Nick Butterly and Joe Stolley in Canberra – The wife and children of slain East Timorese rebel leader Alfredo Reinado have been granted permanent residency in Australia after pleading with the Rudd Government to grant them political asylum.

Maria Reinado fled to Perth with her children in 2006 after her husband, an officer in the East Timorese army, deserted his military barracks and took to the hills with a group of disaffected soldiers in opposition to the then government of Mari Alkatiri and Australian peacekeeping forces.

The charismatic soldier was killed while leading an assault on the home of East Timorese President Jose Ramos-Horta as part of a botched coup attempt in February last year.

President Ramos-Horta was shot several times during the shoot-out and was rushed to Darwin for emergency medical treatment.

The day before the attack, Mr Reinado was said to have called his wife in Perth and made her promise she would always look after herself and their children. He had previously kept in close contact with her.

The West Australian understands Ms Reinado and three of her children have been issued humanitarian visas, while the fourth and youngest child is likely to be granted a visa soon. It is believed she feared she could face retribution for her husband's actions if she was forced to return to Dili.

"Ms Maria Reinado's request for ministerial intervention for her and three of her children has been finalised," an Immigration Department spokesman said yesterday. "The request for the youngest child is still under consideration."

The Reinados originally came to WA in the 1990s as refugees fleeing the Indonesian army. Mr Reinado worked in a shipyard and was reputed to be a fiercely loyal West Coast Eagles supporter, even after the couple returned to their homeland.

"Say hello to West Coast for me," Mr Alfredo told a television reporter from his mountain hideout after the team won the 2006 flag.

Mr Reinado's lover in East Timor, Angelita Pires, a dual Australian-East Timorese citizen, has had her Australian passport confiscated by East Timorese authorities amid investigations into whether she knew Mr Reinado was planning the attack.

Ms Pires, who is fighting to return to Australia, has claimed she was carrying Mr Reinado's child at the time of the assault but miscarried because of the stress placed on her by the incident.

A spokesman for Immigration Minister Chris Evans refused to confirm whether the Reinado family had been issued visas.

"For privacy reasons the Minister does not comment on the detail of individual cases," the spokesman said. "This has been a longstanding practice of governments of both political persuasions."

Lover of slain East Timor rebel leader 'left in limbo'

Sydney Morning Herald - January 6, 2009

Lindsay Murdoch, Darwin – Angelita Pires, the former lover of slain East Timorese rebel leader Alfredo Reinado, says authorities in Dili are depriving her of her freedom because her case is too political.

"I've heard that politically they don't know what to do with me – there is now a lot of support for me on the ground because people are starting to understand the truth and are asking questions," Ms Pires told The Age.

Ms Pires, 38, said she is fed up with being held in limbo, unable to leave East Timor, 11 months after attacks in which President Jose Ramos Horta was seriously wounded and Reinado shot dead.

"All I want to do is to leave," Ms Pires said by telephone from Dili, where a court has confiscated her Australian passport, pending an investigation into whether she played any role in the events that led to the attacks. "It's going from bad to the ridiculous," she said.

Mr Ramos Horta told diplomats in a new year's address that the motive for Reinado leading a group of armed men to his house remained unknown to him. "The trial of those involved directly or indirectly in the February 11 attack on me and the Prime Minister might reveal more facts," he said.

In his first public comments after being shot, Mr Ramos Horta said Ms Pires was among several people who had "manipulated and influenced" Reinado before the attacks.

In his new year's speech, Mr Ramos Horta said it was feared at the time that the country would slide into civil war.

But he said: "My near-death, like the near death of Mahatma Gandhi when he went on a long hunger strike, pushed back the people from the brink of a wider conflict."

Ms Pires said she had been warned by "high people" to stop speaking with journalists about her plight. An application she made to a court in Dili to be able to travel to Darwin for 10 days to see her family for Christmas – and for medical reasons after losing a baby she had conceived with Reinado – was refused.

"I have come to the stage of my life where I am fed up with being in limbo – is there anything to charge me with?" she said.

Ms Pires said until Mr Ramos Horta apologises and "says what he said about me was completely wrong, I will not feel safe in Dili".

She is living in a shack in a Dili suburb, unable to get access to her bank accounts, which authorities have frozen. Her food is provided by her family.

In Australia, Ms Pires' brother, Antonio, and mother, Maria Francisca Pires, have told Australia's Foreign Minister Stephen Smith that she has not received fair representation in East Timor.

"You and DFAT (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade) have made it clear to us that we, as migrant Australians, are not afforded the same rights as born Australians," they said in a letter dated December 25.

February 11 attack

East Timor president recognizes the man who shot him

Deutsche Presse Agentur - January 11, 2009

Bangkok – East Timorese President Jose Ramos Horta said Sunday he recently shook hands with the rebellious soldier who shot him last year, but had not yet named him to prosecutors.

Horta, who was in Bangkok for a peace seminar, told an audience that on December 26 he shook hands with the man who shot him on February 11, leaving him on the verge of death.

"He still hasn't had the courage to tell the prosecutor it was me, and I haven't told the prosecutor because I hope that he will tell the court," said Horta.

President Horta, the 1996 Nobel peace laureate, was shot by a rebel soldier in Dili and lost 4 litres of blood before he was admitted to an Australian medical clinic for emergency treatment.

He spent 10 days in Darwin, Australia, in critical condition but survived the assault and is now in good health, as is East Timor, he said.

"The immediate consequence is that the country stood back from our conflict, and we entered a period of peace as never witnessed in our country," said Horta of the unsuccessful assassination attempt.

Horta's yet-unnamed assailant was one of 700 disgruntled East Timorese soldiers who rebelled against the government over lack of pay and other complaints early last year.

Shortly after the near-slaying, the rebels entered negotiations with the Dili government and surrendered in May. Leaders of the group are now awaiting trial.

"Since then I have met with them, including the gentleman who shot me," Horta said. "I shook hands with him on December 26, which was my birthday."

