The Guardian 31 August, 2005
Taking issue – Andrew (Andy) Alcock
The harsh treatment
of East Timor by The Australian
Most Australians would support The Australian newspaper editorial on July 7, 2005 when it stated that it is good news that East Timor will now receive more royalties from the oil and gas in the Timor Sea.
However, what it omitted to say was that under the UN International Law of the Sea, all the areas presently being drilled are in East Timor’s half of the Sea. The reason why our political leaders have forced East Timor, the poorest nation in our region, to defer making a decision on the maritime boundary for 50 years is precisely because they know that their position is untenable under international law and the UN Law of the Sea. This would very quickly become apparent if the decision was decided by an independent international authority. The Howard government has already taken $2 billion worth of royalties out of the Timor Sea that rightly belong to East Timor.
The editorial went on to claim that it is bizarre for a poor country like East Timor to spend money on sophisticated firepower on its defence when peace has been restored. It also tried to impute that corruption was involved in the process.
I would have thought that a reading of East Timor’s history under the brutal, genocidal jackboot of the Indonesian military (TNI) provides a very obvious reason why East Timor is nervous about its next door neighbour.
We should also remember that Australia has resumed training KOPASSUS, the worst human rights abusing division of the Indonesian army.
Another reason why East Timorese leaders are worried about the TNI is that its corrupt and brutal behaviour in Aceh after the Asian tsunami indicates that it has not changed its ways.
It is amazing that The Australian Editor attempted to impute wrong motives to the East Timor government over this defence issue, which it has since had to retract.
At the same time the editorial writer failed to criticise the bad behaviour of several Australian governments that were prepared to support the Indonesian dictatorship while it illegally occupied East Timor, wiped out a third of its population and destroyed 80 per cent of its infrastructure.
It is time that our national daily paper and the Australian government made a serious and honest attempt to come to terms with the human costs suffered by the East Timorese because of their appeasement to the Indonesian military. This should lead them to displaying a lot more compassion towards our East Timorese World War II allies and stop cheating them out of their oil royalties which they so urgently need.
It is interesting to note that Peter Costello wants us to follow every immoral oil war and other wrong policies of the US administration simply because of their contribution to Australia’s security during that war.
If he was being logical and consistent, he should be giving a lot more support to the East Timorese who lost 70,000 people at the hands of Tojo’s fascists (out of a population of about half a million) simply because of their magnificent support to Australia.
Andrew Alcock is the Information Officer of the
Australia East Timor Friendship Association (South Australia)