AETA East Timor NEWSLETTER/No. 1/JAN-FEB 2004....compiled by jefferson lee for aeta (nsw) PO Box 751, darlinghust 2010
1. AETA DIARY OF EVENTS NO1/JAN-FEB 2004 2. VALE DR ANDREW MCNAUGHTAN 3. TIMOR SEA CAMPAIGN 4. ON LINE PROEST OVER SACKING OF TIMORESE WORKERS BY CHUBB SECURITY 5. AETA MEMBER DAWN FLETCHER APPEAL FOR ENGLISH DICTIONARIES 6. FUNERAL OF MARK WORTH AETA DIARY OF EVENTS NO1/JAN-FEB 2004 # Friday Jan 2nd 2004. Andrew McNaughtan Memorial Service was held in the Mary MacKillop Chapel in North Sydney with addresses by Jose Ramos Horta, John Pilger, Justice Barry O'Keefe, Nigel Stewart, etc. A video copy of the service, filmed by David Bradbury, will be available shortly. Cheques should be made out to AETA (PO Box 751 Darlinghurst 2010) with a note indicating money should go to the Andrew McNaughtan Memorial Fund (when established) and a return address for postage included. Cost will be determined shortly. Email orders accepted only at this stage thru Brendan Doyle <<brendanfish @bigpond.com> .Photos and written tributes collections are available currently in PDF form from <<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> on request. #Thursday 15th January, Jayapura, West Papua. Death of independent documentary maker Mark Worth. (see below) #Monday 26th January 2004. Australia Day protest over Timor Sea issue to Overseas Missions. (See Dan Nicholson appeal below). #Monday 26th January 2004 Deadline for delivery of English-English dictionaries for Dawn Fletcher to take on plane to English language students at the University of East Timor. Contact Jeff Lee (02)9500-1638 or leave dictionaries at the Timor Consulate in Sydney Level 7 , 4-6 Bligh St. City (Bligh House) before 4.30pm on Friday23rd Jan or at Gleebooks (Attn: David Gaunt) over the week-end (24-25/01) up until 9pm. (see below) # Thursday 29th January 7.30am, Convention Centre, Darling Harbour, Picket of ALP National Conference Opening to demand a "Fairer Share of the Timor Sea Gas and Oil Royalties" for the East Timor people. Contact Jeff Lee (02) 9500-1638 for more details. It is a "friendly picket" because the ALP have a better policy on the Timor Oil issue than the Federal Liberal Govt. We wish to encourage the ALP to tighten their policy further so that it can become an election issue to force the Liberals into granting the Timorese a "Fairer Share" of the Timor Sea resouces. #Wednesday 28th January 6.30pm, Level 3, UTS Tower Building, Broadway. First AETA Meeting for the year. Details Stephen Langford (02)9331-5986. # Monday February 2nd, a new documentary on West Papua titled "Land of the Morning Star" is due to be screened on ABC Australian television by the late Mark Worth . # February 2004 Hazara Afghani Singer In Concert. Dates as follows ADELAIDE (31 January) - MELBOURNE (7 February) - SYDNEY (14 February) check with refugee support groups for details. Refugees who came to Australia as "boat people" have had a hard time in Australia in detention and on temporary protection visas. Here is a chance for them to have a good evening's entertainment from a well-known Hazara Afghani singer. It is also an opportunity for refugee advocates and supporters to enjoy themselves with the refugee community. # Friday Wednesday 21st ANDY MCNAUGHTAN MEMORIAL CONCERT FOR THE ALOLA FOUNDATION in Sydney with Kirsty Sword in attendance (details following shortly) #Friday 30th April, Swiss Hotel, George &Market Sts, city. A 'Force 10' fund-raising dinner with Jose Ramos-Horta as dinner speaker to raise money for Caritas and Christian Children's Fund East Timor projects. Seats are $140. For details/bookings contact Amanda Jackson (02) 9299-2215 <<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> # Thursday May 20th, 2004. Second Anniversary of East Timor Independence Celebrations. Luke Gosling organised Fun Run in East Timor. 2. VALE DR ANDREW MCNAUGHTAN All of you would have heard of the passing of Dr Andrew McNaughtan. H.T. Lee has compiled over 30 tributes to him that have been listed on the ETAN/Topica Website <<http://igc.topica.com/lists/east-timor/>. David Bradbury will take about another fortnight for the video of the memorial service. Brendan has forwarded the family a letter outlining how we think Andy's stuff should be archived. H.T. Lee and others are still compiling a chronology of Andy's last 2 weeks from the Timor Embassy opening up to the discovery of the body. It is proving time consuming and delicate. The final Coroner Report will take possibly another month. Stay posted for all