Horta said he had no doubt about the culprit. "I saw his face, his eyes, and I flashed back to February 11th, and that was the person," he said.

Horta was only about 20 metres from his assailant when he was shot down with an AK-47. The president said he had seen the assailant and quickly turned, avoiding being shot in the chest and perhaps saving his own life.

"I believe it was an irrational act on that morning," he said of the attack. "I just hope that he will step forward and say 'yes, I did it,' and say why he did it."

Ironically, Horta was the chief proponent of opening negotiations with the rebellious soldiers to meet their demands. That process is now underway.

East Timor is one of the world's newest countries. A former colony of Portugal, it was invaded and annexed by Indonesia in 1975.

A plebiscite calling for independence in 1999 led to a bloody crackdown by Indonesian soldiers that killed hundreds and left the country in ruins, prompting international intervention by United Nations peacekeeping forces.

East Timor, also called Timor Leste, gained its sovereignty in May 2002.

Social conflicts/refugees

Government hands over 2,000 houses to former Timorese refugees

Jakarta Post - January 10, 2009

Yemris Fointuna, Kupang – The central government handed over 2,000 houses Thursday to former East Timorese refugees opting to reside in East Nusa Tenggara.

The houses were built by the Social Services Ministry in 2008 and handed over by the ministry secretary-general Chazali H Situmorang to the refugees through East Nusa Tenggara Governor Frans Lebu Raya on Thursday afternoon.

Wirasakti Regional Military Command chief Col. Winston Simanjuntak said the 30-square-meter houses were built at several regencies, including 500 houses in Kupang regency and 150 houses in Belu regency.

"The construction of the houses is a part of the government's attention to former East Timorese opting to be Indonesian citizens," Situmorang said.

"This aid also proves the government is trying to improve people's welfare, including former East Timorese."

The government expects that former East Timorese to resume a normal standard of living. Currently there are about 100,000 former East Timorese opting to be Indonesian citizens living in East Nusa Tenggara province.

The government has built 8,000 houses since 2006 and will end the program this year.

War on corruption

East Timor minister denies corruption

The Australian - January 21, 2009

Mark Dodd – East Timor's Gusmao Government yesterday denied claims by the Fretilin opposition that several million dollars' worth of unaccounted expenditure involved corruption.

Finance Minister Emilia Pires disputed opposition claims that $US8.8 million ($13.3 million) had been lost from government accounts. Nor was an "urgent" search under way for money allocated to various government departments, she said.

In parliament, the Gusmao Government has acknowledged that money allocated to various departments is unaccounted for. The Australian understands the amount outstanding is about $US6 million.

In a statement yesterday, Ms Pires said the Finance Ministry was in the process of end-of-year reconciliation of accounts and ministries had until March to submit final justifications.

"There has not been any letter or documented exchange which stated or inferred corrupt government officials have misappropriated government funds," the minister said.

"We use an automated accounting system to record all expenditure from the 2008 state budget. The reconciliations are updated regularly so that over time we are able to confidently track all public funds. "This is a completely transparent process," Ms Pires said.

In a story published on January 16, The Australian cited two official letters detailing concerns about unauthorised bank accounts held by senior government officials.

Ms Pires said the first letter detailing correspondence between herself and Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao was only ever in draft form and was never sent.

A second letter written by the minister to the head of the BNU Bank in Dili ordering the closure of a government account and a request all monies be redirected into the central government account comprised "normal administrative practice", she said.

Last night Fretilin opposition spokesman Jose Teixeira said he was standing by the graft claims. "This is a very serious issue. We (East Timor) have never had such a large amount of outstanding money in terms of these advances," he said.

"And we're again debating a budget where they (Gusmao Government) are seeking more money from the petroleum fund. The parliament's committee for finance, economy and anti-corruption laments that this minister has not provided an up-to-date credit and debt accounting (of the missing money) but she will have to by the end of March."

Timor officials 'took' $13.3 million

The Australian - January 16, 2009

Mark Dodd – An urgent search is under way in East Timor for $13.3 million that was allocated to various government ministries but is unaccounted for, amid growing corruption concerns.

News of the missing millions is a severe embarrassment to the Gusmao Government, which is heavily dependent on aid from the UN and foreign donors, of which Australia is one of its biggest.

The impoverished half-island state is one of Asia's poorest, with few developed natural resources and almost no industry.

Under questioning by the Fretilin opposition, Finance Minister Emilia Pires told parliament yesterday the East Timorese Government was trying to recover the money but had met with only limited success.

Fretilin spokesman and senior party official Jose Teixeira told The Australian the money had been taken by corrupt officials.

"They (the Government) have no hope of getting it back. They have lost control of finances, and public administration is far worse than we thought," he said. "How can any government justify to their taxpayers providing a huge aid program here when there is such wastage?"

In a letter written by Ms Pires to Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao last Friday, and obtained by The Australian, the minister expresses concern that much of the money has been misappropriated by corrupt officials.

"The National Treasury Directorate wrote to all ministries on 9 October (2008) to present their justification for expenses for which they received advances up until October 25," she wrote.

"By the 9th of January (2009), the total debt for all ministries was $US8.8 million. It is possible that some ministers have opened bank accounts in order to retain the money securely. "The opening of such a bank account with any bank is expressly illegal."

In a second letter to the Portuguese BNU Bank dated January 9, Ms Pires indicates she is aware of several illegal bank accounts and orders them closed.

"Account No 4136469-10-001 should be immediately closed," she wrote. "The credit balance should be transferred immediately to government account CFET 2-3711. From hereon, public receipts should not be credited to the above-mentioned account."

The US and international corruption watchdog Transparency International have recently expressed concern at rising corruption in East Timor.

Six years ago, the national budget stood at just $124 million. But the Government is now dipping into its $3.9 billion petroleum fund, which is flush with oil and gas proceeds from the Timor Sea.

Last year's budget rocketed to $973 million, with this year's budget set at $1.03 billion. Australian aid for 2008-09 is worth almost $100 million.

