[Marxism] Re: Australian troops back in East Timor

[clintonf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

A key element of the Indonesian and Australian governments?
strategies was the prevention or minimisation of international
involvement. The full weight of Australian diplomacy was being
brought to bear in pursuit of this strategy. On 22 February 1999,
the secretary of dfat, Ashton Calvert, met US assistant secretary
of state Stanley Roth in Washington. According to the highly
sensitive transcript of the conversation, Roth was of the view
that
a full-scale peacekeeping operation would be an unavoidable
aspect of the transition. Without it, East Timor was likely to
collapse ? [Roth] ? saw no prospect for reconciliation between
East Timorese groups which could avert the need for significant
external intervention ? [and] ? suggested that Australia?s
position of keeping peace keeping at arms length was essentially
defeatist, and that it was necessary to go forth and persuade
Congress and UN member states that it simply had to be done.
Roth argued that, in the absence of international
peacekeepers, the territory would descend into violence. But
Calvert, stating the Australian government?s position, made it
clear that Australia wouldn?t support peacekeepers, and
continued to run the ?factions? line:
One of the central themes to achieving a resolution was to
convince the Timorese that they had to sort themselves out, and
to dispel the idea that the UN was going to solve all their
problems while they indulged in vendetta and bloodletting.
Roth described the Australian government?s position as
?defeatist? and stressed the importance of building an
international coalition to persuade the UN and the US Congress
that peacekeeping simply had to be done. His efforts were
rebuffed by Calvert, who was clearly determined to prevent an
international peacekeeping force. When the transcript of the
Calvert-Roth meeting was leaked to the media some months
later, the government realised that it had been caught redhanded.
...

Following a meeting with UN secretarygeneral
Kofi Annan, he [Downer] said:
We hope that there won?t be a need for a peacekeeping force
because if you need a peacekeeping force, you need a peace to
keep and peace first has to be negotiated and we hope that when
the peace is negotiated it will be a peaceful peace that won?t
require a peacekeeping force.

C. Fernandes 2004, Reluctant Saviour: Australia, Indonesia and the independence 
of East Timor, Scribe, Melbourne, pp 58-9, 65.
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