Oppose Australia’s neo-colonial occupation of East Timor

Statement by the Socialist Equality Party (Australia)1 June 2006

The Socialist Equality Party unequivocally opposes the Howard government’s military intervention into the tiny neighbouring state of East Timor. The dispatch of heavily-armed troops, backed by armoured vehicles, warships and attack helicopters, is a naked act of neo-colonial bullying and aggression aimed at protecting the economic and strategic interests of Australian imperialism in the Asia Pacific region.

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Canberra has barely disguised the fact that it wants Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri replaced by someone more amenable to its interests. Australian Prime Minister Howard has publicly declared that East Timor “has not been well-governed”. An editorial in Murdoch’s Australian on May 30 demonised Alkatiri as unpopular, arrogant, corrupt and a Marxist, blamed him for the country’s factional infighting and violence, and bluntly called for a new prime minister to be installed.

Despite the fact that the Australian troops were nominally “invited” in by the Alkatiri government, Howard has refused to back it against armed rebels, under the fraudulent guise of “neutrality”. Behind the scenes, Australia has tacitly supported the efforts by East Timor’s President Xanana Gusmao to sideline Alkatiri by declaring “a state of siege” and attempting to assume full control of the security forces. As far as Canberra is concerned it is not a question of if, but when, Alkatiri will be replaced.

Alkatiri is certainly no Marxist. Nor does he represent the aspirations and interests of ordinary East Timorese any more than his rivals among the tiny ruling elite in Dili that has governed since formal independence in 2002. But in the eyes of the Australian government, Alkatiri’s cardinal sin is that he refused to immediately buckle to Canberra’s demands in negotiations over the Timor Sea’s huge oil and gas deposits. At the same time, he has been seeking economic and political support from other quarters, particularly the former colonial power, Portugal.

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Canberra’s aim was both to prevent the intervention of other powers, especially Portugal, which was considering sending paramilitary police to assist the East Timor government, and to put pressure on a congress of the ruling Fretilin party from May 17 to 19, where a challenge was being mounted to the Alkatiri leadership.

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Successive Australian governments, Coalition and Labor, backed Suharto’s takeover in 1975 and, in 1978, in exchange for control over the Timor Sea oil and gas, Australia became the first country in the world to officially recognise Indonesia’s annexation of East Timor. Even after the fall of Suharto in 1998, the Howard government continued to back Jakarta’s efforts to resist demands for a referendum in East Timor.

Canberra only switched tack when it became evident that Portugal, with the backing of the European Union, had secured UN support for a referendum. This opened up the real possibility that an “independent” East Timor, under Portuguese tutelage, would not recognise Australian rights to oil and gas under its Timor Gap Treaty with Jakarta.
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While it hypocritically deplores the current factional violence, the Howard government is directly responsible for the political and social crisis in East Timor.
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Last year, Canberra eventually bullied Dili into delaying any final settlement on the maritime boundary for 50 to 60 years and to a deal sharing out the oil and gas fields that greatly disadvantages East Timor. Known oil and gas reserves under the Timor Sea are estimated to be worth at least $US30 billion. Two thirds of the reserves lie closer to East Timor than Australia and by international law should belong to Dili.

Under the final deal, revenues from the largest field, Greater Sunrise, will be split 50-50, even though 80 percent should fall to East Timor. Even as the talks have dragged on, Canberra pocketed $1 billion royalties and taxes over six years from the Laminaria-Corallina field while Dili received nothing, although the area lies entirely in East Timorese waters—if international law were applied.

It is no surprise that acute social tensions exist in East Timor. They have been manipulated by unscrupulous leaders and produced clashes between “easterners” and “westerners”. Starved of aid and cheated out of oil and gas revenues, the East Timorese government has only been able to raise annual revenues of around $50 million, a sum that is completely inadequate to deal with any of the immense economic and social problems confronting the population. The eruption of gangs of unemployed youth on the streets of Dili, looting and carrying out vendettas against their rivals, is the outcome of the policies, not only of Gusmao, Horta and Alkatiri, but of Howard and his ministers.

Australia as regional hegemon

There are already signs that the Howard government is preparing to transform the present military intervention into a more permanent neo-colonial occupation of East Timor. The Australian media is speculating that troops will remain at least until next year’s election. Foreign Minister Alexander Downer told Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) radio on May 29 that without the Australian military intervention “East Timor does run the risk of becoming a failed state.”

In the wake of the 1999 invasion, Howard infamously suggested that Australia would function as the “deputy sheriff” for the US in the Asia Pacific area. Following outrage from regional leaders, he backed away from his remarks, but has never resiled from the underlying strategy: as a second or third-order power, Australia can only counter its rivals and protect its interests in the region with backing from the United States.
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Within months of the Iraq invasion, the Howard government branded the Solomon Islands “a failed state”, wildly claiming it was becoming a haven for international criminals, drug runners and terrorists, and launched its own “preemptive” operation. In July 2003, an Australian-led taskforce of soldiers, police and officials landed in Honiara.
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Just weeks before the latest East Timor intervention, the Howard government dispatched more than 300 soldiers and police to the Solomons to prop up RAMSI, amid growing local opposition and hostility to the Australian occupation.
While trying to maintain the illusion that Australia “respects” East Timor’s national sovereignty, Howard has already indicated that a RAMSI-style operation is under consideration. When asked on ABC television on May 28 about a similar long-term Australian presence in Dili, he said: “I do not rule anything out”.
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