two countries must be able to face international pressure," he added.

Indonesia has thus far ignored the SCU's arrest warrant as not applicable in Indonesia since it was not officially submitted by the East Timor government.

Timor wants solution to crimes 'acceptable to all': Horta

Associated Press - May 16, 2004

Dili -- East Timor wants to find a solution "acceptable to all" for crimes against humanity committed in its territory in 1999 by Indonesian troops and pro-Indonesia militias, its foreign minister said Sunday.

Jose Ramos Horta told reporters that Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri and East Timor President Xanana Gusmao meet for two hours on Indonesia's resort island of Bali late Saturday.

They discussed a push by the United Nations to bring to justice those responsible for killing some 1,500 people after East Timor voted for independence from Indonesia in a 1999 referendum.

He said the two leaders did not specifically discuss Indonesian Gen. Wiranto, who was slapped with an arrest warrant by a UN- backed special tribunal last week for his alleged role in the 1999 violence. Wiranto, a presidential candidate in July 5 polls, headed Indonesia's army at the time of the East Timor vote.

The vote sparked a murderous rampage by Indonesian troops and their militia proxies, which also destroyed much of East Timor's infrastructure.

Horta said East Timor, Indonesia and the UN are still looking "at what further steps could be taken that would be acceptable to all." He said it was too early to disclose what those steps would be. "[We will] explore some ideas based [our] interest and concern including the issue of justice, without losing focus ... of the strong bilateral ties between East Timor and Indonesia," Horta said.

Indonesia's foreign minister, Hassan Wirajuda, said the talks focused on "reconciliation," border issues and other bilateral matters. He did not elaborate.

Gusmao earlier said he would not support the charges against Wiranto, arguing that improving relations with Indonesia is more important than seeking justice for the victims of the massacres.

The chief prosecutor in the capital, Dili, also said he would try to revoke the warrant, saying it was premature and that the case needed further review.

Last year, UN prosecutors working in the tiny nation indicted Wiranto for his alleged command responsibility for "murder, deportation and persecution" committed during 1999.

He has denied any wrongdoing, saying the indictment was an effort to undermine his candidacy in the July 5 presidential elections.

Some estimates say as many as 200,000 East Timorese died during Indonesia's two-decade occupation as a result of military operations, starvation and disease.

Wirayuda plays down arrest warrant for Wiranto

Jakarta Post - May 12, 2004

Jakarta -- Minister of Foreign Affairs Hassan Wirayuda and several members of the House of Representatives on Tuesday shrugged off the United Nations-backed East Timorese court's decision to issue an arrest warrant for former Indonesian Military chief Gen. (ret) Wiranto after charging him with crimes against humanity.

"It [the warrant] has no international jurisdiction, including on Indonesia. So why we should make a fuss about it," Hassan said during a hearing with House Commission I, which oversees security and foreign affairs here. Hassan said he had not yet received the official letter from East Timor about the arrest warrant.

The UN-backed court on Monday issued the arrest warrant for Wiranto, who is also the Golkar Party's presidential candidate, for his alleged crimes against humanity in East Timor in 1999 when the Timorese voted to reject autonomy and eventually become independent.

The foreign minister also said that the East Timor Serious Crimes Unit (SCU), which indicted Wiranto last year and sought the arrest warrant, was not established by the United Nations. According to him, the SCU may issue a 1,000 warrants but they would not affect Indonesian citizens.

Effendi Choirie, a House member from the National Awakening Party (PKB), called on the government to reject any warrant that would bring any Indonesians to a foreign court. "Wiranto is an Indonesian citizen, and if he makes a mistake he must be tried in Indonesia," he argued.

Another legislator Maj. Gen. (ret) Sidharto Danusubroto said that the government should study carefully all the legal consequences over the issuance of the warrant as "East Timor was once Indonesian territory". "The SCU may argue that during the alleged crimes, East Timor was an Indonesian province," Sidharto said.

Meanwhile in Dili, East Timor's prosecutor general lashed out on Tuesday at "his men" who issued an arrest warrant for Wiranto and demanded changes in the approach to the case.

Prosecutor General Longuinhos Monteiro filed a court motion for a "revision" of the case against Wiranto, AFP reported on Tuesday from Dili. "I regret that arrest warrant," Monteiro told a press conference. "My men have opened fire without an order from me," he said, implying that subordinates acted without authorization.

Montero also reportedly said his trust in the United Nations and in the court's international staff had diminished. It was not immediately clear how this would affect the case against Wiranto, who is one of the leading candidates for Indonesia's presidency.

According to Reuters, some top East Timorese officials have suggested they are more interested in pursuing stronger economic and political ties with giant neighbor Indonesia than cases involving the tiny territory's bloody break from Jakarta in 1999.

Human Rights Cases Linked to Wiranto

Case

Date

Casualties

Notes

Trisakti shooting

May 12, 1998

four

was questioned

May riots

May 13-15, 1998

hundreds

as witness

Semanggi I incident

November, 1998

13

by the fact

Semanggi II incident

September, 1999

eight

finding team

East Timor riot

September, 1999

hundreds

[no notes]

Timor's chief prosecutor wants arrest warrant revoked

Associated Press - May 13, 2004

Dili -- East Timor's chief prosecutor has asked judges to revoke an arrest warrant for Indonesian presidential candidate Gen. Wiranto over the 1999 violence in the half-island nation, saying prosecutors needed to further review the case.

Longuinhos Monteiro described the warrant issued by the UN-backed special tribunal earlier this week as "premature."

"My men have jumped the gun and it was a stupid move," Longuinhos Monteiro said, referring to the UN-backed special prosecutors in his office who issued Wiranto's warrant earlier this week. "I've filed a letter, not to close the case, but to revise it," Monteiro said in a press statement received Thursday.

Wiranto headed Indonesia's army when East Timor voted for independence after 24 years of Indonesian occupation, sparking a rampage by troops and their militia proxies that killed 1,500 people and destroyed much of the infrastructure.

He has denied any wrongdoing, saying the indictment was an effort to undermine his candidacy in upcoming presidential elections in Indonesia.

East Timor's political leaders have said they would not support the case against Wiranto, arguing that improving relations with their giant neighbor is more important than seeking justice for the victims.

Last year, UN prosecutors working in the tiny nation indicted Wiranto for his alleged command responsibility for "murder, deportation and persecution" committed during the violence.

East Timor became the world's newest nation in 2001 after a period of transitional rule by the United Nations. The world body still keeps a small peacekeeping force, provides technical assistance and funds efforts to bring those responsible for crimes against humanity to justice.

Wiranto is running for president in Indonesia's July 5 election. Recent polls have suggested that he trails far behind the front- runner in the race, former security minister Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, and incumbent President Megawati Sukarnoputri.

Wiranto should face his accusers

Melbourne Age Editorial - May 13, 2004

With a warrant out for his arrest, the general should not be a political candidate.

The presidential campaign of Indonesia's Golkar Party is off to a shaky start -- in international eyes at least. A United Nations court in East Timor has issued a warrant for the arrest of the party's candidate, the former Indonesian armed forces commander, Wiranto.

Golkar is the machine that kept former president Soeharto in power for more than three decades, and earlier this week Wiranto seemed to be trying to shed the taint of the Soeharto era: he announced that the human rights campaigner Solahuddin Wahid, younger brother of former president Abdurrahman Wahid, would be his vice-presidential running mate in the election scheduled for July 5. The arrest warrant, however, has taken the gloss off that announcement.

The warrant, which follows an indictment by the Special Panel for Serious Crimes in East Timor 16 months ago, could theoretically be exercised any time General Wiranto steps outside Indonesia. The charges upon which it is based specify "the crimes against humanity of murder, deportation and persecution". They relate to the terror that gripped East Timor in late 1999, when armed militias backed by the Indonesian military rampaged through the territory killing an estimated 1500 people.

The Special Crimes Unit has specified that General Wiranto has been charged with "command responsibility for murder, deportation and persecution committed in the context of a widespread and systematic attack on the civilian population in East Timor". In short, General Wiranto stands accused of war crimes. The court's argument is that military commanders in such circumstances are criminally responsible if they knew or had reason to know of the commission of crimes against humanity by those under their effective control and failed to take reasonable action to prevent or punish the perpetrators.

General Wiranto has denied claims that he, or indeed the Indonesian military, was to blame for the violence in evidence to an Indonesian human rights tribunal. Instead he said the violence was rooted in internal conflict among opponents and supporters of East Timorese independence. If General Wiranto is confident of this, then he has nothing to fear in fronting a tribunal in East Timor. As a responsible member of the UN, Indonesia should do its part to ensure that he does so. Wiranto is not considered the frontrunner for the presidency, although Indonesian politics have become volatile and unpredictable. The mere possibility that he might become president with such charges hanging over him is cause for serious alarm not just in Indonesia, but among its neighbours and the broader international community. While General Wiranto's charm, charisma and promise of strong leadership may have some pull at home, it is unlikely to hold such sway outside Indonesia. He should face the charges, and either clear his name or endure the consequences.

Doubts on warrant lift Wiranto's campaign

Sydney Morning Herald - May 13, 2004

Matthew Moore, Jakarta -- East Timor's top prosecutor has said there "might be some defects" in an indictment against former and serving Indonesian officers accused of human rights abuses in a move that appears certain to sink any further attempts to prosecute them.

The prosecutor-general of East Timor, Longuinhos Monteiro, wrote to the judge at the Special Panel for Serious Crimes in the Dili District Court on Monday. Dr Monteiro requested the court to allow him to review the 15,000-page indictment filed with the court by his office on February 24 last year.

He sent the letter just hours after an American judge on the Special Panel issued an arrest warrant for the former Indonesian armed forces commander, Wiranto. The former general is accused of responsibility for the deaths of some 1500 Timorese in 1999.

The doubts will boost Wiranto's campaign for Indonesia's presidency, allowing him to dismiss accusations he is guilty of human rights abuses.

Dr Monteiro says in his two-paragraph letter that the indictment against Wiranto, six top Indonesian military officers and the former East Timor governor, Abilio Soares, should be reviewed. An amended indictment should be filed in court later, he says.

"The trial has not commenced yet despite the fact more than a year has elapsed and this points to a feeling there might be some defects in the filed indictment," the letter says.

Dr Monteiro does not detail the supposed defects nor why they were not raised before. His office produced and published a summary of the indictment less than two months ago.

His attempt to withdraw the indictment on the same day as a warrant was finally issued against Wiranto has stunned human rights observers. They have been pushing for UN-backed prosecutors to keep pursuing those accused of the bloodshed that followed East Timor's 1999 vote for independence.

The move has fuelled speculation that Wiranto has struck a deal with the East Timorese Government to stall or drop attempts to prosecute him.

Just three weeks ago, Dr Monteiro issued a statement denying a report in The Jakarta Post, which had quoted him as saying Wiranto was unlikely to be tried for human rights abuses.

He said on April 19: "[Wiranto] failed in his responsibilities as the ultimate commander of all army and police forces in East Timor in 1999 to prevent the commission of crimes against humanity and also failed to punish the perpetrators.

"It is expected that a decision will be issued by the Special Panel in the near future on the matter of the arrest warrant for Wiranto," he said.

Sources in East Timor believe Dr Monteiro's sudden change of heart has followed heavy pressure from senior figures in East Timor's Government, which seeks good relations with Indonesia.

Wiranto, the Golkar party candidate, is extremely sensitive to accusations that he is responsible for rights abuses in East Timor.

Wiranto arrest in doubt

The Australian - May 13, 2004

Sian Powell, Jakarta -- In an extraordinary reversal, East Timor's prosecutor-general has distanced himself from an arrest warrant issued for Wiranto, former Indonesian armed forces commander and heavyweight presidential candidate in Indonesia's forthcoming election.

Longuinhos Monteiro told local reporters the case needed revision and he had lost faith in the UN staff who helped compile it.

The UN-funded Serious Crimes Unit indicted Wiranto last year for crimes against humanity, charging him with command responsibility in 1999 when the Indonesian military and its militia proxies laid waste to East Timor, leaving 1500 East Timorese dead.

This week a US judge on the Special Panel for Serious Crimes, which has been trying those arrested for the 1999 violence, issued an arrest warrant for the former general, a move likely to have created tensions between East Timor and Indonesia.

East Timorese leaders including President Xanana Gusmao and Foreign Minister Jose Ramos Horta have downplayed Wiranto's culpability for war crimes, in the interests of smooth relations with East Timor's giant neighbour.

Dr Monteiro said on Tuesday he had misgivings about the Wiranto case and that action would be taken to change East Timor's approach.

"I filed a letter this morning which did not close the case but for the sake of revising the case," he said. "The case is still being followed up."

Timorese judge issues warrant for Wiranto's arrest

ABC PM Today - May 10, 2004

Mark Colvin: Indonesia's former military commander in chief, General Wiranto, is a man of shifting fortunes. Just a few weeks ago, he tasted his first ballot box victory, storming to the presidential nomination for the Golkar Party, formerly led by President Suharto. But just weeks before the Presidential campaign is due to begin, an East Timorese judge has issued a warrant for Wiranto's arrest on war crimes charges.

