Australia for 'Colonial Occupation' of East Timor

A “weighter role” for Australia

While Downer was careful to use diplomatic language in Dili, Murdoch’s Australian has felt no such constraint. In his comment last Saturday entitled “A weightier role in Dili”, editor-at-large Paul Kelly drew attention to Downer’s plan, endorsed by cabinet’s National Security Committee, for “an Australian military-civilian strategy for East Timor’s future”. “This envisages that Australia will control military security in the short term through the Australia-led coalition that now exists and influence East Timor’s military structure in the long run. The aim is to minimise the influence of the UN or other nations, notably Portugal, on East Timor’s military structure,” he explained. The UN could be confined to “a stronger civilian role in East Timor’s governance, its civil service and its police.”

Kelly, who had clearly been briefed by the government, made no bones about the object of the exercise. “The lesson Australia has drawn from the intervention is that its security views cannot be marginalised any longer as they were ignored at the time of independence. The feature of East Timor’s brief history is that Portugal has exercised more influence than Australia, notably on its language, constitution and institutions. This is one of the reasons for its failure. It is obvious that as ultimate security guarantor, Australia must exert a greater authority,” he wrote.

Kelly’s call for Australia to become a regional hegemon was, however, quite restrained compared to what foreign editor Greg Sheridan penned on the same day. In his column entitled “Throw Troops at Pacific Failures”, he argued for a far broader and more aggressive Australian role, writing: “Australian policy in the South Pacific has been undergoing an agonising and profound revolution, from hands-off respect for South Pacific sovereignty to deepening involvement. But it may be that we still have not conceived of our involvement in the most useful strategic terms.”

Sheridan openly called for Canberra to use its power and influence to get rid of Alkatiri. “Certainly if Alkatiri remains Prime Minister of East Timor, this is a shocking indictment of Australian impotence. If you cannot translate the leverage of 1,300 troops, 50 police, hundreds of support personnel, buckets of aid and a critical international rescue mission into enough influence to get rid of a disastrous Marxist Prime Minister, then you are just not very skilled in the arts of influence, tutelage, sponsorship and, ultimately, promoting the national interest,” he declared.

Sheridan went on to outline his vision for the region, insisting: “It is perhaps time that Australian conceived of itself as the ‘US of the South Pacific’.” He attempted to blunt the sharp edge of his message by referring to America’s post war role in East Asia, but then continued: “Like the US in Asia, we should do this in part through a system of military deployments, though naturally we would not call them Australian bases... What I am arguing is that, as part of a wider program of assistance involving lots of Australian personnel operating in South Pacific government agencies, deployments of Australian soldiers should be semi-permanently stationed in East Timor, Solomon Islands and, if necessary, other regional basket cases.”

Sheridan is simply stating what the Howard government is actually doing. Having secured the backing of the Bush administration by extending unconditional support for the US military subjugation of Afghanistan and Iraq, Australian imperialism is aggressively carving out its own sphere of influence in the South Pacific. Its strategy involves, not just transforming “failed states” into dependent vassals, but setting the course for broader inter-imperialist conflicts throughout the region.

Click to expand...

Finn McCool said:

Hasn't anyone learned anything from Iraq? Trying to maintain reigonal order by imposing governments isn't a good idea.

This is a no win situation for Australia. If it ignores the problem of instability in the South Pacific, that will obviously cause it problems. But if it continues to intervene it risks having to support failed states.

Click to expand...

chakos said:

As an Australian i think i have a little more to say on this topic than most.

In both Timor Leste (East Timor) and the Solomon Islands, Australia was invited in by the governments of the countries involved in order to put down civil unrest. In the case of Timor, the president and the prime minister have been having major issues for quite some time, issues that have led to a third of the Timor army mutineeing and heading for the hills, yet not activelly fighting the government or causing any large scale outbreaks of violence. All parties involved have welcomed the Australian presence, and it has been urged from all sides of Timorese politics and society that Australia stay in country for an extended period of time as it was thought that Australia exiting too early after the initial Timor operation was partly to blame for the current situation.

In the Pacific Island region Australia is not acting like a mini United States, it is in fact welcomed by the vast majority of countries as a regional power that is acting in both its, and the regions best interests.

Australia has no ambition to colonise the pacific rim, nor does it have any interest in placing military bases anywhere in the region, it merelly aims to have a stable region surrounded by friendly, prosperous countries that have functional governments. The reason for this is that Australias real diplomatic interests are much further afield and more in line with those of the USA and as such does not want any long term headaches in its own backyard.