results. In the meantime lets get on with the important stuff that Andy was working on! 3. TIMOR SEA CAMPAIGN The video "East Timor oil and gas: Don't Rob The Future -Give Them A Fair Go" produced by H.T. Lee and Andy McNaughtan was released on February 2003. Andy and Lee travelled to Canberra then and gave away dozens of copies to Federal politicians and the media. It runs for 18 minutes and is an excellent educational aid for schools, public meetings and private screenings. It was added onto the ETAN Cd Rom Oil & Gas Archive as an extra (available thru AETA Melbourne Office from John Sinnott <<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ) or you can contact HTLee <<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> directly. Currently there is an internal discussion going on about how to reactivate the Timor Sea campaign. A very brief history is as follows. In the post 1999 period the UN administration ran a Timor Sea Office which Helen Hill saw as "public servants answerable to the Timorese (then interim) Government". Others such as H.T. Lee and Andy "smelt a rat". They felt that this office was ignoring good advice from many reputable international law and oil treaty experts. H.T. felt that the office was staffed by either novices or people that had loyalties elsewhere - i.e. with the Australian or US Governments/Oil interests. Whatever the case (and I tend towards the latter view), the Treaty signed by the new independent Govt of Timor on May 20th 2002, establishing the Joint Petroleum Development Area (JPDA), is now regarded as one-sided and in Australia's favour.=20 The media have been constantly pushing the propaganda myth that the division of the spoils was 90%:10% in East Timor's favor. But this was only for the second smallest of the 3 oil/gas concentration areas. The area known as Bayu-Undan. The larger concentration known as Greater Sunrise falls only partly inside the JPDA and the proposed split on this, when it comes on line, will be 82%:18% in Australia's favour. The 3rd area Laminaria-Corralina is already in production and Australia is taking all the revenues from this oil well (worth over $1.2 billion last year alone and supplying 20-30 of Australia's total oil production output). We all agree that the current breakdown is unfair. Last November 2003 the Timorese Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri said some unkind remarks about Australia and the May 2002 Treaty. Ditto their Foreign Minister Jose Ramos-Horta at the National Press Club last December 10th 2003 following the opening of the new Embassy in Canberra. Now some people are saying the Timorese Govt was press-ganged into the May 2002 Agreement (and we have evidence of this). Others say they took advice from the wrong advisors over the issue. Others go further, and say that under international law they can still challenge the status quo arrangements. Clearly there is pressure being put on Canberra by the Timorese from Dili. What we have to decide here in Australia is how to shift public opinion around to make it a winnable election issue. Hence the picket at the ALP National Conference on Tuesday 27th January. We must get the ALP around to see that this can become a major election issue and one on which they will have full public backing. There are two camps here. The HTLee/McKhee camp argues we should call for a "Fairer Share" for East Timor. This can be achieved immediately at the strock of a pen - i.e. before the complicated negotiation of maritime boundaries are finalised. Strategically it is a demand that will strike a chord with the average Australian and will expose the greed of Canbarra if they don't accede to it. Others such as the La'o Hamutuk-Charlie Scheiner/Nicholson camp argue we should align ourselves more closely behind the new demands of the Timorese Govt claiming that under international law 100% of the oil (may) fall on the Timorese side of the (yet to be agreed) international maritime boundaries. Under the terms of the existing Treaty East Timor is getting less than 40% of their entitlements and none of the downstream on-shore production benefits and jobs. Hence this campaign is arguing that Australia is "stealing" Timor's birthright. Nicholson argues that the monies from the current exploitation of Laminaria by Australia should be put into a Trust account - and not into Australian Consolidated Revenue - until such time as an international court rules on the boundary issue. Hence there are two major issues: (1) The split of revenues/royalties