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)