Australia attacks Portugal's record in East Timor
Australia attacks Portugal's record in East Timor
CANBERRA (Agencies): Australia yesterday denounced Portugal's
human rights record in East Timor, saying it was "not a proud"
performance and that the former colonial ruler did nothing to
enable Timorese to decide their own future.
Foreign Minister Gareth Evans was responding to what he called
Portugal's emotive, "bile-laden" attack on Australia's position
on East Timor in the International Court of Justice last Monday.
"Its colonial role concluded a long time ago and it was not a
colonial rule about which it or any country should be proud,"
Evans told state radio.
"There is not one of Portugal's former colonies where it in
fact set in train any act of self determination... There's not
one of its former colonies where it did anything to create a
physical or a personnel infrastructure for the future."
Portugal, which hastily withdrew from East Timor in 1975 to
leave behind a bloody civil war, has asked the court in The Hague
to rule on the validity of an 1989 offshore oil treaty between
Australia and Indonesia.
The treaty covers waters known as the Timor Gap, which lies
between East Timor and northern Australia.
Portugal says Australia had no right to sign the treaty
because the United Nations still recognizes Portugal, not
Indonesia, as the administrative authority in East Timor.
Evans yesterday reaffirmed Australia's recognition of
Indonesian sovereignty in East Timor, but said this did not
conflict with Australia's recognition of the Timorese people's
right to self determination.
Australia had recognized Portuguese colonial sovereignty over
East Timor while also recognizing the right of self-determination
of the East Timorese people, he said.
Australia was not the only country to recognize Indonesian
sovereignty, but argued that while the United Nations did not
recognize that sovereignty it had not unequivocally resolved the
question, leaving it "an open issue", he said.
"The UN is clear that it still thinks the right of self-
determination needs to be exercised, but a right of self-
determination under whose occupancy, whose sovereignty?"
He also repeated concerns about the human-rights situation in
East Timor under Indonesian rule, saying it left "an enormous
amount to be desired.
"We're going to be saying (in court) that our recognition of
Indonesia's sovereignty over East Timor doesn't in any way cut
across our recognition of the right of the East Timorese to self
determination within UN principles," he said.
Portugal had the first opportunity to argue its case when the
Timor Gap hearing began in The Hague on Monday. Its lawyers
resorted to antique rhetorics to conceal its own past atrocities
in East Timor. Australian lawyers will have a chance to respond
in court on Monday.
Indonesia, which does not recognize the jurisdiction of the UN
court, is not a party to the dispute.
Recent oil finds in the Timor Gap have given an edge to the
dispute, reviving initial hopes that it may contain up to one
billion barrels of oil.
Evans said yesterday that Australia would mount a legal
defense of its recognition of Indonesia's sovereignty of East
Timor "in a less emotive, bile-laden fashion than was the case
with the Portuguese counsel this week" and would prove it was
entitled to act as it did.
The Australian case, he said, would focus on legal issues --
"that we, as a sovereign nation, are entitled to look after our
own interests, which involves the capacity to extract the oil
that exists on our side of the Timor Sea."
In Jakarta, Indonesian Minister of Foreign Affairs Ali Alatas
on Thursday expressed confidence that Australia could easily
contest Portugal's case at the International Court of Justice.
"We are convinced that Australia will be able to refute the
unfounded accusations of Portugal," Alatas said.
Alatas said that Lisbon did not have a sound case to argue.
"The Portuguese case is based on premises and upon assumptions
that are not sourced in fact," he remarked. (mds)