and control of the oil. and (2) The Maritime Boundary issue. H.T. Lee adds the ancillary issue of the need to insist that the gas pipeline from Sunshine must go to Timor to balance the fact that the existing pipeline from Bayu-Undan now goes to Darwin. Lee's argument here is based on equity, fairness and balance and good faith between the two countries. It is also based on the fact that a gas line to the Southern Coast of East Timor is more economical -2/3 the cost of one to Darwin. Thirdly Timor needs jobs and industry and a refinery will also ensure that they can fully account for supply of the end product and avoid the manipulating accountants and engineers employed at the Australian end of production. Below is the action alert from the second camp. Nicholson has organised a Melbourne meeting of activists for (21/1/04). AETA Secretary in Melbourne John Sinnott is proposing a broader meeting involving all NGOs and Churches and others for Friday 6th February where the new Timorese Ambassador George Teme and theall experts from Sydney can outline their perspectives. Hopefully this will kick start a new national campaign for justice for Timor. In Sydney we will also take up the issue at the first AETA Meeting on Wednesday 28th January. ACTION ALERT.....From La'o Hamutuk, 17 January 2004 Help East Timor control its resources and its economy and complete its struggle for independence! Tell Australia to stop stealing the oil and the future of East Timor! On January 26, Australia Day (recalling the first permanent British settlement in Australia in 1788), let Australian government representatives in your country know that it is no longer acceptable to seize territory or resources belonging to another nation. Australian embassies and consulates around the world will be having parties -- Why not hold a vigil or distribute a leaflet? (La'o Hamutuk and ETAN will shortly have a leaflet and a press release available for download. You can download a list of nearly 200 Australian missions worldwide from http://www.dfat.gov.au/missions/missions.txt .) Here are a few other activities which would also be helpful: * Write a letter, phone or visit their embassy in your country. * Write to Australian Prime Minister John Howard (House of Representatives, Parliament House Canberra ACT 2600 AUSTRALIA). * Contact your own government and elected officials and ask them to weigh in with Australia. * Distribute a press release or write letters to the editor in your country or Australia explaining Australia's actions. The Issue East Timor is an independent nation, entitled to know the limits of its territory by land, sea, and air, so that it can guarantee the security of its territory and citizens. East Timor's government, dependent on foreign support after 24 years of Indonesian occupation and destruction, needs to be able to use its own resources. At present, East Timor is struggling not to go into debt to the World Bank and IMF, as it needs to cover a USD $126 million financial gap between now and 2007. Yet between 1999 and today, the Australian government has stolen more than USD $1,000 million in oil and gas revenues that would belong to East Timor under a fair boundary settlement. If Australia continues to prevail with "interim" agreements negotiated under pressure, East Timor will continue to be the largest (albeit reluctant) contributor to Australia's government budget, running into tens of billions of dollars over the next four decades. In October 2002, East Timorese enacted a Maritime Boundary Law, claiming a 200 nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in all directions, based on U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) principles. Where their neighbors' claims overlap, countries need to negotiate a permanent maritime boundary, usually halfway between their coastlines. Yet Australia is delaying resolving the maritime boundary, while at the same time it is depleting East Timor's birthright. The two countries held a first negotiating session last November, more than a year after East Timor requested it. They will not meet again until April, notwithstanding East Timor's request to meet monthly and resolve the issue in 3-5 years. The Australian Government's arrogance can be ended with pressure from East Timor and its international friends. Australia must understand that East Timor is a sovereign nation, entitled to know the extent of its territory and to benefit from its natural resources. In your signs and letters, tell them: *East Timor is entitled to know