Human rights/law

Rights group urges East Timor to drop charges against editor

Agence France Presse - January 26, 2009

Dili – A rights group Monday urged East Timor to drop criminal charges against a weekly newspaper and its editor for alleged defamation of the justice minister.

"Tempo Semanal and Jose Belo should not face charges under this obsolete and repressive law," coordinator of the US-based East Timor and Indonesian Action Network, or ETAN, John Miller said in a statement. "We urge the prosecutor general to immediately drop any charges," he said.

Justice Minister Lucia Lobato filed a defamation lawsuit against the Tempo Semanal and its editor over allegations made in an article published in October.

Lobato filed defamation charges in November, accusing the paper of breaching her privacy and violating the ethical code of journalists.

"Information about government activities should not be subject of defamation law. Timor Leste's leadership should support freedom of expression and encourage a dynamic, investigative media," Miller added.

According to ETAN, the editor Belo was questioned Jan. 19 for three hours by the prosecutor's office. He was notified of the defamation charge in December.

The criminal defamation law is leftover from Indonesia's 24-year occupation. East Timor formally became an independent state May 20, 2002.

East Timor leader against rights tribunals for Indonesians

Agence France Presse - January 16, 2009

Manila – East Timor President Jose Ramos-Horta said here Thursday he opposes putting Indonesian soldiers on trial for human rights abuses carried out during the fight for independence.

East Timor gained formal independence in 2002 after a bloody 24- year occupation by neighbor Indonesia that led to the deaths of up to 200,000 people and there have been calls to try the perpetrators.

"I would oppose it for as long as I am president," said the 1996 Nobel laureate, a former leader of the independence movement that resisted Jakarta's annexation of the territory after the departure of colonial ruler Portugal.

Giving a lecture at a Manila university, Ramos-Horta said there had been calls from within East Timor as well as abroad for such trials, but that the majority of people did not favor such a move. He said he always told compatriots who held this view to "go elect a new president."

"We became free in 1999 because the Indonesians also liberated themselves," he said, referring to the street protests that led to the downfall of the long-serving Indonesian president Suharto, under whose rule Indonesian troops seized East Timor in 1975.

Calling for such a genocide tribunal now after Dili and Jakarta made peace would be like stabbing Indonesia's leaders in the back, said Ramos-Horta, who is on a six-day visit to the Philippines.

Ramos-Horta was elected president in 2007 after also serving as prime minister and foreign minister of the tiny state.

Health & education

Women in Timor 'have unsafe abortions'

Agence France Presse - January 30, 2009

Tara Ravens – Women in East Timor are forced into potentially fatal abortions because they cannot legally terminate a pregnancy even for medical reasons, according to a Darwin researcher.

Restrictive laws in the mainly Catholic country mean women cannot request elective abortion for any reason, including to preserve their health or save their lives.

Charles Darwin University (CDU) researcher Dr Suzanne Belton said although there were no figures on the number of unsafe abortions carried out in the fledgling nation, they remain the leading cause of death for pregnant women worldwide.

Completing the first study on unwanted pregnancy in East Timor, Dr Belton – a research associate with CDU's Graduate School for Health Practice – said maternal deaths in East Timor continued to be very high.

"Key findings (of the study) included that induced abortion continued to be performed in secret," she said.

"Forty per cent of all emergency obstetric care was managing and treating complications from early pregnancy losses, and doctors and midwives continued to be reluctant to speak with women about induced abortion."

The study, Maternal Mortality, Unplanned Pregnancy and Unsafe Abortion in Timor-Leste: A Situational Analysis, found medical professionals were reluctant to talk to their patients about abortions.

Dr Belton presented her findings as part of East Timor's first congress on health sciences in Dili in December.

"A huge problem is that there has been no research conducted on unsafe abortion since Timor-Leste's independence from Indonesia in 2002," Dr Belton said.

"This study describes the context of unplanned and unwanted pregnancy and fertility management, as well as investigating and canvassing a way forward."

The study – funded and commissioned by The United Nations Population Fund – also recommended strategies to assist the reduction of morbidity and mortality associated with unwanted pregnancy and unsafe abortion.

Dr Belton said the law regulating termination of pregnancy in Timor-Leste was highly restrictive.

"The legal situation is complex and confusing for health professionals, given views on abortion are influenced by the Catholic context of the country," she said. "Access to family planning information, education and supplies is limited and in three of the four health facilities investigated, evidence-based protocols in the provision of post-abortion care were not used."

Dr Belton's research methods included analysing data from a maternal death audit, monitoring service provisions, studying reproductive health indicators, and face-to-face interviews with doctors, midwives and women recovering from early pregnancy losses.

One in 35 East Timor women die in childbirth: report

ABC News Online - January 15, 2009

A report has found women in East Timor are 300 times more likely to die during childbirth than women in developed countries.

The UNICEF report shows that an East Timorese mother has a one in 35 chance of dying during childbirth. In neighbouring Australia the figure is one in more than 13,000.

UNICEF Australia's CEO Carolyn Hardy has told ABC Breakfast the situation is also serious in some Pacific nations because of a lack of appropriate obstetric and maternity care services.

"A lot of countries are improving and some in this region are getting worse, the Solomons has gotten worse over the past five years," she said.

"Papua New Guinea has also gotten worse over the past five years. Timor has improved slightly, but having said that, Timor is still 1 in 35 women giving birth will die during giving birth, women [to the] north of Australia are bleeding to death."

Foreign affairs

East Timor president opposes international sanctions on Myanmar

Deutsche Presse Agentur - January 11, 2009

Bangkok – The US and European Union should review their policy of imposing economic sanctions on Myanmar as the country's pariah military regime is key to the future stability of any elected government, East Timor President Jose Ramos-Horta said Sunday.

"If we aren't pragmatic about it there will be no solution (in Myanmar) in the immediate term or long term," said Horta, who was in Bangkok over the weekend at the invitation of the International Peace Foundation.

