Australia issued more intelligence than was usual to the United States during the crisis in East Timor, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said yesterday.
Speaking at the launch of a book written by the Department of Foreign Affairs and entitled East Timor in Transition 1998-2000: An Australian Policy Challenge, Mr Downer sought to scotch criticism of Australia’s actions before and after the 1999 independence ballot.
The book draws on public and departmental sources to explain how Australian officials saw events from the fall of former Indonesian president Suharto in May, 1998, to one year after the ballot.
It has already been attacked by Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Laurie Brereton as a partisan and highly selective work.
The book provides some insight into Australia’s position on the unfolding and escalating violence perpetrated by the Indonesian military (TNI) and its militia proxies.
It also exposes some behind-the-scenes efforts to convince Indonesia to stop it.
But it fails to precisely describe when Australia knew the TNI was funding, arming and organising the militias.
The book said Australia knew of such evidence, but not that it had the evidence.
It says that by mid-1999 it was obvious the TNI was encouraging the militias to intimidate people to stop them from voting.
Mr Downer described as scandalous allegations that Australia knew of plans for post-ballot violence and failed to pass the information on, and that Australian soldiers had been ordered to minimise death tolls.
He also rejected claims Australia withheld intelligence on East Timor from the US, especially on links between the militias and TNI.
“I have received a written assurance from the Director-General of the Office of National Assessments confirming on behalf of all Australian intelligence agency heads that Australia maintained close and constant contact with the US in the intelligence field during the crisis . . . and held back nothing that would normally be shared between the two countries,” Mr Downer said.
He said he wanted the book to be written because of the high public interest in East Timor and the events before and after the August 30 ballot.
Since the post-ballot violence, Australia has been criticised for blaming out-of-control officers or sections of the Indonesian military - so-called rogue elements - for the continuous violence pre- and post-poll.
An Indonesian investigation since the ballot has implicated several high-ranking officers in the violence, but none have been brought to trial.
After the ballot, hundreds of people were killed and more than 200,000 forcibly evacuated as the half-island descended into chaos with militias and the TNI shooting and looting.
As early as February, 1999, Mr Downer pressed his Indonesian counterpart Ali Alatas to control the situation, the book said.
Indonesia invaded the then Portuguese colony of East Timor in December, 1975, and officially integrated it in 1976 in a move never recognised by the UN.
AAP
See also:
Jul 17 ABC: Australian
report links Indonesian military with Timor militia
News & release added July 18
"The study, written by Australian diplomats,
says the Indonesian military supported the violence of the East Timor militia
with weapons, money, transport and strategic direction. It says Indonesian
special forces set up a second chain-of-command to deal with the militia.
... A senior Foreign Affairs official says the book shows that Australia
must be worldly wise and see that assurances from Indonesia’s military
are not always reliable." Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Jul
16 Aust: Tony Kevin: Timor has Downer in full spin Article
added July 18
"But Australia’s role through 1999 is
profoundly disturbing. To what extent did we wrong-foot Wiranto’s group
into launching stupid and murderous actions that would ravage East Timor
and shame Indonesia? Did we understand beforehand that the price of East
Timorese independence could be widespread bloodshed or did we really believe
that we could wing it, with minimal collateral death? Did we deceive ourselves
or did we recognise that our real policy was that the end justified the
means: that this window of opportunity had to be grasped, whatever the
risks we took with East Timorese lives?" Tony Kevin, visiting fellow, school
of Pacific and Asian studies, Australian National University
Jul
7 ABC: TNI used media strategy to disguise militia links
Interview transcript updated July 14
" ... it was ... in some ways a
very slick PR operation. ... By simply focusing on saying that it was the
militia who were destroying Dili, or the militia who were responsible for
the majority of the destruction, which was simply not the case, it was
very methodical carried out by TNI soldiers [Indonesian military] and you
could see that. The militia simply wouldn’t have had the infrastructure
trucks, planes, ships to carry out such a large-scale deportation of you
know, a third of the population basically." John Martinkus, Australian
journalist and author of “A Dirty Little War - an eyewitness account
of East Timor’s descent into hell"
May
16 SBS: See No Evil TV documentary added May 18
"I want to make quite clear - it wasn‘t
from General Cosgrove and it wasn‘t from the military mission here that
decided that policy [of not making public key details of his investigation].
We had a Department of Department of Foreign Affairs rep in Dili and we
were getting political advice directly from Canberra, and not necessarily
from politicians, but certainly from the Department of Foreign Affairs
and Trade." Captain Andrew Plunkett, Australian Army senior military intelligence
officer in charge of gathering evidence of atrocities committed post-ballot
May
9 SBS: Australias East Timor secret TV documentary added
May 13
"In an extraordinary investigation, reporter
Mark Davis returns to East Timor to disclose disturbing new revelations
about Australia’s secret intelligence information prior to the country’s
independence referendum. ... A senior officer has now revealed for the
first time that Canberra knew the Indonesian Army had plans to destroy
East Timor and murder independence supporters, and failed to alert those
most at risk." SBS Dateline (Australia)
BD: Military and political aid to Indonesia - A collection of recent reports, articles and news