Our Indonesia Correspondent, Tim Palmer, joins me on the line from Jakarta.

Tim how did this news become public?

Tim Palmer: Well it was issued directly, and a surprise even to the special team of prosecutors in East Timor, from the court in East Timor, and a surprise because it's been more than a year since the special crime unit in East Timor, which has some backing from the United Nations but is an independent international body, since they issued an indictment citing President Wiranto for these issues of command responsibility that they say amount to crimes against humanity, specifically over the deaths of 1,400 people and the forced evacuation of many thousands of people in the lead up to East Timor's independence.

So it was a surprise, the timing, after a year, and especially given the political timing here in Indonesia.

Mark Colvin: Has General Wiranto made any reaction, or has there been any reaction from his political machine?

Tim Palmer: No. He's in fact involved in some fairly tight negotiations at the moment in Surabaya for his vice presidential nominee, who looks like being Gus Dur's brother, the former president's brother, a person who was as a leading figure in Indonesian human rights movements, so quite a peculiar situation developing there.

But nothing from the General. He has said most recently that he's already stood trial over East Timor. He cites the fact that he's been in a court and given some evidence, but he's never actually had to go into the dock, either in Indonesia or anywhere else to defend himself over these issues, no matter what he says.

Mark Colvin: He's never been charged, you're saying?

Tim Palmer: He's never been charged, and he didn't face the ad hoc tribunal that was set up in Jakarta that largely whitewashed most of those military figures that did go before it in Indonesia in any case, but he's ah, his supporters have over the past few months pushed this line that while an indictment has been issued, East Timor wasn't willing to go any further, and that's why an arrest warrant hadn't been issued, and wasn't going to be issued. So this certainly pulls the rug from under that line of defence.

Mark Colvin: Well Golkar and its supporters knew very well that this was looming one way or another, that it was a possibility when they put him in. Why do you think they went ahead?

Tim Palmer: Possibly because they're not very worried about it to some extent. Wiranto, this singing General has waged a fairly strong grass roots campaign across the country, appealing to people even though Golkar probably still only has a fairly minor amount of support for the presidency, but the people he has appealed to, like his idea of strength and a return to the kind of tough military values that he represents.

And at the same time, you have to realise, that as Foreign Minister Alexander Downer put it at the time when Wiranto gained this nomination, he wouldn't criticise Wiranto directly because to do so would probably only in Indonesia perversely give him more support...

Mark Colvin: ...because it would seem like foreign interference?

Tim Palmer: It is this classic line in Indonesia, as you say, of foreign interference, of people intervening and trying to attack and undermine Indonesia...

Mark Colvin: But it's still, I mean there is still this spectre of him becoming like Milosovic or Ratko Mladic or somebody like that who's just persona non grata everywhere. I mean, can Indonesians really contemplate even the possibility, the outside possibility, let's put it as far as that, that they could have a president in that position?

Tim Palmer: Well, you have to look at it that the prosecutors in East Timor will probably now move very quickly, as they have with other people who have had warrants issued, to have him listed on Interpol. So he's going to enter this period where he, he probably wouldn't be able to travel without being arrested.

Having said that, the safest place for a person in that position is probably the presidency. If you look at the example of a case such as Ariel Sharon, who, before his election was considered in Israel under command responsibility by most Israelis as unelectable for exactly the same reason, and yet his ascent to the prime ministership was the best thing for him because while in the office, there seems to be a convention of not pursuing matters like this, and I think Wiranto would probably feel the same thing.

Probably at this stage, though, he is such an outsider for the presidency that he is looking down the barrel of being restricted to Indonesia, or facing arrest.

Mark Colvin: Okay Tim Palmer, thank you very much.th some 30 million members, on Sunday announced his running mate as Siswono Yudhohusodo, who leads the Indonesian Farmers Brotherhood Union (HKTI).

Siswono, who served as a minister several times during the Suharto era, had been nominated as a presidential candidate by a grouping of several political parties, including the Islamic Unity Party (PSI), before deciding to row in with Rais "after a month of contemplation".

There are fears that progress toward a strong civil society would be thwarted should either of the two generals win power. Even the incumbent president's party has expressed concern about the rise of military figures as leading presidential candidates, saying it could pose a threat to democracy.

Yet Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono remains odds-on favorite in opinion polls. The birth of his Democratic Party was a direct result of his failure to become vice president during the Special Session of the MPR in July 2001 that toppled Gus Dur. Nominated by the Justice and Unity Party led by retired General Edi Sudrajat, a former defense minister, Yudhoyono failed to qualify for the final vote, losing out to Hamzah Haz and Akbar Tanjung.

The lesson was quickly learned by many generals: to be a national leader it is necessary to have strong support from the parties or even to be a leader in a major party.

A total of 8.45 million people voted on April 5 for the Democratic Party, giving it 7.45 percent of the total tally and 57 seats in the DPR. The party's policies are similar to the platform of the military itself: defending the independence and sovereignty of the republic based on the state Pancasila philosophy and the now-amended 1945 constitution.

Five parties -- the United Development Party (PPP), Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), Crescent Star Party (PBB), Reform Star Party (PBR) and Indonesian Nahdlatul Community Party (PPNUI) -- are Islamic parties. PKB and PAN, though Islamic-based, see themselves as nationalist parties

The 1999 elections highlighted the failure of Islamic parties to campaign on the key issues. Altogether, the major Islamic parties drew a third of the vote then. The focus was solely on one issue -- Islam. This year they dropped religious issues from the campaigning and appealed to voters on general issues such as corruption and the economy. Ethnic and religious differences were kept under wraps. The message was one of tolerance and pluralism.

Other than PKS, however, the other major Islamic political parties did not perform as well they had hoped. PPP, the biggest Islamic-based party, won 58 seats to finish third; PAN won 52 seats, an increase from 34 in the 1999 elections; followed by PKS with 45 seats, a major increase from the seven seats it won in 1999.

Yet Islamic organizations continue to try to make the giant leap into the secular mainstream. Four of the seven agreed on Saturday to nominate common presidential and vice-presidential candidates, said Hamzah Haz, the country's current vice president and the chairman of PPP.

The three Islamic-based parties left outside of this embryo coalition are the PBR, the PBB and the PKS.

The Jakarta Stock Exchange was down all last week, hurt by political uncertainty and local security concerns, dealers said. The failure of any party to win a large majority of seats has discouraged investors.

Prospects for the economy and business have been sidelined for the time being in the wider interests of getting a grip on power, but there are social issues building up a head of steam.

US Ambassador to Jakarta Ralph Boyce warned this month, "What is ticking, I think, is that there are millions of people coming into the workforce on a net basis every year that have to find jobs, and, absent major increases in domestic and foreign investment, that's a concern for anybody that values stability."

Wiranto continues to attract controversy

Radio Australia - May 11, 2004

Indonesian presidential candidate, former armed forces chief Wiranto continues to attract controversy. United Nations prosecutors in East Timor have issued an arrest warrant against General Wiranto for alleged crimes against humanity. Questions are also being asked about the general's choice of Vice Presidential running mate -- the brother of former President Abdurrahman Wahid, Solahuddin Wahid.

Presenter/Interviewer: Karon Snowdon

Speakers: Asmara Nababan, former Secretary General of the Indonesian Human Rights Commission, now Executive Director of the Institute for Democracy and Human Rights Studies in Jakarta; Karna Lesmana, campaign worker for Wiranto.

Snowdon: With just weeks before serious campaigning starts, former General Wiranto has described the latest legal move against him as a "character assassination".

Despite the allegations against him, Wiranto was chosen as the candidate for the Golkar Party in Indonesia's first direct elections for president.

Golkar won the most seats in the recent parliamentary elections and according to a member of his campaign committee, Karna Lesmana, the Party isn't worried about any public backlash.

Lesmana: No actually we, the Golkar Party understood what's happening, so they are actually really 100% solid behind Mr Wiranto. Because they know they actually from all the track record that he is a real statesman and Indonesia needs him, so that's why I think Golkar Party is solidly behind him.

Snowdon: The arrest warrant had been flagged in March by Deputy Prosecutor Nicholas Koumjian of East Timor's Special Crimes Unit.

He took the extraordinary step of publicly releasing the report of evidence accusing Wiranto of war crimes and of command responsibility for the abuses in East Timor after its vote for independence from Jakarta in 1999.

At first it appeared Koujian would get his desired result. But the indictment might end up stalling after a request by East Timor's chief prosecutor for a review of the case.

Senior investigators working on the special panel for serious crimes told the ABC they fear proceedings against Wiranto will be dropped because of concerns about the case by senior East Timorese leaders.

This was repeated by Karna Lesmana who accuses other Presidential candidates of stirring the issue up for political purposes.

Lesmana: And we even get some information from the Timor Leste (East Timor) government people who said they feel very sorry because people who are involved in this presidential candidate are playing this game you see.

Snowdon: While Wiranto and Golkar can dismiss the arrest warrant as a stunt to discredit his election campaign, others are taking it seriously. Asmara Nababan is a former Secretary General of the Indonesian Human Rights Commission. While in that role he believed an international tribunal was the only solution to Indonesia's failure to prosecute Wiranto and others accused of serious crimes in East Timor.

But he points out that Wiranto also stands accused of culpability over the military's role in inciting the May 1998 riots in Jakarta, sparked by the shooting of several anti-Suharto student demonstrators, and in which more than 12-hundred died and dozens of Chinese women were gang raped.

And his accuser was none other than his choice of Vice Presidential running mate, Solahuddin Wahid. Mr Wahid headed the team from the Human Rights Commission which investigated the riots.

Nababan: This is a question of the credibility of Mr Solahuddin Wahid. He was the head of the investigation team of the National Commission of Humnan Rights which investigated the May riots and came to the conclusion and recommended to the Attorney General that Wiranto is responsible for the gross human rights violations on May riots 1998.

Snowdon: Can we clarify that? Its my understanding that the investigation issued a summons for Mr Wiranto to appear as a witness during that investigation into the May riots. Was there a final report which accused him of responsibility for human rights violations during those riots?

Nababan: Yeah. And the report came with a set of recommendations to the Attorney General's offcie to further investigate.

Snowdon: With polls suggesting General Wiranto is running third in the race for president, Golkar is hoping Wahid will bring millions of votes from his famous name and from Nahdlatul Ulama. But Asmara Nababan says the families still waiting for justice after years of military violence, including those killed during the May riots, wont be among them.

Nababan: I got a call yesterday and today from many victims of several incidents, they're very mad, very angry that Solahuddin agree to become candidate for Vice President. The victims, the families of the victims are very upset.

Indonesia unlikely to act on Timorese warrant

ABC PM Today - May 10, 2004

Mark Colvin: It's unlikely that Indonesian authorities will act on the arrest warrant against General Wiranto. They've already failed to act on similar warrants in hundreds of other cases.

The Deputy Prosecutor for Serious Crimes in Dili, Nicholas Koumjian, outlined the case against Wiranto to Anne Barker.

Nicholas Koumjian: The evidence would show that the commander Wiranto had knowledge of the crimes, that they were about to occur, or had occurred, and that he did not make, take any measures to stop the violence.

The charges, as outlined in our brief that we submitted and made public, show that the militias who committed many of the crimes were armed, financed, directed, trained by the Indonesian military, and in many of the cases, the military committed the crimes alongside the militia, or stood by and let it happen.

General Wiranto at the time was the commander of all of the Indonesian armed forces, including the police, and our case shows that he failed to take any measures to prevent these crimes from happening and punish the perpetrators, although it resulted in a large number of deaths -- we conservatively estimate over 1,400 -- and the destruction of about three quarters of all the physical infrastructure including housing in East Timor.

Anne Barker: Can you sheet home the blame for so many deaths to one man?

Nicholas Koumjian: Well, the, ah, we don't attribute all blame to one person. We have charged 369 individuals. Any crime against humanity is committed, because of the very nature of crimes against humanity in this scale, it's committed by a group of people.

Wiranto is just one of many people we charged. In that indictment there were six or, excuse me, seven other high level officials, that what we have shown is that this was a joint enterprise. Wiranto is simply the highest ranking of all of the accused in our cases.

Anne Barker: What would have to happen for Wiranto to go to trial on these charges?

Nicholas Koumjian: Well Wiranto can go to trial on these charges if he chooses to face the charges in a court of law. If he agrees, he claims that he was too weak to control the forces and that they were out of his control, despite the fact that there were 18,000 Indonesian police and military forces in East Timor and only a few thousand lightly armed militia, if he believes in his innocence he can come to court and defend himself in a court of law.

Anne Barker: You've had arrest warrants issued against many dozens of people before now for similar crimes in East Timor. Have the Indonesian authorities ever acted on those warrants?

Nicholas Koumjian: Ah, no. None of the individuals that we've accused, who we believe to be in Indonesia, have been arrested.

Anne Barker: How might this affect Wiranto's candidacy for the Indonesian presidency?

Nicholas Koumjian: I wouldn't want to speculate upon that. That's really not what we're concerned with. We're concerned with bringing to justice people who are charged with crimes against humanity.