Horta, the 1996 Nobel peace laureate, reiterated his controversial stance against economic sanctions on Myanmar and Cuba, which he had made known at the United Nations and other forums.

"We cannot further punish a collectivity of people because of the perceived sins of their leaders," said Horta. The US has imposed economic sanctions against Myanmar's ruling junta since its bloody crackdown on a pro-democracy movement in 1988 that left up to 3,000 dead.

Multilateral aid lenders, such as the World Bank, IMF and Asia Development Bank, ceased all loans to the country since 1988 and the European Union has imposed restrictions on aid and the granting of visas to Myanmar military leaders.

Horta last visited Myanmar in 2005 and has lent his support to his fellow Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. He said Sunday that Myanmar's long-delayed democratization process would require the participation of the military, which has ruled the country since 1962.

"You look at the transition in Thailand, the transition in the Philippines and Indonesia," he said. "The military have remained part of society, part of the state and party of the country."

"If you have a road map which at the end the Burmese military see their interests have been preserved, they might find some incentive," he added.

That is exactly what Myanmar's military-drafted constitution guarantees. The charter was pushed through in May, after a dubious plebiscite called despite Cyclone Nargis, which devastated much of the Irrawaddy Delta and left millions homeless and without aid.

The new charter guarantees a dominant role for the military through an appointed Senate that will have the right to block legislation. An election is scheduled for 2010.

"Assuming the military cedes power, no elected civilian leader in Myanmar can survive without the full support of the military," said Horta, a well-known independence hero in his own country.

Horta, who was foreign minister when Indonesia military invaded and annexed East Timor in 1975, spent 24 years in exile struggling for Timor independence and accusing Indonesia's military of human rights atrocities.

East Timor, also called Timor Leste, finally gained its sovereignty in May 2002.

Secret cabinet documents on Australia-Asia relations released

Radio Australia - January 2, 2009

Australian government documents from 1978 show how concerned Canberra was at the fall of Australia's standing in Southeast Asia.

Presenter: Girish Sawlani

Graeme Dobell, Radio Australia's associate editor for the Asia Pacific: Australia was starting to realize that this was becoming both an issue for domestic politics for the way Australia was starting to view the flow of boat people, some of whom were starting to reach Australian shores. Australia was also thinking about what it meant for its relations with Southeast Asia in the post Vietnam War era.

The immigration minister at the time, Michael McCullough had visited the five ASEAN countries in the middle of 1978 and reported back to cabinet that there were fears in ASEAN that up to half a million people could flee Vietnam over the next three years. There was a real possibility that thousands of boat people would seek to reach Australia directly. Australia would have to start planning to build for instance a refugee holding centre. Australia would also have to start looking at lifting the number of Indo-Chinese refugees it took.

Cabinet decided at the end that year to lift the numbers from 9,000 to 10,500. There was also an understanding that Australia would get very little sympathy from the ASEAN governments for the Australian view that the boat people should be held in camps in Southeast Asia and that Australia was looking at a set of issues in Southeast Asia that would really test its diplomacy in the region, but also the way Australians thought of the relationship with Southeast Asia.

Sawlani: So how did that feed to concerns about Australia's role in Southeast Asia?

Dobell: We're looking at the years after the Vietnam War where Australia of course had fought alongside the United States in Vietnam and the Australian government is starting to think about the emergence of ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations which at that stage was five countries. ASEAN had come to the end of its first decade and in the post-Vietnam era the Australian government was starting to realise that ASEAN was becoming quite a powerful regional organisation and that where in the past, Australia's relationship with say Singapore or Malaysia could be focussed on security issues and Australia's role as an alliance partner with the United States and Australia's role with the retreating British forces in Singapore, Malaysia. That security role that Australia previously played was no longer going to be central to the relationship with Southeast Asia and the Australian cabinet received several documents in 1978 telling it that Australia's standing in Southeast Asia was in decline.

Sawlani: Were ASEAN leaders being overly hostile to Australia?

Dobell: No, leaders in ASEAN were not hostile, that's not the ASEAN way but Australia was starting to realise that in its relationships, particularly with Indonesia and Malaysia, that Australia had to rethink the way it went about some of these dealings. It was looking at a more cohesive and confident ASEAN and the documents going to cabinet told Australia that some regional leaders were reluctant to visit Australia.

Indonesia's president, Suharto, particularly had visited Australia twice in 1972 and 1975, but after East Timor, was in no hurry to come back. And in fact, we now know that in the couple of decades that followed, Suharto never again visited Australia. And the cabinet considered a submission that said that Australia's relations with ASEAN had been adversely affected by what Southeast Asia regarded as bias reporting by the Australian media. ASEAN governments tended to believe that Australian media views reflected Australian public opinion and that submission said ASEAN did not readily accept that the Australian government couldn't correct misleading reports and bias in the Australian media.

Foreign affairs said in a submission that Malaysia and Indonesia were particularly sensitive and the submission also makes the point that Indonesia was worried by Radio Australia – by Radio Australia's shortwave broadcast to Indonesia and that foreign affairs submission judge that, in the view of some of Australia's diplomats, Indonesia had some justification of its concern about Australian media reporting on Timor and Irian Jaya.

Sawlani: Three years after the Indonesian invasion of East Timor, how were relations between Canberra and Jakarta recovering?

Dobell: They were still bruised and they were still extreme sensitivities about East Timor. But what's striking in 1978 is that the Fraser government was moving very quickly to go past the issue of East Timor. At the beginning of 1978, the cabinet decided that it would give de facto recognition to Indonesia's takeover of East Timor and by the end of that year, the foreign minister, Andrew Peacock was back in cabinet with a submission saying the Australia would have to move from de facto to full legal or de jure recognition of Indonesia's incorporation of East Timor because Australia wanted to do boundary negotiations with Indonesia over the so-called Timor gap – the gap in the border between Australia and Indonesia at East Timor.

