Labor Party backs self-determination for East Timor

Labor Party backs self-determination for East Timor

SYDNEY, Australia (AFP): East Timor's separatist movement
welcomed on Wednesday a major policy shift by Australia's Labor
opposition backing talks leading to self-determination for the
troubled province.

The policy, unveiled by Labor's foreign affairs spokesman
Laurie Brereton on Tuesday ahead of elections on Oct. 3, conceded
a succession of governments including Labor ones were wrong in
supporting Indonesia's annexation of the former Portuguese colony
following the 1975 invasion.

The new policy also calls for the immediate release of
political prisoners such as resistance leader Xanana Gusmao, for
a special envoy on East Timor and for increased financial
assistance.

Brereton said resolution of the unrest in East Timor was
unlikely without negotiations towards self-determination, and
admitted Labor's new approach was a far cry from when the party
was last in government.

"It is a substantial change and it is one that we believe is
entirely appropriate as we try and take advantage of the
opportunity of putting right one of the great tragedies on our
doorstep," Brereton said. "I don't believe East Timor is unviable
as a stand-alone nation."

He said it was an issue with which successive administrations,
whether coalition or Labor, had all had great difficulty.

East Timor's resistance movement spokesman in Australia, Nobel
Laureate Jose Ramos Horta, welcomed Labor's position, which he
said followed years of Australian complicity in the annexation
and occupation of East Timor.

It also followed "many years of lies, half truths, omissions"
and even vindictiveness by Canberra towards the region, he said.

"All of that we are prepared to put back if Australia were to
recommend such policy as recommended now by the Labor Party,"
Ramos Horta told ABC radio.

"When you acknowledge that Australia was wrong for too long,
it required courage and humility to say that we were wrong, let's
change. So they cannot but be highly commended for this
courageous stance."

An Australian commitment to a referendum on independence was
the crucial issue because it would ensure stability, he said.

The Darwin-based East Timorese International Support Center
said in a letter to Brereton that wounds suffered by East
Timorese under past Labor governments "still fester."

It urged Labor if it won government to review Australia's
military ties with Indonesia "in order to give substance to your
promises yesterday."

The center said it was alarmed by reports that Canberra
intended to maintain close links with the Indonesian military
despite evidence it has committed atrocities throughout Indonesia
and East Timor.

Ramos Horta also challenged Australia's conservative
government to commit itself to a referendum on East Timorese
independence.

But his call was rejected by Foreign Minister Alexander
Downer, who said improving the situation in East Timor was better
done by encouraging the Indonesian government and creating a
dialog about the area's future.

Downer also rejected Labor's new policy.

"I don't think anyone should take seriously Labor's position,
they had 13 years to address this issue and stood on the shores
of Australia and just stared at East Timor," Downer said.

Under the government of then Labor prime minister Robert Hawke
in 1985, Australia was the first Western country to recognize
Jakarta's sovereignty over East Timor prior to signing a treaty
to share revenue from oil exploration in the Timor Gap with
Indonesia.