We filed these charges against Wiranto in February of 2003, long before he became a candidate for president. The mere fact that someone's running for office should not give them immunity for crimes against humanity and so we're continuing to pursue the charges.

Mark Colvin: Nicholas Koumjian, the Deputy Prosecutor for Serious Crimes in East Timor, and sorry about the slight problems with the technical quality on that line, he was talking to Anne Barker.

East Timor prosecutor seeks Wiranto warrant revision

Agence France Presse - May 11, 2004

East Timor's Prosecutor General has filed a court motion for a "revision" of the case against Indonesian presidential candidate Wiranto, a day after a UN-backed court issued a warrant for his arrest.

"I regret that arrest warrant," Prosecutor General Longuinhos Monteiro told a press conference. "My men have 'opened fire' without an order from me," he said, implying that his subordinates had acted without authorisation.

Meanwhile, hundreds of students and victims rallied outside the United Nations Mission in support of East Timor, calling for Wiranto to be brought before an international tribunal. Members of parliament questioned why the arrest warrant had been issued just days before the UN mission was due to be replaced by a smaller body.

Mr Monteiro also expressed suspicion about the timing of the warrant, which authorises Wiranto's arrest on charges of crimes against humanity. The charges include murder, deportation or the forcible transfer of people, and persecution.

The warrant alleges Wiranto, the former Indonesian Armed Forces commander, had responsibility for the military, police and militia forces who carried out the crimes surrounding East Timor's split from Indonesia in 1999. "Why wasn't the arrest warrant issued one year ago? Are there interests behind that?" Mr Monteiro said.

He gave no details about how the "revision" of Wiranto's case would be carried out but said it would have no influence on the warrant itself. "Now I hope for support from the people of Timor Leste to help me execute my strategy for settling the Wiranto case," he said.

Mr Monteiro heads a staff of UN-funded prosecutors who indicted Wiranto and six other senior officers in February 2003. Aside from Wiranto, only one has been served with an arrest warrant. In January, Mr Monteiro accused UN-appointed judges working in Dili of hindering his efforts to get the warrants.

East Timor's President Xanana Gusmao has said good relations with the former ruling power should take priority over court proceedings. Asked whether he was under political pressure within East Timor, Mr Monteiro said that he and the President had separate strategies but "as an East Timorese, I think more about the national interests of my people".

UN issues warrant for Indonesian general

The Guardian (UK) - May 11, 2004

John Aglionby, Jakarta -- A UN tribunal issued an arrest warrant yesterday against Indonesia's former military commander General Wiranto for crimes against humanity allegedly committed in East Timor five years ago.

Mr Wiranto is accused of the murder of 1,400 civilians and the forcible deportation of 200,000 people, who left East Timor in a crackdown after the territory's vote to end 23 years of Indonesian occupation and the persecution of the population at large.

Prosecutors said all countries had an obligation to detain the retired general, who is now one of the favourites in Indonesia's July 5 presidential election. Interpol is expected to issue an international arrest warrant within weeks.

But despite pressure from the international community, Indonesia said it would not respect the warrant because it does not recognise the jurisdiction of the tribunal.

Mr Wiranto, who denies any wrongdoing, laughed off the UN move as a political stunt to discredit his political ambitions. Analysts say they are not optimistic Mr Wiranto will ever face prosecution due to Indonesia's opposition, and neighbouring countries' reluctance to antagonise Jakarta.

The general is not expected to risk being seized by visiting potentially hostile countries.

Judge Philip Rapoza, a member of East Timor's special panels for serious crimes, said in the 20-page warrant: "There are reasonable grounds to believe that the defendant Wiranto, as a superior officer, bears command responsibility for the criminal actions of the military forces ... police and pro-autonomy militia under his authority."

A tribunal prosecutor, Nicholas Koumjian, said the warrant was issued after the submission of 15,000 pages of evidence, including the statements of 1,500 witnesses. "Wiranto, as commander of all the Indonesian armed forces, knew widespread and systematic attacks were taking place in East Timor," he said. "He failed to take any or reasonable measures to prevent the crimes or punish the perpetrators."

Mr Wiranto is one of more than 380 people indicted by the UN-run Serious Crimes Unit in Dili. Of those, about 50 have been convicted, mostly East Timorese militiamen unable to flee to Indonesia.

Indonesia's East Timor tribunal was roundly condemned internationally as a whitewash. The only guilty verdict upheld on appeal is in the case of the East Timorese civilian governor. The Wiranto warrant paints a different picture. It details how the military and their militia cohorts targeted pro-independence supporters first for persecution and then death.

"The killings involved both shootings and other forms of murder, including stabbings, slashings, beheadings and hacking victims to death," the warrant states. "The murders were often performed after the victim had been tortured, mutilated, raped or brutalised in some other manner."

Much of the violence occurred after the result of the referendum, in which 78% of voters opted for independence.

Mr Koumjian said Mr Wiranto winning the presidency would not suspend the warrant's validity. "There's no immunity for heads of state for crimes against humanity," he said.

Indonesia's foreign ministry spokesman, Marty Natelagawa, said the government was "not particularly troubled" about the warrant. "We don't recognise the jurisdiction of that particular panel in Indonesia so it's not anything of relevance to Indonesia."

It is uncertain what the impact of the warrant will be on Mr Wiranto's presidential chances. "This is a legal process and my legal team are already taking steps to face it," he told reporters. "I've never been declared a suspect in Indonesia, it's all just rumours. But it's strange that this emerged once I became a presidential candidate."

David Cohen of the Berkley War Crimes Studies Centre, who has followed events in East Timor closely, said: "I'm not terribly optimistic he will face trial. "An international arrest warrant will make his life harder but there are people in his position who have escaped prosecution for years and if he's free to move around the region this might not be too much of a bother for him."

Wiranto says political opponents behind arrest warrant

Agence France Presse - May 11, 2004

Indonesian's ex-military chief Wiranto has formally announced his presidential candidacy whilst dismissing an arrest warrant issued against him by an East Timor judge as "character assassination." "There are several pieces of information that are behind these charges, there clearly is an involvement of political activities in this country," Wiranto told reporters.

The warrant issued Monday accuses him of crimes against humanity for failing to prevent atrocities by army-backed militias against independence supporters in East Timor, then Indonesian territory, in 1999.

"There are always manoeuvres inside the country and abroad to take steps with one single aim, character assassination," Wiranto told reporters, dismissing the accusation as "very normal" in politics. He did not say who he thought was behind the warrant but hinted that it came from among his rivals in the July 5 presidential elections.

Wiranto said candidates should be offering solutions to the country's problems. "What I worry, what is developing instead, is that we mutually undermine ourselves, mutually kill ourselves and mutually destroy ourselves using ways that are not normal," he said.

Wiranto told a press conference he would leave the warrant to the Indonesian and East Timor governments to settle "in a respectful way." The Indonesian government has said it would ignore the warrant, from a UN-backed court. The Dili government said it would work with the ex-general if he won the election.

East Timor's prosecutor general on Tuesday filed a court motion for a "revision" of the case against Wiranto. "I regret that arrest warrant," the prosecutor general, Longuinhos Monteiro, told a press conference in Dili.

Wiranto is the candidate for the Golkar party which won the April 5 parliamentary poll.

He was Jakarta's military chief when the militiamen, who were organised and equipped by the Indonesian army, waged their murderous campaign in East Timor.

Some 1,400 people were killed before and after East Timorese voted in August 1999 for independence. About 200,000 people were deported to Indonesian West Timor and 70 percent of all buildings in the territory were destroyed. East Timor became independent in May 2002.

Wiranto said an investigation by Indonesia's National Human Rights Commission and attorney general had already cleared him of rights violations.

He said he was prepared to accept punishment if a single witness could be found to testify that he had ordered abuses. "But the reality is that we have never done that or allowed that to happen." Wiranto's vice presidential candidate is Solahuddin Wahid, a deputy chairman of Indonesia's largest Muslim organisation, the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU).

Solahuddin, a deputy chairman of the National Commission on Human Rights, has said he could understand people's worries about Wiranto's rights records.

But there were also "millions of NU members who want me to move forward and accompany Wiranto," he said.

Golkar party leader Akbar Tanjung said he expected the candidates would soon get formal endorsement from NU leaders and from leaders of the NU-linked National Awakening Party (PKB).

Ex-president Abdurrahman Wahid, who is Solahuddin's elder brother and who co-founded PKB, sat between his brother and Wiranto at the ceremony at which he formally announced his candidacy for the elections.

The near-blind elder Wahid, who has suffered several strokes, refuses to drop out of the presidential race despite a ruling that candidates must be in good health.

But analysts say they expect him to be disqualified, leaving the PKB free to support Golkar's candidates.

Wiranto faces UN warrant

Australian Financial Review - May 11, 2004

Andrew Burrell, Manila -- A United Nations-backed tribunal yesterday issued an arrest warrant for Indonesia's former military chief Wiranto, in a move that could become a wildcard issue in next month's presidential election campaign.

Mr Wiranto, who is running for president, could be arrested for war crimes if he travels outside Indonesia, which would prove an embarrassment should he win the top job at the July 5 election.

However, he cannot be arrested if he remains in Indonesia, as Jakarta has refused to extradite him over allegations he was ultimately responsible for the murder, deportation and persecution that took place in East Timor in 1999.

Mr Wiranto's aides could not be reached for comment last night, but he has long denied any wrongdoing and claimed the accusations of human rights abuses were drummed up by the international media.

It is unclear how the warrant will affect Mr Wiranto's high- profile campaign as the presidential candidate of the Golkar party, which last week was declared the winner of the April 5 parliamentary election.

However, his current lowly ranking in opinion polls would probably improve if the warrant inspired sympathy among nationalist voters who may view the tribunal's decision as foreign interference in Indonesia's legal system.

Conversely, the allegations could be used against him during the campaign by his political opponents, as well as foreign and local human rights groups.

This may benefit the presidential frontrunner, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, another former general who has a cleaner reputation than Mr Wiranto.

UN prosecutors in Dili allege that as military chief, Mr Wiranto held ultimate command responsibility for the military-backed militia violence that left 1500 people dead during East Timor's separation from Indonesia.

Last month, prosecutors set out their case against Mr Wiranto for the first time, publishing a thorough account of the evidence as part of their push for an Interpol arrest warrant.

"The evidence proves that the accused, as the highest military and police official in Indonesia, exercised effective control over the militias who perpetrated many of the crimes," the UN document said.

The UN's deputy general prosecutor in Dili, Nicholas Koumjian, said yesterday the warrant was an important step in attempts to bring to justice those responsible for the violence in East Timor.

"It sends a message that the victims have not been forgotten and that the international community will not tolerate impunity for those responsible for crimes against humanity, whoever they are."

Mr Wiranto is one of more than 83 people indicted by the UN- funded tribunal. Fifty have been convicted -- mostly East Timorese militiamen used as auxiliaries by the Indonesian troops during the rampage.

A spokesman for the Indonesian government, Marty Natalegawa, said last night Jakarta would not extradite Mr Wiranto because the warrant had not been issued by an official UN tribunal.

"From Indonesia's perspective it is purely an East Timor internal affair -- it is not a UN arrest warrant and we are not bound to it," he said "We will not surrender an Indonesian citizen to another country, based on a legal process we do not acknowledge."

The warrant was issued as Mr Wiranto confirmed yesterday he would contest the election with an Islamic figure, Solahuddin Wahid, as his vice-presidential running mate.

It is a noteworthy choice because Mr Wahid, a brother of former president Abdurrahman Wahid, is the deputy chairman of Indonesia's national human rights commission.

The other main contenders in the presidential race include President Megawati Soekarnoputri and parliamentary speaker Amien Rais.

Court issues warrant for Wiranto

Sydney Morning Herald - May 11, 2004

Matthew Moore, Jakarta -- A United Nations-funded court in East Timor has issued an arrest warrant for the Indonesian presidential candidate Wiranto, beginning a process that could see the former military commander arrested if he leaves the country.

An American judge at the Special Panel for Serious Crimes in East Timor issued the warrant against Wiranto, a former general, yesterday. The warrant comes nearly 16 months after UN prosecutors handed the court 15,000 pages of evidence as part of an indictment against Wiranto and seven other officers for crimes against humanity committed around the time of East Timor's 1999 vote for independence.

Although Wiranto is unlikely to be immediately arrested, the decision of the Dili court yesterday to accept the evidence of prosecutors and order his arrest and trial is a serious blow to his election campaign.

Wiranto was in Surabaya in East Java yesterday, briefing officials from his Golkar party on campaign strategy for the July 5 poll.

His campaign manager, Tito Sulistio, questioned whether the court had issued a warrant as announced in a statement from the UN- funded Serious Crimes Unit in East Timor. "We have not seen any letter; I want to see a formal letter saying this before I will respond," he said.

As commander of Indonesia's armed forces at the time of the 1999 vote for independence, Wiranto is accused of allowing militias as well as his own troops to kill some 1500 East Timorese.

The court's statement yesterday said Wiranto was charged "with command responsibility for murder, deportation and persecution committed in the context of a widespread and systematic attack on the civilian population in East Timor.