To do that, Andrew Peacock said Australia was going to have to give full legal recognition to the fact that Indonesia had East Timor and Mr Peacock said that Australian emotion over East Timor meant that de jure recognition was going to be difficult. In fact, the submission he took to cabinet said that in announcing the start of border negotiations with Indonesia, he would not actually make clear that this amounted to full legal, de jure recognition. He would only clarify that point if the Australian media actually pressed him or questioned him on that issue, and in fact, they did. Australian reporters asked him about the legal import of that and the Australian government had to admit that it had given full de jure recognition to Indonesia's takeover of East Timor.

Now as we now know, that was not the end of the issue. This became a running sore in Australia's relationship with Indonesia for decades after and the cabinet papers make quite clear that Australia's hopes to influence Indonesia and East Timor, Indonesia and the ASEAN countries might partly hang off the way that the Australian public thought about Indonesia and thought about East Timor.

Timor shift defied advice

Melbourne Age - January 2, 2009

Leo Shanahan – The government of Malcolm Fraser knew it was in breach of international law when it recognised Indonesia's takeover of East Timor – but bowed to pressure from the Suharto regime and oil companies.

Secret cabinet papers from the 1978 Fraser government released by the National Archives of Australia show that then foreign minister Andrew Peacock thought the government's refusal to recognise East Timor as Indonesian would result in a boycott of Australia by then president Suharto and further antagonise oil companies keen to begin drilling in the Timor Gap.

Australia had refused to recognise East Timor as part of Indonesia after the invasion by Indonesian forces in 1975. But in an interview with The Age coinciding with the release of the documents, Mr Peacock accepted recognition may not have been "the moral decision".

According to East Timor's Truth and Reconciliation Commission just over 100,000 people were killed or died as a result of conflict during Indonesia's occupation of East Timor between 1975 and 1999.

According to cabinet submissions Australia had started to be regarded as an "irritating, uncertain and unpredictable element in the South-East Asian situation".

"There are signs that the patience and understanding of a growing group of influential Indonesians in the government are running out and I believe the point has been reached where our continued refusal to accept fully and formally the reality of the situation in East Timor could damage the relationship," Mr Peacock's cabinet submission states.

Mr Peacock argued that "the issue (East Timor) is fading as an international one. There is no likelihood of that trend being reversed" and that Indonesia had "made it clear that a presidential visit would not take place unless the Timor problem in our relationship had been solved".

Legal advisers alerted Mr Peacock to Australia's obligations under international law, including several UN Security Council resolutions supported by Australia that opposed the occupation of East Timor as well as article two of the UN charter prohibiting the use of force.

But by couching the "recognition" in less explicit language he thought it would be possible to "ride out" the legal obligations. "Because of certain international legal considerations about the use of the word 'recognises' we should avoid using it directly and begin with phrases such as 'full', 'formal' or 'definitive' acceptance.

"Nevertheless, if pressed about whether this means 'recognise' we would have to confirm that it did in the popularly accepted sense of the word. In saying this publicly we would explain that we 'recognise' the fact that East Timor was part of Indonesia but not the means by which it was brought about," the cabinet submission states.

One concern of the Government in not recognising Jakarta's control of East Timor was that without recognition there could be no negotiations over the Timor Gap and subsequent drilling of its lucrative oil reserves.

In a recent interview with The Age Mr Peacock said that while he was obliged to put forward the views that oil companies had made to other firms in his submission "it was not at any time to the best of my recall any influence on my decision".

A candid Mr Peacock admitted that Australia's decision to recognise East Timor was not necessarily the moral one. "There are various motivations for your decisions in foreign policy: they can be political, they can be strategic or defence, they can be moral. In this situation you had countervailing arguments.

"The political and defence question may lead you to one conclusion and the moral may lead you to another, they can sometimes tear you apart," Mr Peacock said.

He said he felt constantly "under siege" when making decisions about East Timor.

"To be frank East Timor was a loss or a no-win situation for an Australian government at that stage. If we were overtly critical as we were on occasions, we were criticised by those who wanted friendly relations and then the reverse occurred."

Why the Fraser government gave up on East Timor

Sydney Morning Herald - January 1, 2009

Phillip Hudson – The Fraser government's controversial decision formally to recognise Jakarta's takeover of East Timor was based on the belief that the occupation was "irreversible" and made because influential Indonesians were losing patience with Australia's stand against it.

Cabinet documents released today by the National Archives of Australia under the 30-year rule reveal the then foreign affairs minister, Andrew Peacock, pushed for the policy change, telling his ministerial colleagues Asia saw Australia as "irritating, uncertain and unpredictable" and he was concerned about severe trade and security consequences.

Two years before, the government had rejected the push to give de jure recognition to Indonesia over East Timor but at its first cabinet meeting in Canberra in January 1978, Mr Peacock told his colleagues he was worried the relationship with Indonesia was deteriorating and "time is running out for us".

Mr Peacock, who was agitated about Australia's poor image in South-East Asia, told ministers that Indonesia's then president Soeharto would be "especially pleased" with the decision, which would allow Australia to negotiate the seabed boundary between the countries in the Timor Sea.

Mr Peacock said the prime minister, Malcolm Fraser, and Mr Soeharto were developing a close friendship and there was a risk this bond could weaken "if adjustments are not made to our Timor policy".

But while he said it would be supported by the "silent majority" and the issue was "fading as an international one", Mr Peacock was concerned about a backlash from what he described as small vocal anti-Indonesian groups.

He gave cabinet a detailed explanation how the government should "try to avoid" directly saying Australia "recognised" Indonesian control. Ministers were urged to use terms such as "full", "formal" or "definitive" acceptance. If pressed, they should explain that Australia recognised "the fact that East Timor was part of Indonesia but not the means by which it was brought about".

Speaking to the Herald this week, Mr Peacock said it was a "no- win situation in those days" but he still believed "we were taking the right decision at the time".

"It was putting pressure on the Soeharto-Fraser relationship which is an important consideration," he said. "It was a difficulty but I learnt to live with it. I wouldn't allow myself to be torn up. That was my job."