Relationships with Indonesia though are a slightly different matter as they have recently been stressed with the release of Abu Bakir Bashir (i think thats how you spell it) after only serving 2 1/2 years for his role as the spiritual leader of Jamal Islamiya, the group responsible for the Bali bombings. As well as this there have been some much publicised cases of young Australians receiving extremelly long jail sentances (as well as 2 death sentances) for drug crimes that in some cases would be considered to be very mild by Australian standards (Michelle Lesley got several months for getting caught with 2 ecstacy tablets, in Australia you would probably get them confiscated and given a written warning, In another case a young female was given 20 years for importing marijuana where in Australia police hardly even bother with low level drugs like that.) Such an imbalance in sentances by Australian standards have caused major public outcry in the Australian public and have really hurt Australian/Indonesian relations a lot more than most outsiders would believe.

Overall though, Australia is the dominant power in the region, and as far as its naval and Air force long range projection capabilities go Indonesia doesnt have a hope in hell and wont have for the forseeable future. Even the Chinese and Indian Navies would have a very hard time sailing down to our part of the world. As the dominant power in the region it has the ability, the social equity and the good relations to project its power into surrounding countries AT THE INVITATION OF THOSE COUNTRIES as long as it is in the interests of the region as a whole. As such noone really needs to consider or be worried by Australias 'Imperialist Ambitions' because, quite simply, it has none.

:coffee:

Click to expand...

Drilling East Timor: Australia's Oil Grab in the Timor Sea
by Charles Scheiner

Australia, one of the largest and most powerful countries in the Asia-Pacific region, recently legalized its thievery of tens of billions of dollars in resources from one of the smallest and weakest, according to critics of a new treaty.

The Treaty on Certain Maritime Arrangements in the Timor Sea (CMATS), signed with East Timor (now known as Timor-Leste), provisionally resolves a bitter maritime boundary dispute between the two nations. The January deal allows Australia to exploit oil and natural gas under the Timor Sea - oil and gas that, absent CMATS, international law experts say would belong to Timor-Leste under current international legal principles and case law.

CMATS assigns some oil revenues to Timor-Leste, and improves on previous Australian offers. Hard bargaining by Timor-Leste's government, supported by grassroots campaigns in Timor-Leste, Australia, the United States and elsewhere, increased Timor-Leste's share of the Greater Sunrise gas field, twice as close to Timor-Leste as Australia, from 18 to 50 percent. CMATS also allows Australia to develop other undersea oil and gas reserves in previously contested areas, and Timor-Leste foregoes its right to a maritime boundary until all Timor Sea petroleum has been extracted and sold.

Many believe that if Timor-Leste, the youngest and poorest nation in Asia, had held out longer, it would have received a better deal. However, according to the U.S.-based East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN), the treaty "may be the best that could be achieved at this time, given the pressures on Timor-Leste from Australia and oil companies and the tremendous economic, political, size and other disparities in an inherently unequal negotiation process."

The East Timorese watchdog organization La'o Hamutuk (Timor-Leste Institute for Reconstruction Monitoring and Analysis) called CMATS "unjust." "It does not satisfy Timor-Leste's claim for sovereignty or our people's right to all the resources in our half of the Timor Sea," charges La'o Hamutuk. La'o Hamutuk is part of the East Timorese Movement Against the Occupation of the Timor Sea, which demands that Australia respect the new nation's rights and independence.

Indonesian military forces brutally invaded Timor-Leste in 1975. The subsequent 24-year occupation, supported by Australia and the United States, took more than 100,000 East Timorese lives. In 1989, Australia and Indonesia carved up East Timor's oil reserves, signing contracts with Shell, Phillips and other multinationals. Ten years later, a UN referendum ended the illegal Indonesian occupation of East Timor, which the Indonesian military and its militia turned into scorched earth before they left. In addition to post-conflict trauma and negligible economic development, the new nation is coping with rampant illiteracy, infant and maternal mortality, and preventable disease.

After a two-and-a-half-year transition, East Timor became politically independent on May 20, 2002. Three weeks earlier, Australia withdrew from international legal processes for resolving maritime boundary disputes. On its first day of independence, East Timor signed the Timor Sea Treaty with Australia, allowing oil projects begun under the 1989 treaty with Indonesia to continue uninterrupted.

"Since 1999, Australia has continued as an occupier for Timor-Leste's territory, acting on control over the Timor Sea that it obtained through a deal with the illegal Indonesian occupier," charges La'o Hamutuk.