its land and sea boundaries, and Australia must respect this right. *Australia will lose the good will it generated in 1999 if it cheats East Timor out of tens of billions of dollars of petroleum revenue. *Australia should negotiate fairly and in good faith to settle the maritime boundary in no more than three years, treating East Timor respectfully as an equally sovereign nation; *Australia should respect and implement international law by rejoining legal mechanisms for resolving maritime boundary disputes. Specifically, Australia should return to the process from which they withdrew in March 2002 (see below). East Timor's independence will not be fully realized until its boundaries, both land and sea, are defined and accepted by its neighbors. Additional Background Under legal principles established by case and statutory law under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the median line (half way between the coastlines of two countries) is the standard way to establish maritime exclusive economic zone (EEZ) boundaries when two countries are closer than 400 nautical miles to each other. This is the case with East Timor and Australia. If this international principle were applied, many of the oil and gas fields Australia has exploited and intends to exploit - including most if not all of the lucrative Greater Sunrise field and the nearly depleted Laminaria-Corallina field - would fall within East Timor's EEZ. East Timor has not received a single cent of the $1 billion in royalties from the Laminaria-Corallina field; all has gone to Australia. In March 2002, Australia gave formal notice that it was withdrawing from international legal mechanisms to resolve boundary issues that cannot be settled by negotiation -- the International Court of Justice and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. East Timor's leaders called this withdrawal a hostile act. The withdrawal prevents the new nation from bringing Australia to those forums to contest its refusal to enter timely and cooperative boundary negotiations. Under interim arrangements promoted by the Australian government, East Timor is providing more support to Australia in petroleum revenues than Australia has given or likely will give East Timor in foreign aid. East Timor is among the poorest of the world's countries, suffering from very low levels of basic services and high unemployment. The quality of life for East Timor's present and future generations depends on a fair boundary agreement. Well-managed, these petroleum resources can provide the basis for just and equitable economic development in East Timor. To read more in-depth analysis of the Timor Sea issue, see www.etan.org/lh/bulletins/bulletinv4n34.html#update . To see the letter a hundred organizations from around the world sent to the Australian Prime Minister last November, see http://www.etan.org/news/2003a/11bound.htm . For further information, please contact: La'o Hamutuk at [EMAIL PROTECTED] or by phone at +670 3325013 or 7234330. Example: Letter to the Editor recently sent to "The Australian": 14 January 2004 To the Editor: We agree with The Australian (Editorial January 6, "Don't Leave Timor before job is done") that East Timor will continue to require economic and political aid from Australia and other rich nations for several years. Such support is not only necessary to prevent this impoverished infant democracy from becoming a "failed, anarchic state", but it is also a meager compensation for a quarter-century of Australian complicity with Indonesia's brutal military invasion and occupation. However, in the long term, the interests of East Timor and Australia are best served by East Timor achieving complete political and economic independence. Unfortunately, short-sighted Australian policies are obstructing those goals, by refusing to fairly and expeditiously settle maritime boundaries, and by stealing oil and gas which lie under territory claimed by both nations, but closer to East Timor than to Australia. If Australia succeeds in bullying East Timor for the next few decades, our southern neighbor will have taken nearly 60% of our nation's entire oil and gas entitlement. Australia began collecting revenues from the disputed Laminaria-Corallina oil field while the smoke was still rising from the ashes of Dili. Since late 1999, the Commonwealth government has taken in more than A$1.7 billion from that field, far more than Australia has given East Timor in aid over the same period. (The great majority of the $2 billion cited