"International law holds commanders criminally responsible if they knew or had reason to know of the commission of crimes against humanity by those under their effective control but failed to take reasonable and necessary measures to prevent the crimes or punish the perpetrators."

An Interpol committee in East Timor will review the warrant and is likely to ask Interpol to arrest Wiranto if he leaves Indonesia. This process, however, is likely to take several months.

Wiranto yesterday met a leading human rights campaigner, Solahuddin Wahid, to finalise his agreement to be Wiranto's running mate in the July election.

Mr Wahid, the deputy head of Indonesia's Human Rights Commission -- Komnas Ham - said he and Wiranto would today register with election authorities for the July poll.

He admitted yesterday that many Indonesian human rights figures were disappointed by his decision, but he had agreed to stand for as vice-president "to help Wiranto overcome his situation".

Mr Wahid, who is the younger brother of the former president Abdurrahman Wahid and a deputy chairman of the biggest Islamic organisation, Nahdlatul Ulama, said Wiranto had assured him he could continue his human rights work if elected. The vice- president would take on human rights, fighting bureaucracy and corruption, he said.

Timor to cooperate with Wiranto if elected

Agence France Presse - May 2, 2004

East Timor President Xanana Gusmao says his country will cooperate with former general Wiranto, indicted for crimes against humanity in the territory, if he was elected Indonesian president.

"We will support anyone who is elected democratically in the July presidential election [in Indonesia], including Wiranto," Gusmao told a news conference.

He said good relations between Indonesia and East Timor would not be affected if Wiranto came to power.

Wiranto has been indicted by prosecutors in East Timor for crimes against humanity connected with the territory's bloody split from Indonesia in 1999.

He has been selected as the presidential candidate for the Golkar Party, which ruled Indonesia for 35 years under former president Suharto.

Golkar has claimed victory in the April 5 parliamentary election.

United Nations-funded prosecutors in East Timor indicted Wiranto last year and are seeking an arrest warrant.

They say that as army chief Wiranto failed to curb atrocities by army-backed militiamen against independence supporters in 1999. He says he did his best to avoid bloodshed.

More than 1,400 people were killed in the then-Indonesian province before and after East Timorese voted overwhelmingly for independence.

Indonesia will hold its first direct presidential election on July 5. Opinion polls show another former general, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, is favoured to win.

Rights groups dismayed as indicted ex-general wins nomination

Agence France Presse - April 21, 2004

Jakarta -- Rights activists expressed dismay on Wednesday after a former Indonesian military chief accused of crimes against humanity became the Golkar party's presidential candidate.

Wiranto, 57, has been indicted in East Timor for failing to curb army-backed militia atrocities against independence supporters in the Indonesian-ruled territory in 1999.

Golkar, which was founded by ex-dictator Soeharto and appears to have won this month's parliamentary election, selected Wiranto as its standard-bearer in the July 5 presidential polls at a convention early Wednesday.

"Wiranto must stand trial, not stand for office," said the East Timor Action Network, a US-based group seeking justice for the 1999 atrocities.

"Wiranto is responsible through acts of omission and commission for the gravest violations of human right in East Timor and Indonesia," said its spokesman, John Miller, in a statement.

"Wiranto's rise in Indonesian politics speaks volumes about the failure of the United Nations, the US and other countries to act quickly and forcefully for justice."

Wiranto described his election as a victory for party democracy, after trouncing party leader Akbar Tanjung by 315 votes to 227 in a second round of voting.

But his victory could cause concern in the United States and other Western nations because of his record in East Timor. United Nations-funded prosecutors in Dili, East Timor's capital, are seeking an arrest warrant for the ex-general.

The Washington Post reported in January that the US had put Wiranto and others accused of crimes in the territory on a visa watch list that could bar them from entering the country.

Wiranto, who was adjutant to Soeharto from 1989 to 1993, says he did his best to avert bloodshed in East Timor.

Some analysts said Wiranto will still face a tough battle to secure the presidency, currently held by Megawati Soekarnoputri.

Opinion polls conducted before Golkar's convention show another former general, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, far ahead of Megawati as preferred president.

Susilo has teamed up with former welfare minister Jusuf Kalla in what is seen as another boost to his chances.

"I don't think Wiranto's chances of becoming president are very high -- right now it looks as if the Yudhoyono-Kalla combination is difficult to beat," said Sidney Jones of the International Crisis Group of political analysts.

However, prominent activist Munir told AFP that Wiranto's candidacy was a sign of a "serious threat to democracy in Indonesia."

He said it reflected the continued dominance of the "Cendana family" -- Soeharto and his relatives -- within the Golkar party, and showed that people linked to Indonesia's past problems had regained political influence.

Munir said Wiranto's candidacy could be part of a strategy to guarantee that he will never face domestic prosecution for what happened in East Timor.

"If there is a strong reaction internationally, that will strengthen his domestic political support," Munir said, adding that Wiranto's candidacy will "make things difficult for Indonesia internationally."

The ex-general's record in East Timor is unlikely to cost him much support from voters. No major Indonesian newspaper made any reference to the indictment in Wednesday's editions.

Rights groups blast indicted general's presidential bid

Associated Press - April 20, 2004

Jakarta -- Indonesia's largest political party picked a retired general indicted for human rights abuses in East Timor as its presidential candidate Wednesday, drawing condemnation from critics who called him a war criminal. The Golkar Party of ex- dictator Suharto selected Gen. Wiranto _ who rose through the ranks of army to become military chief in the final days of the former strongman's 32-year rule -- to run in Indonesia's first direct presidential elections in July.

Wiranto, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, has been indicted by UN-backed prosecutors in East Timor of failing to stop his soldiers and their proxy militias from killing nearly 1,500 people in East Timor in 1999.

Although the indictment has damaged Wiranto's image in the eyes of some voters, he has tapped into an apparent nostalgia for the Suharto era when the economy was prosperous and the country relatively secure.

"Wiranto is the enemy of humanity. If he is elected president, then it is a total failure of democracy in Indonesia," said Jose Luis Oliveira, head of East Timor's leading rights group Yayasan Hak.

Public opinion surveys show that in the race for the top job, Wiranto trails far behind front-runner Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and incumbent President Megawati Sukarnoputri.

Nonetheless, Wiranto will likely capitalize on Golkar's political machinery and extensive reach _ it emerged as the largest party in parliamentary elections earlier this month _ and could improve his ratings.

His overnight election as the nominee at Golkar's convention in Jakarta came as a surprise because he beat out the party's chairman, Akbar Tandjung, who had been expected to win.

Many in the party see the charismatic Wiranto as more electable than Tandjung, a party stalwart who has battled numerous corruption charges.

Wiranto's indictment has not had much impact inside Indonesia and is rarely mentioned by the local media. But his nomination caused immediate concern abroad.

"We are dismayed at the Golkar Party's nomination of General Wiranto for president of Indonesia," said the New York-based East Timor Action Network. "Wiranto must stand trial not stand for office."

The Indonesian government has refused to extradite hundreds of indicted soldiers, officers and government officials to stand trial in East Timor over the 1999 violence that accompanied the territories' vote for independence in a UN-sponsored referendum.

"Wiranto is responsible ... for the gravest violations of human rights in East Timor and Indonesia," the rights group said in a statement.

It called for the establishment of an international war crimes tribunal akin to those for former Yugoslavia and Rwanda to try officers responsible for the bloodshed.

Wiranto has denied all charges and said they were part of a smear campaign to sidetrack his candidacy.

According to unconfirmed reports, the US State Department has placed Wiranto on its visa watch list, which would bar his travel to the United States.

Still, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and other Bush administration officials have pressed for lifting the congressional ban on military ties with Indonesia, broken off by the Clinton administration because of the bloody rampage by Wiranto's troops in East Timor.

Wolfowitz, a former ambassador to Jakarta, developed close ties with Indonesia's hardline generals and sees the armed forces as important allies against Muslim radicalism in Southeast Asia.

"If he does travel outside Indonesia, Wiranto should be arrested and transferred to East Timor," the human rights group said. "All nations should actively work to bring him to justice.

The July elections will be the first direct election for president. Previously, lawmakers chose the head of state.

In a speech to the convention of Golkar, Wiranto portrayed himself as a decorated military veteran who supported Indonesia's democratic transition and as the only candidate strong enough to hold the country together.

"This is a serious setback to the cause of human rights in Indonesia," said Munir, who heads Jakarta's Imparsial human rights group. "I fear democracy will suffer as a result."

News & issues

Reporter threatened with expulsion, journalists say

Associated Press - May 11, 2004

Sydney -- An Australian journalist has been arrested in East Timor, accused of subversion and threatened with expulsion, an international press freedom organization said Tuesday.

The claim by the group Reporters Without Borders came just a week after the Paris-based group lauded the fledgling nation for having one of Asia's freest presses.

Attacks on journalists are "extremely rare" in the former Indonesian province, and the country's press legislation is "among the most liberal in Asia," the group said last week.

But the same press watchdog expressed concern Tuesday over East Timor's treatment of freelance investigative reporter Julian King, 43, who was held for two days after his arrest in the capital, Dili, on May 6, it said.

King, a former correspondent with the Reuters news agency who now works regularly for Australian television channels, has lived in the country for four years.

Reporters Without Borders said police claimed to have found firearms at King's home during a search. They seized files, including a United Nations report on corruption in East Timor, it said.

King initially was told his residency papers were not in order and was then threatened with legal action for possessing weapons and for "subversion."

King has denied all the accusations. "I certainly don't own any bullets and I am certainly not out to destabilize the government," Reporters Without Borders quoted him as saying.

Student says bombs charge is a vendetta

Australian Associated Press - May 9, 2004

Daniel Dasey -- A Sydney man accused by East Timor's Prime Minister of being a subversive has denied any wrongdoing, saying he is the subject of a political vendetta.

Journalist and PhD student Julian King, who has lived in East Timor for four years, was arrested in Dili on Thursday and was being held in the city's police station yesterday afternoon.

He was questioned by police late yesterday and is expected to face court tomorrow on charges which may include possessing bombs and ammunition.

The East Timorese Prime Minister, Mari Alkatiri, has also accused King, 43, of taking part in the looting of his home during deadly riots in December 2002. "He's been abusing our tolerance, he's no journalist and he has his own agenda to subvert state institution," Mr Alkatiri told a Portuguese news agency on Friday.

But speaking to The Sun-Herald yesterday, Mr King said he was the victim of a campaign to have him expelled from the country for his criticism of some government decisions.

"The Government seems to have a vendetta against me because I'm highly critical of their Timor Gap oil contract with Australia, among other things," he said. "[The police] say they found a small packet of cartridges in my bedroom and two bombs. I certainly don't own any bullets, I don't have any weapons and I'm certainly not out to destabilise the Government.

"I'm just an investigative journalist and a student doing a PhD looking at the United Nations program here."

Mr King, who also works with non-government organisations, said his brush with authorities began on Wednesday when he was taken by police for questioning over his visa.

He was questioned for more than eight hours before being released and told to leave the country within 48 hours, which he intended to dispute.

On Thursday morning police raided Mr King's house and he was arrested and placed in custody.

Mr King said yesterday he intended to fight all charges against him. He denied taking part in the looting of the Prime Minister's home. "I've got a very good lawyer," he said. "As far as I know I have done nothing wrong."

A Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokeswoman said Mr King had been detained because his activities were incompatible with his visa. She was not aware if he would also face other charges.

Relations between East Timor and Australia are tense as the nations negotiate a permanent maritime boundary which would settle each nation's share of offshore oil and gas reserves.

Alkatiri says expelled Australian ransacked his home

Agence France Presse - May 8, 2004

East Timor Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri said that an Australian activist and freelance journalist ordered expelled from the country a day earlier had participated in the looting of his home in 2002.

He told Portuguese news agency Lusa he had evidence that Julian King had "very openly participated" in deadly rioting in Dili in December 2002 and was the "first person to enter my house".

Two people were killed during the two days of unrest which rocked the East Timorese capital and some 10 buildings were ransacked and burned down, including the home of Alkatiri and houses owned by two of his brothers.

The violence was the worst since Indonesian troops and their militia proxies withdrew in 1999, destroying much of the country as they left.

"He's been abusing our tolerance, he's no journalist and he has his own agenda to subvert state institution," Alkatiri told the agency after talks with East Timor President Xanana Gusmao. The prime minister added he felt King should have left "long ago".

King, who has lived in East Timor for more than four years, was detained for questioning by police in Dili Thursday and given 48 hours to leave the country because of his alleged meddling in domestic politics.

He has told Australian media he helps veterans of the Falintil independence movement find work with non-governmental organizations in East Timor and provides footage for Australian television stations.

King's expulsion comes at a time of growing tension between East Timor and Australia over negotiations to set a permanent maritime boundary between the two nations which would settle each nation's share of offshore oil and gas reserves.

The half-island territory spent some 450 years as a neglected Portuguese colony before it was invaded by neighbouring Indonesia in 1975 after Lisbon abruptly withdrew.

East Timor officially became independent from Indonesia in May 2002 after its people voted overwhelmingly in a UN-backed referendum in 1999 to break free from Jakarta.

Media watchdog praises Timor's respect for press freedom

Associated Press - May 4, 2004

Dili -- Just two years after gaining independence, East Timor has one of Asia's freest presses, an international watchdog group said.