Mr Peacock, who now lives in the US, said he had personally protested about the occupation to Mr Soeharto "but there came a time for us after more than two years when the situation was still the same and you had to face certain realities. There was a fundamental question: who was in control? The correct answer was the Indonesian government. It forced the hand somewhat."

In his submission to cabinet, Mr Peacock said senior Indonesians were disappointed that Australia continued to dwell on the 1975 invasion and had not "looked to the future".

Indonesian troops killed five Australian journalists in Balibo in 1975, but according to the documents released today, by 1978, the Fraser government was increasingly concerned about maintaining good relations with not just Indonesia but throughout South-East Asia.

In December, cabinet was shown a report by diplomatic heads in South-East Asia that said Australia was "seen in some [Association of South-East Asian Nations] quarters as being in their view a selfish, introverted nation" and that Asian leaders were reluctant to visit because they feared a hostile media reception.

Cabinet instructed Mr Peacock to talk to the ABC chairman about Radio Australia's "inaccurate" reporting in East Timor, which was irritating Indonesian sensitivities and "damaging to the relationship". On a visit to Indonesia, the defence minister, Jim Killen, told his hosts "with some personal feeling" that the media were beyond government control. He told cabinet relations with Indonesia were "certainly strained" by East Timor.

Officials raised concerns that 72 per cent of Qantas flights then passed through Indonesian air space and it would be a considerable cost and inconvenience if relations soured.

Successive Australian governments maintained the Peacock policy until December 1998 when the then prime minister, John Howard, wrote to B. J. Habibie, then Indonesian president, saying Australia was backing self-determination for East Timor. Mr Habibie then gave East Timor a choice of independence or autonomy. Australian-led United Nations forces took control of East Timor and it became a country in 2002.

Economy & investment

Foreign investors trickling into East Timor's fledgling economy

Kyodo News - January 8, 2009

Siti Rahil, Dili – Foreign investors are beginning to trickle into impoverished East Timor as it struggles to achieve stability and develop its fledgling economy six years after its violent break from Indonesia.

Asia's youngest nation, which gained independence from Indonesia in May 2002 amid pessimism over its ability to stand on its own feet, has had to grapple with a military crisis that sparked violence in the country in 2006 and also the shooting of East Timorese President Jose Ramos-Horta by rebels early last year.

Today, the country is still mired in poverty and serious underemployment although it has a head start economically thanks to its oil and gas wealth.

But diplomats and economic analysts say the security situation has improved in recent months, and foreign investors have started to show interest in the country.

The current government, which came into power in 2007, is pushing for industries such as tourism, fisheries and agriculture that will create jobs and boost the economy while avoiding overdependence on the country's oil and gas resources.

As a sign of brighter prospects, Australian airline Austasia launched twice-weekly direct air services between the country's capital Dili and Singapore in August last year. It marks the first airlink between the East Timorese capital and Southeast Asia's wealthiest economy.

Although the airline is expecting its flights to be mainly filled by UN peacekeeping personnel and other humanitarian workers initially, the start of the new route could also stimulate growing interest in business and tourism, diplomats and officials say.

The company plans to increase the flights to three times a week from February this year. Previously, the only regular flights to East Timor had been from Indonesia's resort island of Bali and Australia's Darwin.

In yet another sign that this sleepy country is beginning to stir, a Singaporean businessman operating from Malaysia is planning to build the first luxury resort in East Timor, a move that could boost the country's tourism dream.

The businessman, Edward Ong, told Kyodo News that he will invest about US$250 million to build the resort on a sprawling site in Dili. A basic agreement for the project was signed between Ong and East Timorese government officials recently.

The resort, expected to be completed by 2012, will boast a five- star hotel with about 350 rooms, a 27-hole golf course set amid lakes, and a business park. Ong said the resort will initially target business travelers but he also sees a big potential for tourism in the long run.

"We feel there's lot of potential, but it may take longer than we expect. It's a virgin place that people have not explored yet," Ong said.

The government plans to take advantage of the country's pristine coral reefs, deep seas and rugged terrain to promote the country as one of the world's best spots for scuba diving, snorkeling, whale and dolphin watching, trekking and mountaineering.

Meanwhile, China has emerged as a dominant player in the East Timor economy.

Mainland Chinese entrepreneurs have flooded East Timor, running many small businesses, such as retail shops, supermarkets, construction, restaurants and small hotels. Most of those interviewed said they wanted to escape the fierce competition and rising cost of doing business back home.

The Chinese government, one of the first countries to establish diplomatic relations with East Timor after it became independent, is clearly playing a big role in helping to rebuild the country's infrastructure.

It is constructing key government buildings in the capital, such as the president's office, which is expected to be completed early next year, the Foreign Ministry and Defense Ministry headquarters, China's envoy to East Timor Su Jian said in an interview at the Chinese Embassy in Dili.

Some Chinese businessmen are now planning bigger projects such as bigger supermarkets and hotels, he said. "China is very optimistic about the future of East Timor," he said.

More businessmen from China, Singapore, Hong Kong and Macao also have been visiting East Timor in the past two years to seek business opportunities, he said. A Macao company is planning to build East Timor's first factory for making electrical goods, which will create about 5,000 jobs, he said.

"This is a new market, so the competition is not so fierce as other countries and the labor cost is very cheap. This government is very friendly toward foreign investors," he said. But there are still infrastructure-related impediments such as poor roads, telecommunications, water and power supplies, and the workers lack skills, he added.

One of the country's biggest hopes is coffee. Singaporean businessman Bill Tan of Timor Global recently told Kyodo News he sees a big potential in reviving the country's coffee industry, which had been neglected under Indonesian rule, to its heyday of being among the world's best. Tan has been trading East Timor coffee for years, exporting unroasted coffee in bulk to Europe and Germany. His company recently opened a plantation.

Despite being flush with oil money – US$200 million in earnings each year, which at this stage is more money than the country can spend – the government is anxious to ensure the country diversifies its economy.

