Can jury of history pass a fair East Timor ruling?<\/p>\n
The following is based on an article in The Australian on
\nSept. 26 by Harry Tjan Silalahi, who is from the Centre for
\nStrategic and International Studies in Jakarta and a key
\ninterlocutor with the Australian government over East Timor in
\n1975.<\/p>\n
JAKARTA: It was heartening to read the fair and robust
\nresponse by former Australian ambassador to Indonesia Richard
\nWoolcott to criticism of the roles of the Indonesian and
\nAustralian governments following the recent release of a
\ngovernment report.<\/p>\n
The report from the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs
\nand Trade (DFAT) was entitled "Australia and the Indonesian
\nIncorporation of Portuguese Timor 1974-76".<\/p>\n
Woolcott gave a tour de horizon of the geopolitics of 25 years
\nago: the Cold War, collapse of South Vietnam, election of a
\nleftist government in Portugal, fear of a Cuba on Australia's
\nnorthern doorstep, underlined by Indonesia's head-on political
\nexperience with a communist uprising in 1948 and having the
\nlargest card-carrying communist party membership outside the
\ncommunist country leading up to the 1965 coup.<\/p>\n
The vestigial regional development of the Association of
\nSoutheast Asian Nations set in place reasonably predictable
\nforeign policy responses from all parties -- be it super-power or
\nregional power or even middle power like Australia and a
\ndeveloping country like Indonesia.<\/p>\n
I strongly agree with Woolcott's analogy of "The jury of
\nhistory is still out on East Timor"; especially if it is true
\nthat over the past two years many of the key Australian official
\ndocuments have been systematically pulled from the official
\nrecord.<\/p>\n
How can "the jury of history" fairly pass its verdict when the
\nevidence presented is selective with some permanently destroyed.<\/p>\n
Woolcott suggests that East Timor was then somewhat of a
\npolitical football in Australia just as it is today.<\/p>\n
Successive Labor Party and Coalition governments have
\ncynically enjoyed scoring goals against one another since 1975
\ndespite the fact that their East Timor policies -- as recited in
\nJakarta to me, to our ministries of foreign affairs and defense,
\nintelligence agencies, and even to then president Soeharto --
\nwere almost identical.<\/p>\n
Undoubtedly, Woolcott, who was then ambassador, would
\nappreciate that in this internal Australian political football
\nmatch there were serious intra-party divisions. From the Jakarta
\nend, the continual leaks of official communications in Canberra,
\nwere inspired by either prime minister Malcolm Fraser or foreign
\nminister Andrew Peacock aimed at one another, but more probably
\nWoolcott.<\/p>\n
On this latter point, I distinctly recall sometime in 1977 an
\narticle on Australian foreign policy over East Timor in the Far
\nEast Economic Review displaying a photograph of Woolcott in
\nimpeccable batik, moving a minor chess piece, entitled "The
\ncheapest pawn in the game".<\/p>\n
This new DFAT publication smacks of a continuation of this
\ninter- and intra-party sniping and ultimately clouds the truth.<\/p>\n
Do not for one moment think that as a person continually
\nmentioned and quoted by the Australian press over the past weeks
\nand in this DFAT publication, I condone what happened in East
\nTimor. Quite the contrary.<\/p>\n
I am deeply saddened by the meaningless vicious violence
\nagainst human beings and their property in this period prior to
\nand after the referendum, and violence in the recent militia
\nmurders and atrocities in Atambua, East Nusa Tenggara.<\/p>\n
Certainly, with the benefit of hindsight, Indonesia would have
\nimplemented the plan differently. But how could we have forecast
\nall those vast geo-political changes in those intervening years?<\/p>\n
What happened in the past leaves us with bitter regrets today.
\nThis selective travesty of a publication leaves me, for one, with
\neven more bitter regrets.<\/p>\n
This aside, I salute Woolcott for standing up to be counted
\nover Australia's Timor policy despite the Australian press' snide
\nremarks to the contrary. I am more than pleased to stand beside
\nhim in any judgment by the press or history.<\/p>\n
Both our countries need to have a wider vision particularly in
\nrelation to East Timor. Woolcott and many in the Indonesian
\ngovernment would surely endorse a more pragmatic and forward
\nlooking approach.<\/p>\n
As Woolcott repeatedly stated over the years of his
\nambassadorship and beyond, "Timor should not be the center-piece
\nof our bilateral relationship" -- implying there were more
\nimportant bilateral issues to be addressed. There were then and
\nthere are even more today.<\/p>",
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