Australia raises East Timor stakes

Australia raises East Timor stakes

By Sid Astbury

SYDNEY (DPA): Australian Prime Minister John Howard visits
Bali for talks on East Timor next week in the knowledge that both
he and President B.J. Habibie would like the former Portuguese
colony to stay a part of Indonesia -- albeit with a level of
autonomy not accorded other troubled provinces like Aceh and
Irian Jaya.

Howard's reasons for favoring integration are
characteristically pragmatic. He knows that Australia would end
up subsidizing the new nation. Canberra would also gather the
opprobrium of future Indonesian leaders for aiding and abetting
in the dismemberment of the republic.

Howard goes into the talks promising only to "underline our
concern" over the risk that militias armed by the Indonesian
military will tip East Timor into the sort of civil strife that
preceded the arrival of Indonesian troops in 1975. He has said
publicly that the 15,000 Indonesian troops in East Timor have
"not done enough to discourage the violence and killings".

Habibie's reasons for resisting the clamor for independence
are equally understandable. He doesn't want to go into June's
general election wounded by a failure to keep the country intact.
He also wants to retain the support of the military, which has
lost 1,400 men in East Timor since it integrated in 1975. There
isn't a general enthusiasm among Indonesians to set East Timor
free.

Howard and Habibie know that the international pressure behind
the independence movement, so strong just a couple of months ago,
has subsided. NATO action in Yugoslavia has switched the focus of
attention to Europe. Among world leaders there is little appetite
for intervention to ease into being a new nation of only 800,000
people in a distant and remote part of the world.

The bloodshed in East Timor has also helped change
perceptions. It's no longer possible to argue that almost all
East Timorese would vote for freedom if given the opportunity to
do so in a plebicite. There are thousands who, for whatever
reason, would not tick the secession box. The gangs now in
control of Dili's streets are loyal to Jakarta.

Changed perceptions about East Timor have emboldened the
mercurial Habibie to backtrack on his original promise to set
East Timor free if the autonomy option is rejected. A recognition
that the military and some cabinet members were against his
surprise offer has also colored his thinking.

Habibie agreed to the talks because Australia has become the
western world's proxy in negotiations over the future of East
Timor. It is incumbent on him to let foreign heads of government
register their disapproval of East Timor's seeming drift into
chaos. Above all, he has nothing to lose by listening to Howard.

Howard pushed for the talks in response to a welter of
criticism that Australia has failed to influence events in East
Timor. Not very convincingly, Howard has declared he is "very
strongly committed" to a United Nations-monitored consultation
process on the autonomy offer that is supposed to begin in July.
He will be reaffirming that commitment in his talks with Habibie.

Howard surprised many by asking to meet Habibie. His
forwardness may signify that Australia is ready to take the
initiative on East Timor and perhaps be the first to commit
troops to a United Nations-sponsored peacekeeping force.

Australia has clout with Jakarta. It is the only Western
country to formally endorse Indonesian sovereignty over East
Timor and the only country to sign a defense pact with Jakarta.
Chaos in East Timor would impact on Australia more than any other
county.

Warns Paul Dibb, a national security specialist at the
Australian National University: "The situation that is unfolding
to our near north is the most important regional contingency to
face Australia since the end of the Vietnam war."

But it is hard to see what Howard can tell Habibie that he
does not know already. It is not helpful to inform the president
that his army is out of control or that his cabinet is in
disarray.

Howard is still a long way from taking action. He has rejected
calls for Canberra to revoke its formal recognition of the
incorporation of East Timor, break off military links and cancel
the Australia-Indonesia Security Agreement. And there is little
likelihood of Canberra being the one to refer the East Timor
issue to the United Nations Security Council.

But a harder line with Jakarta is expected. Just how hard
remains to be seen.