Attacks on journalists are "extremely rare" in the former Indonesian province, and the country's press legislation is "among the most liberal in Asia," Paris-based Reporters Without Borders said in a report provided to The Associated Press on Tuesday.

There are about a dozen independent newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations, all privately owned, in this country of just 700,000 people.

Despite the praise East Timor has won for its press freedom, spats have occasionally flared between the government and media in Asia's newest nation. Officials have accused the main radio and TV broadcasters of turning their stations into "an instrument of propaganda against the government."

The criticism followed media coverage of a conflict between an opposition politician and the ruling party.

The report from Reporters Without Borders said the present situation showed significant progress in the area. At least half a dozen foreign journalists were killed by Indonesian troops during their 1975-79 occupation of East Timor, which had previously been a Portuguese colony.

The circumstances of the journalists' deaths have not yet been clarified. A UN-funded war crimes tribunal in 2001 opened an investigation into the killings, but Indonesia has refused to allow the interrogation of former Indonesian military commanders who were then operating in East Timor.

Health & education

Girl's death highlights poor healthcare

Radio Australia - May 14, 2004

As East Timor prepares for the second anniversary of independence next week, the country remains one of the world's poorest. For most East Timorese, education and basic health care -- even access to clean water -- are beyond reach. The situation has been highlighted by the death of a 12 year old girl.

Presenter/Interviewer: Marion MacGregor

Speakers: Dr Nurul Islam, the United Nations forensic pathologist in East Timor; Rui Arauju, East Timor's Health Minister

MacGregor: September 2003 in a village in the Almeira district, 12-year-old Julmira Babo was playing outside when she collapsed on the ground, unconscious. Believing she'd been struck down black magic, her family administered traditional medicine. But a few days later, on the first of October, Julmira died. The police took her body to the United Nations Serious Crimes Unit in Dili. There, an autopsy was conducted by forensic pathologist Dr Nurul Islam. He was shocked at what he found.

Muhammad Nurul Islam: There were hundreds and hundreds of worms inside the intestine, in the stomach, in the aesophagus, in the oral cavity then on the respiratory tract that is on the trachea. So respiration stopped, so the victim died due to asphyxia.

MacGregor: Julmira Babo suffocated on hundreds of parasitic roundworms up to 35cm, which had been living in her small intestine. The worms travelled up into her aesophagus and then into her mouth in search of food. For several days after she collapsed, Jamila had been given only water to drink, and the worms were hungry. In sixteen years as a pathologist in developing countries, Dr Nurul says he had never seen anything like Julmira's case.

Nurul Islam: In my forensic experience I can't believe this, no never. In any tropical or sub-tropical country you may get some one, two three five ten worms that's not a problem But in this case, hundred and hundreds of worms, and so big, twenty to thirty, thirty-five ... really, really unbelievable. And no I have never seen it in my lifetime.

MacGregor: Yet Dr Nurul says there's a simple, and cheap solution. A tablet costing just a few cents would have saved Julmira's life. It could prevent malnutrition, anaemia, stunted growth, and death for thousands of other East Timorese children. And this doesn't just apply to intestinal parasites. All of the more common diseases in East Timor -- diahorrea, malaria, and tuberculosis, could be easily treated, says East Timor's health minister, Rui Arauju.

Arauju: The biggest burden of disease in this country are related to diseases that can be prevented and diseases that can be handled at the primary care level and not with sophisticated hospitals and tertiary interventions like what you have in for example developed countries.

MacGregor: East Timor spends about 11 percent of its overall budget on health ... around 8.4 million US dollars a year. Topped up with capital investments through the World Bank, annual spending on health is about twenty dollars per person. The health ministry is planning to run a national de-worming program in schools, beginning with a pilot program. But without extra funding, it can't afford even this, says Rui Arauju.

Arauju: Yes we do need money, we do need money. Just one example, we are now working with the World Health Organisation's office here in Dili, to start the piloting program that I mentioned to you. And our preliminary estimate is talking about 1.4 million US dollars. But that is only a preliminary figure. The current system that we have in place will not be able to conduct mass campaigns without extra input of resources.

MacGregor: But more money isn't the whole solution. While pathologist Dr Nurul Islam has told the government, the World Health Organisation and UNICEF that a nationwide school de- worming program is the only way to stop thousands more deaths, he admits getting the message across won't be easy. In villages like the one where Julmira Babo lived, most people still have a lot more faith in black magic than they do in western medicine.

Girl, 12, chokes to death on worms

Melbourne Age - May 8, 2004

Rochelle Mutton -- The worm-ridden body of a 12-year-old girl, who was suffocated by hundreds of the parasites, has alerted authorities to the spectre of worm infestations in East Timor.

Like thousands of other East Timorese children, the girl could have escaped death with the help of a 10-cent tablet.

The girl was asphyxiated when hundreds of 20 to 30-centimetre roundworms clogged her oesophagus. It was the worst worm infestation UN forensic pathologist Dr Muhammad Nurul Islam had seen in 16 years.

He said her death was an alert for a massive incidence of worm infestations in a poverty-stricken nation with a cultural reluctance towards autopsies.

Autopsies were never conducted under Indonesian rule but have begun under the United Nations Mission of Support in East Timor. The girl died last October but the autopsy details have not previously been released.

She had not eaten for two days. The worms, seeking food, crawled from her small intestine to her stomach, up her oesophagus and into her mouth, then blocked her trachea.

"Even I can't imagine this," Dr Nurul said. "But the autopsy findings prove that this is the reality. In this 21st century, we have some responsibilities towards any citizen of this world suffering from hundreds and thousands of worm infestation leading to death."

In a report to the East Timorese Health Minister, Riu de Araujo, Dr Nurul said thousands of children were likely to be suffering from chronic health problems from infections of several worm species, including malnutrition, anaemia, mental dullness and stunted growth.

He said the girl's death exposed the need for an immediate nationwide program for worm prevention and cures.

Mr Araujo said tablets and instruction manuals for de-worming had been allocated to East Timor but there were no staff to run a nationwide health education program.

Foreign help to run a national worming program in primary schools would be welcomed by the East Timorese Government and non- government organisations.

A pilot program launched east of Dili, in Baucau, involved less than a dozen primary schools.

"The problem is we need more financial resources to mobilise the de-worming program in all primary schools," Health Minister Mr Araujo said.

International solidarity

Timor solidarity protests condemn Howard

Green Left Weekly - May 27, 2004

Jon Lamb -- Solidarity protests took place across Australia on May 20, the second anniversary of East Timor's independence. The actions condemned the Australian government for its refusal to negotiate a fair and just maritime boundary and for its ongoing theft of East Timor's oil and gas resources.

The actions coincided with protests organised by the Socialist Youth Alliance and the Movement Against the Occupation of the Timor Sea (MKOTT) in Dili on May 18 to 20, including a mobilisation of around 1000 people outside the Australian embassy on May 19.

Members of the Alliance of Socialist Youth have been on hunger strike since May 18 and at least two were taken to Dili hospital on May 21. Others have pledged to join the hunger strike.

Several of the Australian protests were organised by Timor Sea Justice Campaign (TSJC) groups that have formed this year, reflecting an increasing recognition by supporters of East Timor that this is a critical fight against the bullying and intransigence of the Australian government.

In Melbourne, Margarita Windisch reports that 150 people rallied at a street theatre action outside the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Speaking on behalf of the TSJC, Vannessa Hearman said that contrary to foreign minister Alexander Downer's assertions, Australian people were not supportive of attempts to rob East Timor. Senate candidates from the Socialist Alliance, the Democrats and the Greens also addressed the rally.

In Sydney, 100 colourful and noisy protestors heard from Susan Connolly of the Mary MacKillop Institute for Timorese Studies and the TSJC, along with Timor Leste's Consul-General Abel Guterres, Greens Senator Kerry Nettle, Jefferson Lee of the Australia East Timor Association and Labor MLC Meredith Burgman.

Around 100 people attended a rally outside parliament house in Adelaide, and in Brisbane, protesters joined a picket of the foreign affairs department called by the Queensland Peace Network. In Darwin, protesters marched through Mindil Beach Night Markets chanting: "Howard is a thief, stop stealing East Timor's oil."

Rally calls for fair Timor Sea boundaries

ABC News - May 20, 2004

A Central Sydney rally has called on the Australian Government to give East Timor its fair share of revenue from Timor Sea oil and gas reserves.

Australia and East Timor are negotiating a maritime border in the Timor Sea. An interim treaty was implemented 12 months ago until a more permanent arrangement is found.

Aid agency Oxfam claims Australia is cheating East Timor out of $1 million a day but the Federal Government says it has been "extremely generous".

In Sydney's Martin Place a mock birthday cake was presented to East Timor's Consul General Abel Guterres. He was only allowed a small slice to represent what the Timor Justice Campaign says is East Timor's share of the royalties of gas and oils in the Timor Sea.

Sister Susan Connelly from the Mary Mckillop Institute says the Government's claim is a lie. "As always we take the biggest cut for ourselves and run off," she said. She says a just sharing of resources will mean the difference between life and death for some East Timorese.

Mr Guterres told the rally he is confident East Timor will get its fair share of revenue. "I'm sure Australians don't want to be seen as letting East Timorese down because a failed state in East Timor is no good for Australia, as Australia still has to pick up the pieces," he said. "I'm sure that goodwill prevail, common sense will prevail."

Around 100 people attended the rally.

Australians fight for Timor's rights

Green Left Weekly - May 19, 2004

James Bowden, Darwin & Iggy Kim, Sydney -- A public meeting of 40 people on May 6 had spirited discussion and debate on the Australian government's theft of East Timor's oil and gas resources in the Timor Sea. The meeting, which was co-sponsored by Action in Solidarity with Indonesia and East Timor (ASIET) and Australians For a Free East Timor (AFFET) marked the consolidation of the Timor Sea Justice Campaign in Darwin.

East Timorese guest speaker, Cecilio Freitas (from the Centre for Independent Information on the Timor Sea and East Timor People's Action), explained: "The Australian government is intentionally and systematically making a problem for East Timor." Speaking on behalf of ASIET, Jon Lamb, who had just returned from East Timor, explained that the recently formed Movement Against the Occupation of the Timor Sea was keen to develop stronger ties with the Australian solidarity movement.

In Sydney, the Timor Sea Justice Campaign Sydney was formed at a meeting on May 10. TSJCS aims to assist East Timor regain control of its oil and gas fields.

Organisations represented at the meeting, which decided to organise a May 20 protest, included the Australia-East Timor Association, Mary MacKillop Institute for East Timorese Studies, Action in Solidarity with Asia and the Pacific, the Greens, Union Aid Abroad/APHEDA and Pax Christi.

TSJCS will next meet on May 31, 6.30pm, at the Labor Council, 377 Sussex Street. All interested are welcome. For further information phone Jeff Lee on (02) 9519 4788, Peter Jennings on (02) 9264 9343, Susan Connelly on (02) 9623 2847 or Iggy Kim on 0421 322 175.

Fair deal on East Timor oil demanded by activists

Interpress News Service - April 27, 2004

Bob Burton, Canberra -- Australia's effort to block East Timor from billions of dollars of oil resources -- by refusing to agree to a maritime boundary between the two countries -- will be tested by an emerging coalition of community groups, which insist on economic justice for the world's newest nation.

The Australian government met April 19-22 with East Timorese officials. The next meeting will be held in September.

The government of East Timor, which estimates that each day's delay in adopting a maritime boundary results in Australia unlawfully reaping one million US dollars, wants monthly talks to promptly resolve the issue.

But the Australian government argued for negotiations every six months and, according to reports from East Timor, informally let it be known that it is prepared to take 20 years to discuss the issue if necessary.

While Australia may have had the upper hand in the talks, its adamant negotiating position has crystallised opposition in both East Timor and Australia.

In a blunt 'welcome' statement to the Australian government negotiating team, East Timorese Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri signalled his willingness to ensure that the debate plays out as much as possible in front of the world's media.

Pointing out that a fair boundary would triple the income of his country, Alkatiri spelt out what it would mean for the East Timorese.

"Concretely, it means the money to immunise and educate every child in Timor Leste.

It means more children will reach the age of five years. It means more lives spent productively. It is quite literally a matter of life and death," he said.

While the Australian negotiators ignored Alkatiri's plea, outside the meeting room it was a different story.

Within East Timor there is a growing anger toward the Australian government reflected in a series of demonstrations outside the Australian Embassy and the venue of negotiations -- for what is regarded as the theft of their resources.

As East Timorese leaders and civil society groups argue their case, their plea for justice is resonating with an emerging coalition of religious, environmental and social justice groups in Australia. International media coverage too has grown of what has been dubbed 'Australia's greedy grab for oil'.

For those supporting East Timor, the facts speak for themselves. While East Timor gains the bulk of the royalties from the small Bayu Undan oil field -- which is covered under the Timor Sea Treaty, the real prize is the 7 billion US dollars in royalties from the much larger proposed Greater Sunrise oil and gas project.

