Portugal takes Timor campaign to world court
Portugal takes Timor campaign to world court
THE HAGUE (Agencies): Portugal took its campaign on East Timor
to the International Court of Justice, again resorting to antique
rhetoric to conceal its own past atrocities in its former colony.
The only difference is that this time the target is Australia,
not Indonesia.
On Monday, the court opened the hearing of a lawsuit filed by
Portugal against Australia for its signing of an agreement with
Indonesia to jointly explore for oil in the Timor Sea off East
Timor.
Portuguese lawyer Jose Manuel Servulo Correia said in his
opening statements that by signing the Timor Gap treaty with
Indonesia in 1989, Australia was violating East Timor's right of
self determination.
Indonesia is not involved in the hearing as it does not
recognize the jurisdiction of the court. Portugal and Australia
have both accepted the UN court's compulsory jurisdiction.
Portugal is arguing that Australia had no right to sign the
treaty because the United Nations still recognizes Portugal and
not Indonesia as the administrative authority in East Timor.
Australia has called Portugal's case "cynically misdirected"
and says Lisbon's real dispute is with Jakarta.
"The case that Portugal has brought against us is one which
should have been brought against Indonesia," said Christopher
Lamb, legal adviser at Australia's Foreign Affairs Department.
Lamb, who was briefing reporters after Portugal's opening
statements, said Lisbon's lawyers had failed to present
convincing legal arguments to the court.
"We're here to deal with a court case about points of
international law. We're not out on a high school debating
society expedition talking about the morals of the issue."
"They are wrong in law and wrong in procedure," he said. "As
far as we are concerned being here is a waste of time and money."
Australia is due to present its defense to the court next
Monday at the start of the second week of hearings.
Australia's case is based on the idea that having been subject
to colonial rule by Portugal prior to the integration with
Indonesia, East Timor has yet to "conduct an act of self-
determination", Lamb said.
Therefore, Indonesian sovereignty over the area is not
necessarily illegal, regardless of the way in which it was
established.
Australia is one of the few Western countries to recognize
Indonesia's sovereignty over East Timor.
Portugal abandoned the territory in 1975, leaving a bloody
civil war in its wake. In the following year, the majority of
East Timor tribal leaders declared their intention to become part
of Indonesia.
Indonesia and Portugal are currently negotiating to settle the
sovereignty issue through the United Nations.
Recent oil finds in Timor Gap -- a 23,550 square mile (61,000
square kilometer) stretch of sea between East Timor and Australia
-- have given an edge to the dispute by reviving initial hopes
that it may contain up to one billion barrels of oil.
Servulo Correia acknowledged that Portugal's dispute with
Australia was connected to its dispute with Indonesia, but said
the two issues were distinct and that the court was only being
asked to rule on the row over the oil treaty.
Australia could not dodge international responsibility by
hiding behind Indonesia, he said.
He said that by concluding the treaty Australia had considered
only its own interests and those of Indonesia, adding that East
Timor had been treated as an "inconvenient nonentity".
The 1989 Timor Gap treaty settled a dispute between Jakarta
and Canberra over rights to exploit the resources of an area not
covered by previous agreements between them.
Under the agreement, the area was divided into three zones:
the northern sector for Indonesia, the south for Australia and a
central zone in which they cooperate.
Recent discoveries have led analysts to suggest this field
could be one of the richest in the world.