in the editorial is for troop deployments, most of which ADF would have been spent whether or not the soldiers came to East Timor.) More than 200 years ago, colonists viewed Australia as "terra nullius," as they took over land from people who had lived on it for millennia. Although that racist ideology is now discredited, Australia's "mare nullius" policies in the Timor Sea today deny East Timor's hard-won sovereignty and refuse to comply with international law. Every nation, no matter how young or fragile, is entitled to know where its territory ends, especially when that territory contains the nation's birthright. Australia should comply with East Timor's government's requests to suspend petroleum exploration and development in disputed areas, and to quickly negotiate a boundary based on international legal principles. That is the best and most just way Australia can support East Timor's long-term stability, and it won't cost Australian taxpayers one penny or put any Australian soldiers at risk. Sincerely, Charles Scheiner and Selma Hayati East Timor Institute for Reconstruction Monitoring and Analysis (La'o Hamutuk) ---------------- Dan Nicholson Legal Assistant Centre on Housing Rights & Evictions - Asia & Pacific Programme Office: 124 Napier St, Fitzroy Vic 3065 Australia Postal: PO Box 1160, Collingwood Vic 3066 Australia Tel: +61 3 9417 7505 Fax: +61 3 9416 2746 Web: www.cohre.org Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 4. ON LINE PROEST OVER SACKING OF TIMORESE WORKERS BY CHUBB SECURITY From: "Ken Davis" <<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "AIDWATCH" <<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: protest Chubb in East Timor Date sent: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 19:24:27 +1100 Hi I don't normally send petitions, but... Chubb are worried about the letters they are receiving about the sacking of workers in East Timor who participated in legal strike action over a 30% pay decrease. Please take a moment to visit <<http://www.apheda.org.au/campaigns/east_timor_strike/protest/index.html> and add your voice to the protest - it will only take you two minutes (literally). You can change the text according to your opinions if you want. This page also has more background to the dispute. Thanks Ken 5. AETA MEMBER DAWN FLETCHER APPEAL FOR ENGLISH DICTIONARIES Despite contracting Dengue Fever Dawn Fletcher from Repton near Coffs Harbour NSW will return to Timor to continue her English teaching contract with the support of the NSW Education Dept.. If you can help out with English dictionaries before next Monday get them in to us. Dawn alwso produced 5 postcards from her own photos. If you want a set send me $5 marked AETA to PO Box 703 Leichhardt 2040. You can have 5 sets of each (25 cards in total) for $20. 6.FUNERAL OF MARK WORTH Film-maker Mark Worth died in Jayapura, West Papua, yesterday Thursday 15th January 2004, aged 44. According to sources close to Mark and his family, he died from pneumonia, and had been recently ill. Mark's work for the past several years, a new documentary on West Papua titled "Land of the Morning Star" is due to be screened on ABC Australian television on 2nd February. ELSHAM has stated that the funeral for Mark will be held tomorrow Saturday 17th January 2004 at 2pm. Reportedly at his own request, he is to buried on his father-in-law's land at Abepura Beach, near Jayapura, in West Papua. ELSHAM have urgently requested that messages of condolence be sent for Mark's wife Herlina, his daughter Insoraki, and his extended family. They should be sent to ELSHAM who will forward them to family members. Send to: fax +62 9675 81600 or to email [EMAIL PROTECTED] and [EMAIL PROTECTED] Many thanks. Peter Cronau =2E.......footnote from Wes.....Mark was born in PNG and spent most of his life in PNG and West Papua. He spent most of the last 15 years producing radio programs, writing articles and producing documentary films about the West Papuan people and their struggle for self-determination. Mark's influential documentary films include the 'Act of No Choice'. =2E.....A tribute to Mark appeared on Dateline-SBS-TV (21/01/04) at the end of the program. end -- Visit the proposed Leftlink web site at http://www.leftlink.net/ -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archived at http://www.cat.org.au/lists/leftlink/ Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Sub: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsub: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