But in March 2003, after the United Nations Transitional Authority relinquished control of a country ravaged by the retreating Indonesian military and its proxies, Alkatiri discovered that there was a catch.

In order to gain immediate access to the revenues from the Bayu Undan oilfield, Alkatiri was pressured to sign an agreement that divides the Greater Sunrise revenues with 82 percent to the Australian government and only 18 percent for East Timor.

The week also saw the leader of the Australian Greens, Sen. Bob Brown, visit Dili to meet with and support the efforts of community groups and East Timorese leaders, including Alkatiri, and demand economic justice from the Australian government.

Also added to the critics' voices will be that of Demetrio do Amaral de Carvalho, a former resistance leader during the Indonesian occupation who won the San Francisco-based Goldman Foundation's annual awards for environmental heroes.

This week, De Carvalho will be touring Australia and speaking out against Australia's grab for East Timor's oil and gas reserves.

The project proponents for the Greater Sunrise project -- a consortium of companies including Woodside, ConocoPhillips, Shell and Osaka Gas -- are feeling the heat too.

Alkatiri has stated that he will not present legislation for the ratification of the Greater Sunrise Agreement to East Timor's parliament, increasing the pressure on the project developers.

Companies such as Shell and Woodside, which say they are good corporate citizens, are also vulnerable to international criticism for backing Australia's claims.

Critics also do not find credible the Australian government's claim that it needs six months between meetings to consider the complexity of the issues around the delineation of a maritime boundary with East Timor.

The fact remains that the Australian government negotiated a 900-page free trade agreement with the United States, covering every sector of the economy, in 12 months of negotiations.

While the Australian government withdrew the issue of the maritime boundary with East Timor from the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, East Timor has hinted that it may still have other legal avenues.

"International law requires countries to exercise restraint by not unilaterally exploiting resources in disputed areas," Alkatiri told Australian negotiators this week.

There is also the prospect that the Australian government's audacious claims will backfire domestically. While the opposition Labor Party voted with the government to ratify the Greater Sunrise agreement, it has subsequently criticised the Australian government for its bullying.

Even if the Labor Party government has no intention of renegotiating the boundary, its rhetoric reflects an assessment that the issue has managed to cut through the clutter of other issues competing for public attention.

The spokesman for the Timor Sea Justice Campaign, Dan Nicholson, argues that a change of government is possible at the election due later this year -- and this may open the door, at least a little, for East Timor.

Business & investment

Timor making progress in infrastructure, economy: Donors

Associated Press - May 19, 2004

Dili -- Fledgling nation East Timor is making good progress in rebuilding its shattered infrastructure, cutting its budget deficit and making laws to stimulate its moribund economy, international donors said Wednesday.

However, East Timorese officials insist they need more aid to reduce poverty, establish a judiciary and provide security.

"We will continue with pragmatic policies and actions that are adequate to our emerging democracy," Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri told the donors Wednesday at the end of the two-day meeting that comes just ahead of the country's second independence anniversary.

"We seek perfection and excellence, but in the context of the real world ... we develop our capacities step-by-step," Alkatiri said at the conference in the country's capital, Dili. Aid donors from international financial organizations and foreign governments praised East Timor authorities for reducing the budget deficit from US$126 million in 2003 to US$30 million this year.

They also applauded Parliament for approving a commercial code and company law aimed at spurring private investment, and praised the government for improving access to health services and electricity.

"Your progress has been impressive, though the remaining challenges remain formidable," said Jemal-ud-din Kassum, the World Bank's East Asia Pacific vice president.

After four centuries of Portuguese and then Indonesian rule, East Timorese voted for independence in a 1999 UN-sponsored referendum. Indonesia's military and its proxy militias then laid waste to the former province, killing at least 1,500 East Timorese.

East Timor became independent on May 20, 2002, after a period of UN administration.

In its report to donors, the World Bank said the economy was set to grow by 1% this year after contracting 2% in 2003. Unemployment remains at 20%.

Government officials have warned that oil revenues could be much less than expected, partly due to a dispute with nearby Australia over the ownership of undersea oil fields between the two.

Meanwhile, trials over the 1999 violence are continuing. Two militiamen were sentenced Wednesday to long prison terms for killing an independence supporter.

Fifty-two people have so far been convicted by the Special Panels For Serious Crimes.

Alkatiri presents bill to promote private investment

Lisa - April 30, 2004

Dili -- Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri launched a public debate Friday on proposed legislation to facilitate and promote private investment by East Timorese entrepreneurs.

In presenting the draft bill at a Dili conference, Alkatiri said it currently cost 30 percent more to set up a new business in East Timor than in neighboring countries.

He said the bill, which will be sent to parliament within a "few weeks" after broad public debate, aimed to give national investors "important incentives" through a wide variety of fiscal and customs breaks.

The bill's prime objective, Alkatiri underlined, was to create jobs and reduce poverty by stimulating local investments.

"Our economy is based on the principle of market law and is guided by competition and competitiveness", Alkatiri said, adding that, given the country's "weak starting point", Dili would to be "more creative than our competitors".

In a related development, Portugal announced earlier in the week that it had paid East Timor's USD 770,000 membership fee in the World Bank's International Finance Corporation, allowing Dili to bid for significant oversees investment projects.

An Asian Development Bank report released Wednesday said the East Timorese economy shrunk by 3 percent during its first year of independence and that 20 percent of its male population was unemployed.

People

Modest mother of the nation

Townsville Sun (Australia) - May 3, 2004

Toni Somes -- It is an arduous task being "mother of the nation" when you are also the mother of two small boys, but Kirsty Sword Gusmao has never been one to sidestep challenges.

But East Timor's first lady did admit to being slightly weary in Charters Towers yesterday.

It could have been the result of a whirlwind fortnight of official engagements across the country with infants in tow or the fact she is pregnant with her third child.

Either way, the Australian-born wife of President Xanana Gusmao of East Timor is not one to shirk her responsibilities, using her speech at a Zonta International dinner in Charters Towers to raise awareness of her adopted homeland.

In an emotive plea she urged Australians to put pressure on the Howard Government not to shift maritime boundaries in the Timor Sea, a move that could cost East Timor billions in oil revenue.

"When you consider Australia is one of the richest countries in the world and East Timor has just been rated the poorest country in East Asia, it's pretty clear which country is in more urgent need of the resources in the Timor Sea," she said.

"East Timor can barely meet the basic needs of its people and we're trying to rebuild a country where 80 per cent of the public and private infrastructure was destroyed in 1999."

With Australian armed forces due home from East Timor this month, she also spoke passionately about the need for an on-going peace-keeping presence in the world's newest nation.

"Peace-keepers have played an integral role in building people's confidence and the region's stability," she said. "Their presence is important psychologically as well as physically and I would like to see their term extended."

Despite Sword Gusmao's ability to articulate the plight of our near neighbours, it was her personal rather than political story that held the audience's interest.

Seemingly very much like the girl next door, she spoke frankly about falling in love with former guerilla commander Xanana Gusmao, and as the president's wife, being bestowed with the "mother of the nation" title.

Their story is straight from a spy novel. She was born in Bendigo, majored in Indonesian at Melbourne University and eventually moved to Jakarta to teach English and work with an Australian aid agency.

In the early 1990s, struck by the injustice of Indonesian occupancy of East Timor, she became involved with the East Timor resistance movement working as an undercover agent.

It was in this role that in a dank Indonesian prison she met the movement's charismatic leader, Xanana Gusmao.

Though they are 20 years apart in age, the couple were drawn to each other and an unorthodox courtship by correspondence ensued. They married after Xanana's release in 2000.

Today they have two children, Alexandre, 4, and Kay Olok, 2, and are expecting their third in November.

But Mrs Gusmao confesses the transition from English teacher and aid worker to first lady has not been easy.

"Nothing prepares you for this role," she said. "If someone had told me 20 years ago that one day I would be married to the president of East Timor I would never have believed them.

"I grew up wanting to be a ballet dancer or a journalist. But I guess in my heart I always sensed my horizons extended beyond Australia."

Now she is married to her adopted country's national hero, a man dubbed the Nelson Mandela of East Asia, and lives in "a very modest" presidential home in the hills above Dili.

"When Xanana was first made president, I had this very well intentioned adviser to first ladies the world over call on me.

"She said the first thing I needed was a private secretary and a marquee for any events I hosted. At that moment I knew she had no idea what my situation was.

"East Timor is the poorest country in the region and as first lady there is absolutely no allowance for me in government budgets."

Instead she relies on sponsorship and funds raised through the Alola Foundation she created to improve the lives of women and children in her new homeland.

Despite the difficult financial situation -- "it is very frustrating to be so dependent" -- her public profile continues to rise. These days she travels extensively, taking her two young sons and their nanny with her.

"It is very important to me that my children are with me. I don't like to be away from them for any length of time," Sword Gusmao said.

It is challenging to be a good mother when, like working women everywhere, I have so many other roles."

But one gets the distinct impression her roles as mother and mother of the nation have top priority.

Media Monitoring

May 3, 2004

Timor Post

During the ceremony for the newly appointed Bishop for the Diocese of Dili, D. Alberto Ricardo da Silva, he announced guidelines of the future pastoral action in the Diocese of Dili, that will be read out to the whole Catholic Community next Sunday.

The Bishop pointed out that a large percentage of the Timorese population is young, and that he is concerned about the violence in the ambit of families, fruits of undesirable situations that are not entirely unsolved in the framework of Christian faith and solidarity. The Bishop said that the Church is committed in helping to address the issues that affect the women, our sisters and mothers of yesterday, today and tomorrow.

Unfortunately, he said, domestic violence, which is common in our Christian families, requires serious and profound reflection and a new attitude towards life. We all have a responsibility to ensure that our families live in an environment of peace, tranquillity and love. Due to this it is the intention of the Church to raise the standards of education, with special emphasis and attention to women. Better educated people are in a better position to assess their options and to defend their human dignity.

The Bishop said that the statistics in the health sector describe an alarming situation. The unbearable poverty, malnutrition, and the high rate of infant mortality preoccupy the Church greatly. With a high fertility rate, the scarce family resources can hardly assure proper nutrition and health care for both mother and the child. Many women suffer from chronic energy depletion, a great number of children under five are stunted or underweight or wasted.

The Church maintains small health clinics throughout the country and the diocese under the good care of nuns from various congregations and their colleagues who provide a dedicated and generous service. Part of this effort shall be the implementation of a project Maternity-Nursing School to be launched soon in Dili, in collaboration with the Patriarchate of Lisbon. The Holy Father himself has donated a substantial financial contribution to this project.

The Bishop not only focused on the high mortality rate which he hopes to reduce of infant mortality of unborn and newly born children but also infectious diseases. With great sadness, he has discovered that our beloved people are also confronting many infectious diseases, in particular Tuberculosis and the deadly Aids virus. It is a situation that greatly concerns the church because our capacities and limitations in the health sector will not be sufficient to provide effective treatment.

The Church is committed to continue its work related to TB treatment and the highly dangerous HIV-AIDS virus. The newly appointed Bishop also said that since independence, our country has undergone many new influences and experiences, some good, others bad. We now begin to see the negative social impact of some of these external influences, in particular the growing trend of prostitutions in our society. As parents, we have the responsibility to lead by example and to protect our children from becoming unhappy victims of moral degradation.

The Prime Minister, Dr Mari Alkatiri, said that the Vatican had made a good choice in appointing D. Alberto Ricardo da Silva as the new Bishop for the Diocese of Dili. Dr Alkatiri congratulated D. Ricardo da Silva and the all catholic community. Dr Alkatiri said that for the first time in history a Bishop is ordained in Timor-Leste, a move that he sees is another chapter to strengthen and complete the independence of Timor-Leste. Meanwhile the President, Xanana Gusmco, said that finally the Timor-Leste Church has achieved also its independence like the country. The President said that was the best choice ever for the Diocese of Dili, and congratulates D. Alberto Ricardo da Silva.

A Member of the National parliament, Rui Menezes, said that the Government to reduce imports the Government has to create first factories to maintain the high demand of the consumer. He said that he understands peoples demands but Government has to put in place a plan to help growth in the local economy.

The President of Timor-Leste, Xanana Gusmco, said his country would cooperate with former general Wiranto, indicted for crimes against humanity in the territory, if he was elected Indonesian president. "We will support anyone who is elected democratically in the July presidential election (in Indonesia), including Wiranto," Gusmco told a news conference. The President said good relations between Indonesia and Timor-Leste would not be affected if Wiranto came to power.

Suara Timur Lorosae

A US lawmaker who authored a bill freezing military ties with Indonesia following violence in Timor-Leste in 1999 said an indicted general running for president should be brought to justice for his alleged role in that conflict.

Senator Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, also said a victory by General Wiranto in the July 5 presidential election would be "highly unfortunate" and that Indonesia needed a leader "who respects democratic values, human rights and the rule of law." "General Wiranto was in command when the Indonesian Army orchestrated the atrocities in Timor-Leste, he was indicted for those crimes, and he should be brought to justice," Leahy said in a statement from Washington.

"It would be highly unfortunate if someone of his background were to become Indonesia's president."

