Canberra blamed for RI occupation of East Timor

Canberra blamed for RI occupation of East Timor

Guido Guillart, Associated Press, Dili

A former Australian diplomat said his country's "policy of
failure" was partly to blame for Indonesia's 1975 invasion of
East Timor and its subsequent 24-year occupation that resulted in
thousands of deaths.

Kenneth Chan, who was testifying before Timor's reconciliation
commission, said on Tuesday that the Australian government had
decided in 1975 that relations with Indonesia took precedence
over any independence bid by East Timor.

Negotiations over sea boundaries with Indonesia and access to
lucrative oil and natural gas in the Timor Sea muffled any
support for Timorese self-determination by successive
administrations until 1999, he said.

"I thought it was a policy of failure because it didn't
acknowledge a basic principal of international law that there
should be a free and fair act of self-determination for the
people of East Timor," Chan said.

"Maintaining an effective relationship with Indonesia was
driving policy above all else," he said.

Chan is among a group of United Nations officials, Western
diplomats and human rights activists appearing at the three-day
hearing sponsored by East Timor's Commission for Reception, Truth
and Reconciliation. He worked for Australia's foreign affairs
department from 1972 to 1997.

Recently declassified U.S. government documents show that
Indonesia's former authoritarian leader Soeharto ordered the
invasion of East Timor after receiving tacit approval for the
attack from U.S. president Gerald Ford and secretary of state
Henry Kissinger, who visited Jakarta on the day before the
assault.

In his testimony, Chan said the Australian government also
told Soeharto in 1974 that the former Portuguese colony should
become part of Indonesia - thus clearing the way for the invasion
a year later.

"It can be seen, from this discussion, that Australia had
already made a substantial concession to Indonesia," Chan told
the commission. "It was also delivering a message that Soeharto
wanted to hear."

Indonesia invaded East Timor, a former Portuguese colony, in
December 1975, a few weeks after the territory declared itself
independent.

Thousands of Timorese were killed in the ensuing guerrilla war
or died from mistreatment during the occupation.

The bloodshed climaxed in 1999, when pro Indonesian militias
allegedly slaughtered nearly 2,000 people and destroyed much of
the region's infrastructure in an orgy of violence before and
after voters opted for independence in a UN-sponsored referendum
on self-determination.

The violence ended when UN peacekeepers forced Indonesian
troops to withdraw from the region. East Timor remained under UN
transitional administration until it gained full independence in
May 2002.

The panel's hearings are part of a series of debates on issues
ranging from massacres during the Indonesian occupation to forced
displacements. The proceedings will end later this month and the
commission is scheduled to issue a report with its findings.