The Timor Sea Treaty did not resolve ownership of Greater Sunrise, the largest field claimed by both countries, although it tentatively split revenues 18 percent for Timor-Leste and 82 percent for Australia. A year later, Australia and Timor-Leste signed an agreement to formalize this division. Australian Green Party Senator Bob Brown was expelled from the Senate when he accused the Prime Minister of "blackmailing" Timor-Leste to sign this agreement. However, grassroots Timorese opposition encouraged Dili's parliament not to ratify the agreement. The CMATS Treaty requires ratification of the framework of the Greater Sunrise agreement, with the revenues divided 50-50.

As in 2003, Australia played hardball to get Timor-Leste to sign the CMATS Treaty, delaying approval of laws necessary for a bidding round on new oil exploration contracts in a joint development area until Timor-Leste had signed CMATS. Timor-Leste receives 90 percent of the revenues from the joint area, which was established by the Timor Sea Treaty.

Under CMATS, Timor-Leste and Australia will each receive half of "upstream" revenues from extracting and selling Greater Sunrise oil and gas at the wellhead. Allocation of "downstream" revenues from refining, liquifying or processing the oil and gas is yet to be determined, and both countries want Sunrise gas piped to their shores to be liquified and shipped overseas.

The location of the plant to liquify the Greater Sunrise gas will be decided by the Sunrise joint venture, led by Woodside Petroleum and including ConocoPhillips, Shell and Osaka Gas. Although the companies lean toward Australia, Timor-Leste's government believes it can convince the companies to pipe the gas the shorter distance to Timor-Leste.

Petroleum fields closer to Timor-Leste than to Australia should belong 100 percent to Timor-Leste under international law, according to most legal experts. Timor-Leste receives 90 percent of upstream revenues from Bayu-Undan, which started oil production in 2004 and began piping gas to Australia in February 2006. Another such field, Laminaria-Corallina, has provided more than a billion dollars to Australia and nothing to Timor-Leste since it began production six years ago.

"The Australian Government has continually and blatantly refused to abide by international law. Instead, it has bullied the poorest country in Asia into a series of dodgy resource sharing deals, to take billions of dollars that simply do not belong to us," says Tom Clarke of the Australian Timor Sea Justice Campaign, whose hard-hitting TV advertisements helped move the Australian government.

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer frequently trumpets Australian generosity to Timor-Leste, saying that CMATS "represents an opportunity to further underpin the income and development of one of Australia's closest neighbors."

In fact, since 1999 Australia's oil revenues from contested fields dwarf Australia's economic and military aid to Timor-Leste. In 2003, La'o Hamutuk pointed out that Timor-Leste is "the largest foreign contributor to Australia's national budget."

Timorese President Xanana Gusmão was more direct a few months later. "This is a question of life or death," he said, "a question of being continually poor, continually begging or to be self-sufficient."

Timor-Leste's government still resents Australia's arrogance. When CMATS was signed, Timorese negotiator Manuel de Lemos explained, "The big picture shows that Australia stands to gain substantially from the development of the Timor Sea in general and from the downstream processing in Darwin. Our estimates show direct tax revenue of $2 billion, and in addition are the multiplier benefits from this massive industrial development in northern Australia."

De Lemos' bitterness was apparent. "It is inappropriate to characterize the result of these negotiations as a 'very generous' gesture on the part of Australia," he said. "The resources at stake in these negotiations were claimed under international law."

Although less than Timor-Leste is legally entitled to, the tens of billions of dollars from Sunrise over the next 40 years will help Timor-Leste emerge from its status as the poorest nation in Asia.

Many analysts believe that income from the Bayu-Undan field will meet Timor-Leste's budgetary needs for at least 15 years.

La'o Hamutuk and others recommend that Timor-Leste defer developing Greater Sunrise gas until then, when gas will be more important globally and command a higher price, environmental and pipeline technology will have improved, and Timor-Leste will have gained experience in managing such projects and revenue.
The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Replies

Multinational Monitor: What is Australia's reaction to the CMATS agreement with East Timor?

Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade: CMATS Treaty reflects a commitment by both governments to strengthen the relationship between our two nations, and on behalf of Australia, to promote the development and economic prosperity of one of our closest neighbors.

This new treaty embodies a creative solution suggested by East Timor and is a win-win for Australia and East Timor. It:

* Maintains the status quo by suspending maritime claims in the Timor Sea for 50 years, along with the 2003 International Unitization Agreement,
* Creates legal and fiscal regimes to underpin the development of the Greater Sunrise gas and oil field,
* Splits the upstream revenue derived from the Greater Sunrise field equally between Australia and East Timor - this raises East Timor's share of the revenues from 18 percent to 50 percent and could lead to additional revenue of up to US$4 billion for East Timor over the life of the project,
* Maintains the existing Joint Petroleum Development Area under the 2002 Timor Sea Treaty, which splits the revenue in that area 90:10 in East Timor's favor,
* East Timor will continue to exercise fisheries jurisdiction in the water column of the Joint Petroleum Development Area, and
* Australia will continue to regulate and authorize petroleum activities outside the Joint Petroleum Development Area and south of the 1972 Australia-Indonesia seabed boundary.