May 5, 2004

Timor Post

The Prime Minister, Dr Mari Alkatiri, said that the Indonesian nationals who have been living in the Annur Mosque in Dili must leave the compound before May 20. The Prime Minister said those who wish to become Timorese citizens must first legalize their situation before requesting from the Ministry of Justice the Timorese citizenship. The Prime Minister said that these procedures should be followed before the occupants of the mosque can get jobs and become fully integrated in the Timorese society. The Prime Minister said that the mosque is not a place for them to live, sleep, eat and do business. "The mosque is a place to do business only with God, not among ourselves", he said.

The Immigration Inspector, Carlos Geronimo, said that a joint operation focused on the maritime border points will be held jointly by the Border Patrol Unit, the Marine Unit and the Dili Port Unit, to check security aspects in this area, which has become a threat. Mr Geronimo said that with the celebration of the second anniversary of independence, security would be increased in the borders.

He said visitors with tourist visas caught working or doing business would be fined and deported from the country, and have their passport stamped with a red cross.

Today's edition of the newspaper says that seventeen people suspected of being involved in beating up a police officer in Tasitolu appeared in Dili District Court (yesterday). The newspaper says that the police officer was dressed in civilian clothes, which led to further suspicions of him being a "ninja".

According to the newspaper, five of them are still detained pending further investigation within the next 30 days while the others were released on bail.

The public defender told the court that the incident occurred while the accused were guarding their neighborhood at night against "ninja" assault.

The second workshop on Transparency and Accountability in the Public Administration was held in Dili (yesterday) and was organized by the Government with the support of UNMISET and UNDP. Participants at the workshop included the President, Xanana Gusmao, the Prime Minister, Dr Mari Alkatiri, the SRSG Kamalesh Sharma, the DSRSG Sukehiro Hasegawa and the Ministers of Finance, Education and Transport, among others. During his speech, at the opening session, SRSG Kamalesh Sharma highlighted the "significant advances" that public administration has made since last year in terms of transparency and accountability, citing, among other achievements, the work done by the Office of the Inspector General.

Suara Timur Lorosae

Today's edition of the newspaper says that 72 staff members of Timor-Leste electricity (EDTL) staged a protest against the recruitment of new staff. The paper said that the staff took the opportunity to demand for their salaries that are in arrears.

May 6, 2004

Timor Post

During a ceremony for the launch of the Management Training for the Small Enterprise, the World Bank team leader for the Small Enterprise Project, Bernard Drum, said that the World Bank will continue supporting the managers and the people of Timor-Leste and its development. Mr Drum said the World Bank is happy to work with the Government of Timor-Leste, and that the World Bank will feel its mission has been accomplished when the community's living standards have improved.

The Prime Minister, Dr Mari Alkatiri, said that the measures taken by the Government to improve domestic revenues and restrain expenditures was able to reduce the deficit from USD$ 130 million to nothing. The Prime Minister said that he was surprised with the figure he was given of only 3% reduction of the deficit, and called an urgent meeting with all departments to find that 3% was incorrect but close to 80%. The Prime Minister said that sometimes information does not circulate throughout the Government Departments and the result is misinformation given to the people.

Suara Timur Lorosae

Two years after gaining independence, Timor-Leste has one of Asia's freest presses, an International watchdog group said. Attacks on journalists are "extremely rare" in the former Indonesian province, and the country's press legislation is "among the most liberal in Asia," Paris based Reporters Without Borders said in a report provided to the Associated Press. Despite the praise East Timor has won for its press freedom, spats have occasionally flared between the government and media in Asia's newest nation. Officials have accused the main radio and TV broadcasters of turning their stations into "an instrument of propaganda against the government." The criticism followed media coverage of a conflict between an opposition politician and the ruling party. The report from Reporters Without Borders said the present situation showed significant progress in the area.

Timor Post

A Member of the National Parliament, Manuel Tilman, said that the Government of Timor-Leste does not distribute the financial assistance from donors to departments like Courts and the National Parliament. He said that the financial support given by donors never reaches institutions that are in desperate need.

The Head of the Staff for the Defence Force of Timor-Leste (F- FDTL) Colonel, Lere Anan Timor, said that soon the F-FDTL will deploy a second battalion to the District of Maliana, after the end of UNMISET mission. Colonel Lere said that one of the difficulties the F-FDTL is still facing is the infrastructure and budget. Colonel Lere said that F-FDTL will recruit more people in September because the army has only 1,500 soldiers and it?s not enough, especially to face external threats.

Suara Timur Lorosae

The Prime Minister, Dr Mari Alkatiri, said that the Government of Timor-Leste has signed the United Nations Convention Against Corruption, set as one of the priorities by the Government. The Prime Minister said that the signing of the document falls into the plan set by the Government to commit to fight corruption.

The Japanese government promised that it would continue support for the handling and repatriation of East Timorese refugees still exiled in West Timor, East Nusa Tenggara province. Japan?s Ambassador for East Timor Hideaki Asaki, said in Kupang that the Japanese government had provided a grant worth Rp 53 billion (US$ 6.3 million) to the Indonesian government for resettlement, repatriation and health programs for East Timorese refugees. As of April this year, 86,600 east Timorese refugees had returned to their homeland. There are still a total of 15,699 refugees living in camps in East Nusa Tenggara province.

May 10, 2004

Timor Post

During a gathering of the ex-combatants and ex-Falintil freedom fighters to discuss the difficulties they are facing the President, Xanana Gusmco, said that the Government must "recognize" the work performed "by those who fought the war". The President reminded the former combatants that "they are the ones who have been remembered as heroes, they must try to understand today's process, which is very difficult, because we do not have the necessary financial means to do everything we should do". The President said that due to this problem he has voiced his concerns about the Timor Sea and the government must be encouraged to "claim the wealth" of the Timorese people. Meanwhile Domingos Sarmento the Minister of Justice was present at the gathering, said that the recommendations made by former ex-combatants and ex-Falintil veterans will be presented to the government.

The government of Indonesia has donated 45 tons of rice to Timor-Leste to assist the population affected by the long dry season in certain parts of the territory. The rice was handed by the head of the Indonesian Department of Food Security, Ahmad Suryana, to the Ministry of Finance. Mr Suryana said he had discussed cooperation between the two countries with the Timorese authorities, specially the technological development of agriculture, the increased of diversity of production, the Indonesian technological assistance, and donors funds provided by Australia, Japan, Canada and USA.

No relevant stories on today's edition of STL

May 11, 2004

Timor Post

The Minister for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, Dr Ramos Horta, said that ninety percent of the border agreement between Timor- Leste and the Republic of Indonesia has been reached and is ready to be signed. The Minister said that the ten percent that has not reached agreement is still being discussed by the technical team and he hopes they reach agreement soon.

The Vice-President of the National parliament, Francisco Xavier do Amaral, said that the Government has to do things right, and help build democracy but not dictatorship. He said what he is afraid of is the Government may use dictatorship instead of creating democracy.

During a ceremony for the inauguration of the coffee processing plant in the District of Ermera, the President of Timor-Leste, Xanana Gusmco, said to the coffee farmers to look after the organic coffee, and maintain the good quality so they are able to compete in the international market.

Suara Timur Lorosae

CIIR has joined forces with the East Timorese government and local communities to run a training workshop in product and small business development, writes Dierdre Nagle, a CIIR Development Worker in East Timor. The workshop was divided into two parts and attended by 25 people from five East Timorese communities, who had suggested the topics they wanted the course to cover. It is hoped the training will help local communities in their individual business activities and give them new ideas for future activities. Learning new skills and how to pass them on to others are essential steps on the road to economic development and entrepreneurship. CIIR East Timor is aware that economic stability must be created out of sustainable income-generating activities that are not imposed on communities but are borne out of the communities themselves. The development of new products in Timor is important. There is a need to replace goods that are imported as they could be produced in-country at a lower price.

The newly ordained bishop of Dili, Alberto Ricardo da Silva, has promised to work for reconciliation between East Timorese living in and outside of the country. "I am ready to open widely the door of reconciliation and peace for all East Timorese, regardless of their religion, group and political background.

"The most important point nowadays is that all people, regardless where they live, must have a common heart and spirit for reconciliation and peace" Bishop da Silva said. He also promised to visit East Timorese in Indonesia "as an expression of the sense of unity and brotherhood?"

The Vice-Minister of Health, Luis Lobato, said that his Ministry has put out a tender for companies to import medicine for the Health sector of Timor-Leste.

The Vice-Minister said that it?s important to have stock in hand and be able to supply to the hospitals.

May 12, 2004

Timor Post

The Manager of the Centre for Development of Managers in the District of Bobonaro, Luis Bere Buti, said that recently 34 business people formed the Association of Managers in the District (ASSED) with an objective to organizing themselves better for the future. Mr Buti said that the Association elected Francisco Pedro as the President, and for Vice-President Estevao Lopes. Mr Buti said that the association has six departments: technical, cooperative, tourism, industry, transport and training.

Suara Timur Loroase

The Coordinator of the CPD-RDTL, Aitahan Matak, said that his group is against the recommendation made by the Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, to extend the UN mission in Timor-Leste for another year. He said the UN has to respect the sovereignty of the Republic Democratic of Timor-Leste.

A Member of the National Parliament, Alfredo Silva, said that five school buildings in the vicinity of the District of Aileu need urgent rehabilitation, and the procurement office within the Ministry of Finance has not signed the papers sent six months ago. He said he doesn?t know why there is a delay when the population wants their children to attend school but there are no facilities.

At the occasion of the announcement of Wiranto's vice- presidential candidate the legal adviser to Wiranto, Muladi, said that a 60 page defense letter connected to the issue of the candidate's arrest warrant will be sent to Timor-Leste. Mr Muladi said a team of lawyers will send a 60-page defense letter to Timor-Leste's Prosecutor General offering an opinion on international and national law.

Mr Muladi said that while the Ad Hoc tribunal exists in Indonesia and is recognized by the UN, there cannot be any other judicial process in place or any external intervention. Mr Muladi said that the warrant violates the sovereignty of Indonesia, and Indonesia and Timor-Leste had agreed on the existence of two separate processes for national jurisdictions. "If that agreement is violated then Timor-Leste has violated the sovereignty of Indonesia."

May 13, 2004

Timor Post

East Timor's severe trade balance deficit, with exports only accounting for 5 percent of total foreign trade, could be eased by the boosting of coffee exports, Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri said yesterday. The Prime Minister, presenting proposed legislation to protect and regulate overseas investment in Timor, underscored Timor's "asymmetric" trade patterns, noting that the country's main export was coffee. Timorese coffee is a premium product, with established organic properties, and as only 30 percent of the annual crop is exported, there is room for "significant expansion of coffee exports", the Prime Minister told lawmakers.

Australia will leave around 100 peacekeeping troops in East Timor if the United Nations extends its mission in the world's newest country for another year as expected, the Government said yesterday. 'Our force size will probably be reduced to about 100,' a spokeswoman for Australian Defence Minister Robert Hill said. 'Maybe some engineers, maybe some headquarters people and some logistics support will stay, and I think we will also provide some of the military liaison people.' 'We haven't seen signs of the militia for a long time. We don't think that East Timor's challenges are external security challenges,' Hill's spokeswoman said. 'Indonesia is being supportive and helpful. The biggest challenges to East Timor in terms of security will be law and order. That includes things like customs and border issues and people movements but not an armed threat.'

A Member of the National Parliament, Maria Paixco, was very critical to the majority party at the National Parliament for withdrawing the amnesty law, saying that from the beginning the Social Democratic Party (PSD) has voted against the law. She said that it needs a revision before it can be presented to the National Parliament for approval.

Suara Timur Lorosae

The Inspector General, Mariano Lopes da Cruz, said that it?s not only for the Government to fight corruption but the entire country needs to stop and denounce corruption that has surfaced within the public administration. He said that corruption can have an affect on the National Development Plan. Mr Lopes said that he has done 47 inspections, all about corruption, and found that the Dili Port has the most irregularities and the Government is trying to find out why it's happening. Mr Lopes said, for example, certain ministerial people use the petty cash abusively using other people?s names to waste Government money for their own benefits. Mr Lopes said that sometimes people fake signatures just to take other people's salary as their own.

The Coordinator for the Commissco dos Antigo's Veteranos das Falintil (CAVF), Andre da Costa Belo (known has L-4), said that the Government of Timor-Leste, since the restoration of the Republic Democratic of Timor-Leste, has not recognized the ex- Veterans and Ex-Falintil fighters. He said just as an example the Police does not respect the veterans and accuses them of causing disturbances in the country. Mr Belo said that an ex-Falintil was arrested by the Police recently in Hera (outskirts of Dili) without any respect for the man that gave his life for the struggle, and took him to jail without any justice.

The District Administrator in Manufahi, Same, Filomeno Tilman, said that the public administration has been paralysed for the last two weeks because of the shortage of diesel. He said that in many instances public servants had to fill cars with their own money just to be able to carry out their work. Meanwhile the State Director for the Public Administration, Lino Torrezco, said that Manufahi is not the only District affected with the shortage of diesel but there are also other Districts in the same conditions. He said that his Ministry is looking at alternatives at the moment with the Ministry of Planning and Finance to overcome the problem.