"We are trying to make people look at oil as something temporary...it calls for the government to invest in non- petroleum areas. If we become psychologically dependent, that's the danger," Secretary of State for Natural Resources Alfredo Pires said in an interview. Currently most of the oil money is invested in US government bonds, he said.

The government is investing in education for its youth. Last year, it sent about 175 students overseas for training in geology, mining and engineering, and by 2012, the government hopes to have sent about 10,000 of its youth for overseas study.

The fishing industry is another area the government is trying to develop. It recently ordered two patrol boats for about US$27 million to protect its waters from illegal fishing by foreign vessels.

In the oil sector, the government is now fiercely negotiating with a major oil and gas explorer for liquefied natural gas in the Greater Sunrise project to be piped to East Timor rather than Darwin so that a downstream processing plant can be built on the country's southern coast. That could create jobs that will benefit the country's economy.

The government also recently signed a contract for the construction of a big power plant by a Chinese company for the supply of electricity to the whole country before the end of this year.

Opinion & analysis

Obama's Neocon: The curious case of Richard Holbrooke

ZNet - January 24, 2009

Joshua Frank – In wee morning hours on Friday, January 23, a US spy plane killed at least 15 in Pakistan near the Afghanistan border. It was Barack Obama's first blood and the US's first violation of Pakistan's sovereignty under the new dministration. The attack was an early sign that the newly minted president may not be overhauling the War on Terror this week, or even next.

As the US government fired upon alleged terrorists in the rugged outback of Pakistan, Obama was back in Washington appointing Richard Holbrooke as a special US representative to Pakistan and Afghanistan. Unfortunately, like the remote control bombing that claimed human life, Obama's vision for the region, in the embodiment of Holbrooke, may not be a drastic departure from the failed Bush doctrine. Or a departure at all.

"[Holbrooke] is one of the most talented diplomats of his generation," Obama said during a January 22 press conference at the State Department. In his speech Obama declared that both Afghanistan and Pakistan will be the "central front" in the War on Terror. "There, as in the Middle East, we must understand that we cannot deal with our problems in isolation," he said.

In 1975, during Gerald Ford's administration, Indonesia invaded East Timor and slaughtered 200,000 indigenous Timorese. The Indonesian invasion of East Timor set the stage for a long and bloody occupation that recently ended after an international peacekeeping force was introduced in 1999.

Transcripts of meetings among Indonesian dictator Mohamed Suharto, Gerald Ford, and his Secretary of State Henry Kissinger have shown conclusively that Kissinger and Ford authorized and encouraged Suhatro's murderous actions. "We will understand and will not press you on the issue [of East Timor]," said President Ford in a meeting with Suharto and Kissinger in early December 1975, days before Suharto's bloodbath. "We understand the problem and the intentions you have," he added.

Henry Kissinger also stressed at the meeting that "the use of US-made arms could create problems," but then added, "It depends on how we construe it; whether it is in self defense or is a foreign operation." Thus, Kissinger's concern was not about whether US arms would be used offensively, but whether the act could be interpreted as illegal. Kissinger went on: "It is important that whatever you do succeeds quickly."

After Gerald Ford's loss and Jimmy Carter's ascendance into the White House in 1976, Indonesia requested additional arms to continue its brutal occupation, even though there was a supposed ban on arms trades to Suharto's government. It was Carter's appointee to the Department of State's Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Richard Holbrooke, now a likely candidate to be nominated for Clinton's Secretary of State, who authorized additional arms shipments to Indonesia during this supposed blockade. Many scholars have noted that this was the period when the Indonesian suppression of the Timorese reached genocidal levels.

During his testimony before Congress in February 1978, Professor Benedict Anderson cited a report that proved there was never an US arms ban, and that during the period of the alleged ban the US initiated new offers of military weaponry to the Indonesians:

"If we are curious as to why the Indonesians never felt the force of the US government's 'anguish,' the answer is quite simple. In flat contradiction to express statements by General Fish, Mr. Oakley and Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Richard Holbrooke, at least four separate offers of military equipment were made to the Indonesian government during the January-June 1976 'administrative suspension.' This equipment consisted mainly of supplies and parts for OV-10 Broncos, Vietnam War era planes designed for counterinsurgency operations against adversaries without effective anti-aircraft weapons, and wholly useless for defending Indonesia from a foreign enemy. The policy of supplying the Indonesian regime with Broncos, as well as other counterinsurgency-related equipment has continued without substantial change from the Ford through the present Carter administrations."

If we track Holbrooke's recent statements, the disturbing symbiosis between him and figures like uberhawk Paul Wolfowitz is startling.

"In an unguarded moment just before the 2000 election, Richard Holbrooke opened a foreign policy speech with a fawning tribute to his host, Paul Wolfowitz, who was then the dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington," reported First of the Month following the terrorist attacks in 2001.

The article continued: "Holbrooke, a senior adviser to Al Gore, was acutely aware that either he or Wolfowitz would be playing important roles in next administration. Looking perhaps to assure the world of the continuity of US foreign policy, he told his audience that Wolfowitz's 'recent activities illustrate something that's very important about American foreign policy in an election year, and that is the degree to which there are still common themes between the parties.' The example he chose to illustrate his point was East Timor, which was invaded and occupied in 1975 by Indonesia with US weapons – a security policy backed and partly shaped by Holbrooke and Wolfowitz. 'Paul and I,' he said, 'have been in frequent touch to make sure that we keep [East Timor] out of the presidential campaign, where it would do no good to American or Indonesian interests."

In sum, Holbrooke has worked vigorously to keep his bloody campaign silent. The results of which appear to have paid off. In chilling words, Holbrooke describes the motivations behind support of Indonesia's genocidal actions:

"The situation in East Timor is one of the number of very important concerns of the United States in Indonesia. Indonesia, with a population of 150 million people, is the fifth largest nation in the world, is a moderate member of the Non-Aligned Movement, is an important oil producer – which plays a moderate role within OPEC – and occupies a strategic position astride the sea lanes between the Pacific and Indian Oceans... We highly value our cooperative relationship with Indonesia."