We hope this Treaty and the International Unitization Agreement can be brought into force as soon as possible so as to give the Greater Sunrise project the best possible chance of proceeding.

MM: Critics say the oil and gas to be shared rightfully belongs to East Timor under international law, because it is more closely located to Timor. What is the Australian position on this?

Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade: Australia's position remains that it has sovereign rights under international law to the natural resources on our continental shelf. In any event, Greater Sunrise lies almost entirely on the Australian side of the median line.

The Timor Sea Treaty provisionally gives East Timor 90 percent of petroleum production from within the Joint Petroleum Development Area (JPDA). This is generous when compared with the 50:50 split that applied in exactly the same area under the former Timor Gap Treaty with Indonesia, especially given Australia's longstanding and valid claim to the entire natural prolongation of the Australian continent, in which all the relevant deposits lie. Development of the oil and gas resources, including the major Bayu-Undan field, is proceeding. Revenues have already started flowing, and it is estimated that East Timor could earn as much as US$15 billion in revenues from the Bayu-Undan project alone.

Under the Timor Sea Treaty and the 2003 Greater Sunrise Unitization Agreement (IUA), Greater Sunrise is apportioned on the basis that 20.1 percent falls within the JPDA and the remaining 79.9 percent falls in an area to the east of the JPDA over which Australia exercises exclusive seabed jurisdiction. This apportionment reflects the geographical location of the resources.

Notwithstanding these arrangements which would remain in effect, Australia has agreed under the CMATS Treaty to share equally the upstream government revenues from the Greater Sunrise project.

The combination of the 2002 Timor Sea Treaty, IUA (signed by both countries but not yet in force) and the CMATS Treaty will see East Timor receiving a great deal more revenue from exploitation of petroleum resources in the Timor Sea than if the maritime boundaries were simply drawn using the median line principle as between East Timor, Indonesia and Australia.

Charles Scheiner is a researcher with the Timor-Leste Institute for Reconstruction Monitoring and Analysis (La'o Hamutuk)

Click to expand...

We ask Australia
It is not too late for Australia to re-establish a friendly relationship with East Timor. But time, like the Laminaria-Corallina oil reserve, is running out. We request the Australian government to take the following actions:

1. Respect our independent and sovereign state. Our government’s legitimacy and authority are equal to yours. We may be small and new, but we are just as much a nation as you are.

2. Negotiate a fair maritime boundary, including seabed and water column economic zones, 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, it should take no more than three years to reach an agreement. We ask Australia to meet monthly or as often as East Timor’s government requests, since your resources are far greater than ours, and our need for a solution is more pressing than yours.

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 seabed territory that is closer to East Timor than to Australia. During each of the last three years, including last month, Australia offered such areas to oil companies, and your government signed one contract as recently as 23 February 2004. This is our property, and you have no right to sell it.

5. Deposit all revenues received by the Australian government -- including taxes and rents -- from Laminaria-Corallina, Buffalo, Greater Sunrise, and other 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 our two nations. Australia has already received more than $1 billion U.S. dollars from Laminaria-Corallina and other fields since 1999, which should also be put into escrow.

Section Coordinators of the Movement Against the Occupation of the Timor Sea:
Tomás Freitas, Program
Nuno Rodrigues, Logistics
Sisto dos Santos, Socialization and Mobilization
Tomé Jerônimo, Outreach
Domingos Ati, Security
João Sarmento, Spokesperson

Movimento Kontra Okupasun Tasi Timor

Movement Against the Occupation of the Timor Sea:

La’o Hamutuk, HAK Association, Haburas Foundation, NGO Forum, Mirror for the People (LABEH), East Timor Agriculture and Development Foundation (ETADEP), Labor Advocacy Institute for East Timor (LAIFET), Sah’e Institute for Liberation, KSI, ARI, Proletariat Group, Sustainable Agriculture Network (HASATIL), Arte Moris, East Timor Socialist Labor (SBST), East Timor Labor Union Confederation (KSTL), Independent Center for Timor Sea Information (CIITT), Association of Men Against Violence (AMKV), Bibi Bulak, Student organizations.

For further information: João Sarmento, +670-723-5043 or [email protected]

Click to expand...