East Timor (yesterday) appealed to the UN Security Council to continue assistance to the nascent nation through the UN Mission of Support in East Timor (UNMISET). The country is still a work in progress in need of assistance in developing its economy and justice system and settling land border issues with Indonesia. It also needs to settle its maritime border with Australia, the latter linked to rights offshore oil and gas reserve. There was no disagreement among the council members that the mission should be extended for a final year, the questions were what the new mandate should be and what mix of military and police personnel were necessary. Timorese officials had said they were concerned the drawdown of troops was too rapid. "I must emphasize the need for substantial and continuing support from our development partners to overcome the formidable challenges before our new nation,' said East Timor's State Minister Ana Pessoa Pinto. ?All efforts at enlightened governance cannot succeed unless we can also advance economically and show visible improvements in the quality of life and the creation of jobs.?

May 14, 2004

Timor Post

The Government of Timor-Leste has received 180 guns, ammunitions and other equipment from the Malaysian Government, as part of its assistance to the training program of the Timor-Leste Special Police. For some time Malaysian instructors provided training to the Timorese Special Police, but the program was halted for lack of the necessary equipment. Speaking to journalists the Prime Minister, Dr Mari Alkatiri, praised the commitment of the Malaysian Government to Timor-Leste in the development of its defense forces.

The Prime Minister, Dr Mari Alkatiri, said that he will not intervene in any decision made by the courts over Wiranto's case, because the courts jurisdiction is an independent one. The Prime Minister said that he does not believe that anyone will be arrested when elected as President to stand trial over the alleged crimes.

A Member of the National Parliament (ASDT), Pedro Gomes, said that TVTL has to face the actual reality and should have more programs and the news bulletin in the language that the majority understands -- Bahasa Indonesia. He said that the National Parliament should coordinate with the Government to fulfill the people's needs.

A delegation from the Health Ministry will visit Geneva to participate in the World Health Assembly scheduled for May 17-22. The delegation will be headed by the Minister of Health, Dr Rui Maria de Araujo and the Head of the World Health Organization, Dr Alex Andjaparidje.

Suara Timur Lorosae

The Police Commander in the District of Covalima, Patricio de Jesus, said that during an operation in the village of Suku Labarai the Police detained two villagers with three tons of sandalwood in their possession. Mr de Jesus said that the two men were brought to Dili and are waiting to be sentenced.

May 19, 2004

Timor Post

During a speech at the Timor-Leste and Development Partners Meeting (TLDPM) the Prime Minister, Dr Mari Alkatiri, said that the development partners were able to stay with Timor-Leste in the thrilling voyage that is building a State. With the development partners assistance and Timorese determination they were able to overcome many difficulties. The Prime Minister said "although we had considerable progresses in the governance area, we cannot rest on our laurels, since our people are still suffering from poverty and deprivations".

The Prime Minister said "the Government will continue with pragmatic policies and actions that are adequate to our emerging democracy, with the purpose to improve good governance. The Government seeks perfection and excellence, but in the context of the real world that is the one we live in". The Prime Minister went on to say "I wish to reiterate that the ultimate test of good governance is meeting the needs of the people. It is the provision of education that is relevant, delivering quality health services, supplying clean water and safe sanitation and reducing the burden on women and children, the construction and maintenance of access roads and supplying electricity. Above all, it is creating the enabling conditions for the people to work hard and lift themselves out of poverty".

The President of Timor-Leste, Xanana Gusmco, said in his speech at the TLDPM that he hoped one day to reach a time of "fat cows", where Timor-Leste can also take part in the panel of donors to humbly offer its contribution, small as it may be, to alleviate the suffering of fellow human beings, like the Timorese, who are struggling for survival in their daily lives. The President congratulated the Government for the efforts introduced in the understanding and assimilation of the need for transparency and accountability. The President called to the attention of the development partners that greater technical assistance to Parliament is needed, so as to enable it to completely carry out its obligations, such as the Legislative Organ of the Nation. The President focused also on Justice, which will definitively depend on the principle of the supremacy of Law and consequently, on the credibility of the democratic process.

The Vice-President of the Commission C at the National Parliament, Manuel Tilman, said that the TLDPM meeting has been a very positive one with donors and Government presenting new measures to financial support that the opposition, and civil society have been very critical about. He said that the positive aspect of it is that finally the government is paying attention to the needs of the National Parliament and the Justice in particular.

Suara Timur Lorosae

Public service needs to be free from corruption, says Sharma

The Special Representative of the Secretary General of the UN Ambassador, Kamalesh Sharma, said in his speech at the TLDPM meeting that the public service in Timor-Leste needs to be responsive and with capacity, be able to avoid and be free from corruption. He said that the Government has to improve the institutional capacity which includes the Judiciary, National Parliament and the Cabinet of the President.

May 24, 2004

Timor Post

A Timorese Political and Military Observer, Julio Thomas Pinto, said that the diplomats of Timor-Leste need to double their diplomatic efforts with Indonesia and Australia to guarantee security at the terrestrial and maritime borders. He said that for the Government of Indonesia not to have misconceptions about Timor-Leste deploying the army to the border region, the diplomats need to maintain close relations and inform Indonesia about the Government's policy.

The Minister of Interior, Rogerio Lobato, said that the heavy weapons donated by the Government of Malaysia, in a ceremony held in Dili, would be used by the Special Police and the Border Patrol Units. The Minister said that the training program for the Special Police would probably resume in June, with instructors from Malaysia. Those who have been providing training to the Special Police Unit have completed their duty and will return to Malaysia on May 27.

No relevant story's in today's edition of STL

May 25, 2004

Timor Post

The Bishop of the Diocese of Dili, D.Alberto Ricardo da Silva, said that many bad things and influences have entered our beloved country Timor-Leste.

The Bishop said during a mass that the Timorese people need not be influenced by bad things.

No relevant story's in today's edition of STL

May 26, 2004

Timor Post

The head of the Indonesian mission in Timor-Leste, Fauzi Bustani, said that relations between Timor-Leste and Indonesia are growing steadily, pointing to the high number of official visits to both countries. Mr Bustani said that increasing economic ties is also a sign of good relations between the Indonesian and Timor-Leste Governments.

Eleven hunger strikers who had been protesting in front of the Australian Embassy in Dili, about the Australian Government?s position over the Timor Sea natural resources, were taken to the National Hospital and are under intensive care. According to the national local newspaper, Brazilian and the Pakistani PKF soldiers have been providing health assistance to the demonstrators on hunger strike. During a speech for the inauguration of a bridge in the District of Same, the Prime Minister, Dr Mari Alkatiri, said that the Timorese should educate themselves to help develop the country instead of being lazy. The Prime Minister said that the government alone cannot do the development without everyone?s involvement in the process. Meanwhile the President, Xanana Gusmco, said that the Government has set up as one of the priorities the road and bridge repair as part of the development of the nation, and everyone should be happy about it.

The President said that it is very difficult to decide which is the top priority for this new nation, when just about everything needs urgent attention.

Suara Timur Lorosae

A Member of Fretilin at the National Parliament, Ciprinana Pereira, said that during an investigation a Police Commander in Atauro, identified only by his initials ML, used a chair on top of a toe of the suspect just to obtain information. In addition the suspect was submitted to brutality by the Police Officer. Ms Pereira said that the Police should not resort to this kind of brutality because it is a gross violation of human rights.

East Timor celebrated its second anniversary as a nation on Thursday (last week). The people voted for independence from Indonesia in 1999 and the territory was under the administration of the United Nations until its independence in May 2002. Yet the newest nation in Asia is still the poorest and it is likely to remain so. At this year?s ceremony, President Gusmco called for the international community to help in providing educational and vocational opportunities. In the long run this is the best path to self-sufficiency, but East Timor does have one resource which could help break the poverty cycle in the near term: there are vast oil and natural gas fields off the coast in the Timor Sea, between East Timor and Australia. Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer recently advised East Timor to calm down and ?think about the bilateral relationship and make sure they negotiate with an eye to international law?. If international law is the issue, why not take the next logical step and avoid possible acrimonious bilateral negotiations? Let the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea decide on where the proper boundary should be drawn.

May 27, 2004

Suara Timur Lorosae

On the second anniversary of East Timor' independence, the East Timor Action Network (ETAN) called on the international community to actively promote justice and a just boundary for the new nation. "wo years after independence, the people of East Timor still lack any semblance of justice for decades of atrocities.

They still lack the unquestionable ability to develop their own natural resources,"said John Miller spokesperson for ETAN.

"Without vigorous international support, Australia will continue to steal East Timor's resources and high-ranking Indonesian officials responsible for directing horrendous human rights crimes will remain free to violate others' rights and run for high office." "We urge the Australian government to respect the sovereignty and resource rights of East Timor by promptly and fairly negotiating the maritime boundary between the two countries," said Miller.

A Member of the National Parliament, Alexandre Corte Real, said that one of the major problems for the people in the District of Ainaro is not having access to clean water. He said that the Government needs to pay attention to people's necessities in the District and provide them with an adequate water system.

Apart from water problems, people in the District of Ainaro have been sitting in the dark for two months without electricity, because of broken wires and electrical posts that have fallen down which the electrician are not able to repair, said Mr Corte Real.

In theory they can go home to see friends and family, but they have to sneak across the border unless they can buy an Indonesian passport and a one-month East Timor visa, which costs $USD 25 ($A 36), a prohibitive price for people without jobs and land. Many of them, like Fernande?s neighbour Luis Barreto, also have a darker reason for not going back. "People there want to kill me because I supported staying in Indonesia. I was a member of the militia,? the 30-year old admits. Donatus Akur, from the Jesuit Refugee service in Atambua, knows many of the hundreds of former militia members living in the border camps and the UNHCR funded resettlement villages. But despite their past, Akur rubbishes suggestions that the militia groups are still functioning.

"No, no, no, none of them are active." "In West Timor, there are many militias at the moment. They are divided into many groups and they can send people here to find out what's going on," he says. "There are 1000 people in Mota Ain who don't want to come here now but they believe if (former Indonesian military commander) Wiranto becomes president, they will move here." Even as the UN winds down, an agreed border still has not been demarcated between East and West Timor, so no one is certain whose country ends where. Such uncertainty means there is always a risk of a clash neither neighbour can afford.

Timor Post

According to today's edition of the paper a Chinese man was detained by the National Police in Praia dos Coqueiros, Farol, for producing illegally and false detergent 'So Klean" and water cups with Aquase copied labels. The man with AC initials was producing and selling dirty water as Aquase (a brand that is imported from Indonesia). The Secretary of State for Commerce and Trade, Arlindo Rangel, said that the Chinese man was producing these goods without any authorization, and the water used in the cups was pumped from the water channel nearby and sold to consumers.

A major Indonesian party officially threw its weight behind presidential contender and former military chief Wiranto after its own candidate failed a medical test for the July 5 election.

The move came ahead of a planned meeting between Wiranto, indicted for crimes against humanity in East Timor, with Xanana Gusmco, in a bid to smooth his presidential bid. Endorsement by the Nation Awakening Party (PKB) of former President Abdurrahman Wahid, populary known as Gus Dur, would be a big boost for Wiranto, the nominee of Golkar, the party that won the most seats in parliament in April 5 legislative election, though nowhere near a majority. A PKB official last week said support for Wiranto could change if a court proved charges that the ex- general committed crimes against humanity over East Timor's bloody split in 1999 from Jakarta.

May 31, 2004

Suara Timor Lorosae

The Vice-President of the National Parliament, Francisco Xavier do Amaral, said that the Government of Timor-Leste has done a few things for the country, but, for the improvement of the economy has done little. Mr Amaral said that the Government has shown willingness and done everything within its capacity to take the nation forward. Mr Amaral said that the problem the Government faces is lack of human resources to be able to implement any decision taken within the executive.

East Timor has rebuilt from the ashes school buildings throughout the country to cope with the demands from parents about their children?s education.

With this in mind, national leaders everywhere are placing more emphasis on the education of the youth. The Government, officials and parents in East Timor are working hard to give the children the best education for their future, because the young will be the future of East Timor. The Government has built hundreds of schools for the people. Both the Government and private sector are working hard to run the education. Although the private schools are more expensive than the Government's school and yet parents are sending their children to private schools. Do we know why?

Timor Post

The Prime Minister, Dr Mari Alkatiri, said that the electoral census is very important for the Government to be able to plan its national development. The Prime Minister said that it's important that everyone participates in the census that is due to start on May 31 until July 31.

The Head of the Agriculture Department in the District of Baucau, Abilio Hornai, said that 400 lady birds were released (does not say when) to combat the disease that was killing the coconut trees in the District of Baucau. He said that 100 lady birds are still in captivity at the laboratory to produce more lady birds and release at the appropriate time.

[Compiled by Jose Filipe External Affairs World Bank, Dili Office.]

Case	Date	Casualties	Notes
Trisakti shooting	May 12, 1998	four	was questioned
May riots	May 13-15, 1998	hundreds	as witness
Semanggi I incident	November, 1998	13	by the fact
Semanggi II incident	September, 1999	eight	finding team
East Timor riot	September, 1999	hundreds	[no notes]