AUT: East Timor - August Senate Inquiry report

["rc-am" <rcollins@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

see fwd/d post below with an excerpt from the Australian Department of
Foreign Affairs report presented to a Senate committee inquiry in August
this year, and a link to the full document.  as well as a link to an
article by Toohey on how australia argued against a UN armed presence
during the ballot.  (brian jenkin's comments on australian 'cowardice'
are rather unfortunate though.)

(yesterday, i'd written:
... the
australian govt was always going to wait for the indonesian military to
do its dirty work and then go in under the UN to provide a transitional
phase, one which quite likely would have included a capitulation to the
fantasy that there are "competing factions" within the east timorese
population (outside their fabrication by the indonesian military), and
hence a move to partition to the coffee plantations off. ...
and it should raise the question of why the UN went ahead with the
ballot knowing this.  seriously, why would they do that or allow that to
happen unless there was sufficient pressure placed on the UN or indeed
sections within the UN which were colluding with these plans?  and hey
presto! the answer to that is that we know the Australian govt was
instrumental in allowing the ballot to be held without an armed UN
presence, in supporting Indonesia's insistence that no such presence
could be allowed.  and this is the govt that you think should be sent in
to save the east timorese?!  all the aust govt's talk of trying real
hard to get a intervention force together has been a sham to deflect
australian's protests and defer any UN armed presence until the
indonesian military finished what it had decided to do.  to read the
situation any differently is as far-fetched as to think the US is
itching to go to war on this....

Angela
_________

Date: Sat, 11 Sep 1999 13:01:57 +1000
From: "Alan Griffiths" <composer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

"The following excerpt from a Department of Foreign Affairs report
presented to a Senate committee in August establishes an exhaustive
foreknowledge of the militia danger to UNAMET and the civilian
population of East Timor. It includes the definitive statement:

"There is evidence available to the Australian Government that TNI [the
Indonesian military] has been actively involved in encouraging and
supporting pro-integrationist militias in East Timor, including through
the
supply of arms."

And yet, according to a record leaked to journalist Brian Toohey, the
head of  DFAT, Ashton Calvert argued strongly against a peacekeeping
force during talks in Washington in February with a senior American
State Department official, Stanley Roth. Toohey's full report can be
seen
on the web at http://www.multiline.com.au/~johnm/armsaid.htm

The Australian Government has claimed credit for prompting BJ Habibie
to authorise the holding of the fateful consultation plebiscite. It is
now
obvious that, in pursuit of Indonesian trade interests, the Australian
Government also connived to remove any chance of an armed UN
peacekeeping presence at the time when it was needed and when it
would probably have prevented the subsequent slaughter.

Not the least of the consequences has been the exposure of the
Australian nation to justified charges of cowardice - and pressure on a
small force of young Australian soldiers to offer themselves as cannon
fodder to appease the shame of the so-called international community.

Brian Jenkins
StopMAI Coalition (Western Australia)

* * * [Excerpt from August 1999 submission by the Department of
Foreign Affairs (DFAT) to the Australian Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence
and Trade References Committee Enquiry into East Timor .]

Full text (pdf):
http://www.dfat.gov.au/geo/sea/indonesia/et/east_timor0899.pdf




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