[Joshua Frank is co-editor of Dissident Voice and author of Left Out! How Liberals Helped Reelect George W. Bush (Common Courage Press, 2005), and along with Jeffrey St. Clair, the editor of the new book Red State Rebels: Tales of Grassroots Resistance in the Heartland, published by AK Press in June 2008. Check out the new RedState Rebels site at www.RedStateRebels.org.]

The 'shoe' that was thrown - not at Bush but Soeharto

The Jakarta Post - January 3, 2008

Aboeprijadi Santoso, Amsterdam – When Iraqi journalist Muntader Al-Zaidi threw his shoes at President George W. Bush it was to many, myself included, a deja vu. It was not the first time a head of state was vulnerable to attack because he was seen as most responsible for an unjust war that took thousands of lives and destroyed people's livelihood and infrastructure in an occupied country.

We can draw an analogy between Bush's Iraq policy and former president Soeharto's East Timor policy. And Bush was not the first president to receive a deeply symbolic insult.

Like Bush, President Soeharto presided over acts of aggression and invasion that led to war, occupation and hardship. Soeharto's New Order may not have been the same as Saddam's Iraq or the US occupation of that country, but undoubtedly Soeharto's military occupation of the former Portuguese colony was, to the East Timorese, akin to Saddam's rule over Iraq: a Republic of Fear, as one Iraqi writer dubbed it.

This sentiment was only too clear if you listened to the victims, something which Bush, Soeharto – and Jakarta officials for that matter – never did.

Like Iraq, East Timor suffered war and occupation and saw its infrastructure destroyed just when freedom was at last made possible, by the fall of Saddam in Iraq's case and by the UN plebiscite in East Timor's case. For this reason, Al-Zaidi's shoe throwing should be understood as he and most Iraqis viewed it: an insult that demonstrates the collective anger over what they went through after the fall of Saddam Hussein's tyrannical regime.

Just as the Bush shoe incident became headlines and gained sympathy from many, Soeharto faced a similar humiliation, hitherto unknown to the outside world, from East Timorese when he visited the Zwinger Museum in the German city of Dresden on the morning of April 5, 1995.

Soeharto's state visit became a fiasco because many Europeans were deeply disturbed by the East Timor situation. Remember, it was only a year before the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Bishop Belo and J. Ramos-Horta. Soeharto's visit – his second to Germany – was aimed at strengthening the relationship with this key European country. He thus brought a large delegation and his then minister of research and technology, B.J. Habibie. Chancellor Helmut Kohl, I recall, was so proud of the German- educated aeronautics engineer Habibie that he specifically mentioned him when he welcomed President Soeharto at Hanover Fair.

Things began going wrong when shouts of protest were heard on the streets of Hanover and municipal authorities canceled its plan to invite the president to sign its guestbook as a token of friendship.

The worst, however, came four days later, on April 5, at Dresden's famous Zwinger Museum where the guests of the state were to view Raden Saleh's painting hanging there. Soeharto's entourage arrived by car, and started to walk the few meters across the parking lot to enter the museum. Activists – mostly Germans, many East Timorese and a few Indonesians – were waiting for them. The protesters pelted them with rotten eggs. The guests, not flanked by security, used umbrellas to protect themselves.

Just as the visitors entered the main gate, some Timorese managed to get close to Soeharto. The hit him with batons made from rolled-up newspapers. This is how then-exiled painter Yayak Yatmaka described the incident:

"Hundreds of protesters yelled in chorus. Simultaneously they made enormous noise with cooking pots and various kitchen tools the same way we used to evict chickens from the rice field. This went on and on. And from the upper level of the gate, Soeharto and his entourage were welcomed by flying pamphlets with names of the New Order victims. Imagine, the chorus was sung by Germans who only learned the Indonesian words the night before."

"There was no violence," Yayak said, "just an incident. No pain. Some Timorese managed to punch Soeharto's cap until it fell. As I recall, his face was gray as he left the museum."

Returning to the Kempinsky Hotel, the president was greeted with Indonesia's red and white flag at half-mast signifying sympathy for Soeharto's victims. Later that day protesters rocked the four buses that were to bring Soeharto's entourage to the opera. The buses had to stop entirely when the protesters laid down on the street. Minister Ali Alatas' angry gesture from inside the bus made the next day's front page.

Interestingly the opera Soeharto failed to attend was Richard Strauss' Elektra – a story about a terribly bloody war, possibly on oblique reference to Soeharto's responsibility for the East Timor tragedy.

None of these actions brought about any immediate change in East Timor. Instead, when the president returned home, the state overreacted. The Zwinger incident was never specifically mentioned, but Army head Gen. Hartono declared some compatriots – the dissident Sri Bintang Pamungkas, activist Yeni Rosa Damayanti and writer Goenawan Mohammad – as traitors for organizing the Dresden event.

The truth was, they had nothing to do with it. None of them were in Dresden on April 5; Sri Bintang was in Cologne, Yeni in Hanover and Goenawan elsewhere in Europe. "What did this (Zwinger incident) signify?" asked Yayak Yatmaka. "Would such a thing have been possible in a demonstration in Jakarta?"

In retrospect Yayak's question was an implicit demand for democracy. The Zwinger incident may be viewed as a symbol which, by way of analogy, was confirmed by the Iraqi public's demonstration of support for al-Zaidi's flung shoe. In both cases, the incidents are expressions of collective anger, reflecting people's suffering the state leaders fail to notice. Asked to comment on al-Zaidi's subsequent fate, Bush reportedly said: "I don't care!" At the Zwinger Soeharto might have appeared sad, but once back home he allowed himself a misplaced outburst of anger.

Hence, it's important to remember both essentially non-violent protests – the Timorese paper batons and Al-Zaidi's shoe – were symbolic acts against state violence.

[The writer is a journalist. He covered the events described above for Radio Netherlands.]