East Timor still resisting over its oil & gas resources

The latest round of negotiations between Australia and East 
Timor on September 30 over the ownership of the oil and gas 
fields in what is known as the Timor Gap ended in failure once 
again.

In earlier negotiations Foreign Minister Downer tried to bully 
the East Timorese Government into accepting Australian terms.

Then the Australian side delayed talks while the East Timorese 
Government lost much needed revenue and the Australian Government 
pocketed the tax revenue coming from the only operating field — 
estimated to be about $US1 billion.

The 800,000 people of East Timor are among the most impoverished 
in the world, not that this is any concern to the Australian 
negotiators.

In the most recent negotiations the Australian Government 
attempted to bribe the East Timorese with an offer of an extra 
$A3 billion and to take over responsibility for "security" in the 
area allegedly to protect the resources in the Timor Sea. The 
price for East Timor was to accept the borders laid down by the 
Australian Government.

Australia has refused to refer the dispute to the International 
Court of Justice which would almost certainly draw the border 
half-way between the land boundaries of East Timor and Australia 
in accordance with the law of the sea. Such a ruling would give 
East Timor control of a much larger proportion of the oil and gas 
fields which would therefore reap much more revenue to spend on 
the impoverished East Timorese people.

On the other hand, acceptance of the boundaries claimed by 
Australia would give Australian companies the lion's share of the 
oil and gas resources in dispute.

Heavy pressure

Despite the heavy pressure coming from Downer the East Timorese 
Government continues to refuse to accept Australia's unfair and 
unprincipled demands.

After the September meeting the Australian media said coyly that 
the parties "were reportedly some way apart".

The re-election of the Howard Government means that the pressure 
will continue and even intensify with Downer remaining as Foreign 
Minister.

By grinding East Timor into even greater poverty and possibly 
destabilising its present government, Australia may well have the 
objective of turning East Timor into a "failed state" thereby 
providing justification for a continuing military occupation and 
the establishment of a government susceptible to Australia's 
demands.