Book Review - Negligent Neighbour: New Zealand's Complicity in the Invasion and Occupation of Timor-Leste

TAPOL - 15 June 2007

by Maire Leadbeater, 234 pages, Craig Potton Publishing.
Reviewed by Paul Barber, TAPOL

The only complaint one might have with this excellent book concerns its title, which describes New Zealand as a negligent neighbour of East Timor (now known as Timor-Leste) during the invasion and brutal occupation by Indonesia.

Judging by Maire Leadbeater's highly readable account of her country's role, it is clear that New Zealand's level of culpability was far higher than negligence. Its complicity in supporting Indonesia's East Timor policy for geo-political purposes was in fact on a par with the collusion of the key western powers, Australia and the United States.

Maire Leadbeater is a seasoned campaigner (she now runs the Auckland-based Indonesia Human Rights Committee and is a prominent advocate for West Papua). Her personal recollections and experiences in the East Timor solidarity movement add considerable strength and authenticity to her chronicle, which also draws on declassified official documents, historical research and interviews with key players.

Underpinning the narrative is the moving story of East Timor's heroic resistance against oppression together with an informative overview of the history of the East Timor tragedy and the Machiavellian machinations of the international community.

The book can make depressing reading for those who believe that principle should take precedence over pragmatism on foreign policy issues such as East Timor. Leadbeater notes how she was shocked to find that 'almost every new batch of documents revealed new examples of the high-level subterfuge officials relied on as they plotted to help Indonesia deflect international criticism'.

However, there is some encouragement for activists in the discovery from official papers that 'solidarity campaigning had made more of an impact on Government officials and politicians than any of us had been aware of at the time. It is clear that Government officials were constantly gauging the strength of the solidarity movement and its impact on the public'.

The book raises the important question as to what would have happened if New Zealand had taken a different position and opposed the Indonesian invasion and occupation. Would that have had an effect on the other global players and forced Indonesia to change its plans, she asks. What counts, she suggests is 'not just the size of the country, but qualities such as a reputation for straight dealing and an ethical foreign policy. Deserved or not, New Zealand had a good name' in that respect and was a strong supporter of self-determination for Pacific Islands states. But it 'shamelessly put this "good name" to the service of Indonesia' despite the fact that it never gained anything from being conciliatory to Jakarta.

Leadbeater makes the point that New Zealand had withstood high-level pressure, including economic threats from the United States and Britain, over its anti-nuclear stand (an honourable exception to the pragmatic approach to foreign policy) so its lack of courage over East Timor was all the more regrettable.

New Zealand's complicity in Indonesia's annexation of East Timor is symbolised by its support for the Australian-led cover-up over the killings of the 'Balibo Five' newsmen in October 1975. This is now being exposed by the New South Wales inquest into the death of one of the men, Briton Brian Peters. The incident is regarded as a key moment in the invasion of East Timor since the lack of protest over the deaths by Australia, New Zealand and the UK is thought to have emboldened Indonesia to proceedwith its plans.

Cameraman Gary Cunningham was a New Zealand citizen, but Leadbeater notes that the New Zealand government, anxious to avoid harming its relations with Indonesia, shamefully concluded there was no need for it to become involved in the dispute over how the men died. The fact that Cunningham was resident in Australia and employed by an Australian news organisation was used as a convenient justification for it to turn a blind eye.

Leadbeater presents the book as her way of addressing a 'personal responsibility to expose what went wrong in the past in the interests of putting things right in the present'. She has gone a considerable way to achieving the first part of the objective, but the second part is dependent on those in power, who may not yet have learnt the lessons of the past.

In common with other western countries, New Zealand has offered no apology for 24 years of complicity with Indonesian military brutality in East Timor, it has maintained close ties with the military forces responsible for widespread violations of human rights, and done little to ensure the perpetrators of crimes against humanity are brought to justice. These failures of national, institutional and individual accountability have clearly contributed to the recent breakdown of law and order in independent Timor-Leste by sending the message that violence pays and that perpetrators can expect to enjoy impunity.

There is, suggests Leadbeater, an opportunity for New Zealand to atone in part for its past errors by making a difference on West Papua, but it must be 'prepared to put principle before the bilateral relationship with Indonesia' and 'abandon its acquiescent Indonesia-first foreign policy' if the East Timor policy debacle is not to be repeated.