http://www.todayonline.com/articles/137964.asp
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World News // Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Timor Leste and the $47b question
Australia's real interest in the tiny nation has always been oil Straight
Talk
Kalinga Seneviratne
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
AUSTRALIA is resisting attempts at the United Nations Security Council to
replace the Australian-led multinational force in Timor Leste with a UN-led
peacekeeping force.
On Aug 16, Australia's ambassador to the UN, Mr Robert Hill, told the Council
the UN should do what it does best by providing an international police
presence and helping build Timorese institutions while leaving the military
role to the Australian-led force. He even said Australia was willing to lead
the force at its own expense.
Unable to resolve the conflict, the Council last Friday decided to extend the
mandate of the UN Office in Timor Leste which was to expire on Aug 20 to
Aug 25.
While most of the international media put the blame for the recent crisis on
the UN and ex-Timorese Premier Mari Alkatiri, a different picture emerges when
you look at Australia's policy towards East Timor, also known as Timor Leste,
over the past 25 years.
The installation of the pro-Australian Jose Ramos-Horta as the new premier last
month was the culmination of a carefully-choreographed Australian political
drama.
In the Australian media which in turn influences regional and international
reporting of the issue the recent crisis in Timor Leste was painted as an
internal power struggle, in which an "unpopular" Prime Minister was opposed by
a "people's movement" which claimed ethnic discrimination. The words "oil" and
"gas" were hardly mentioned.
Award-winning Australian journalist John Pilger, writing in the New Statesman,
recently pointed out that a leaked Australian Defence Force document had
revealed that Australia wanted to exercise "influence over Timor Leste's
decision-making". To achieve this, he argued, Australia helped precipitate a
rebellion led by Canberra-trained Major Alfredo Reinado. On May 7, when riots
broke out in Dili, Mr Alkatiri described the rebellion as an attempted coup by
"foreigners and outsiders".
When some 2,000 Australian troops arrived in late May to "rescue" Timor Leste
after being invited by President Xanana Gusmao, an Australian brigadier flew
straight to Maj Reinado's headquarters, "not to arrest him for attempting to
overthrow a democratically-elected Prime Minister but to greet him warmly", Mr
Pilger noted.
He said Mr Alkatiri was "an anti-imperialist who has stood up to the bullying
demands of (Australian Prime Minister John) Howard's government for an undue
share of the oil and gas spoils of the Timor Gap".
In contrast, Mr Ramos-Horta spent almost 20 years of his exile in Australia,
where he set up a diplomatic training programme at a Sydney university. Thus,
he has been close to the Australian foreign service.
While Australia has always painted its support for Timorese independence as a
"humanitarian" mission, it has had a history of policy flip-flops whose aim was
to get its hands on the vast oil deposits in the surrounding seas, now valued
at over US$30 billion ($47.2 billion).
After supporting Indonesia's annexation of the Portuguese-controlled "province"
in 1975, Australia and Indonesia signed the Timor Gap Treaty (TGT) in 1989 to
share the area's resources. After the UN Transitional Authority in East Timor
declared the TGT illegal in 2001, Australia signed an MOU with the UN interim
authority to let them continue oil exploration in the region. Australia also
encouraged the UN's early departure from East Timor in 2002, which left a weak
government to negotiate for oil and gas rights.
Over the past five years, while Australia dragged out its negotiations with
East Timor, they took almost A$2 billion ($2.4 billion) in royalties from the
disputed oil fields in the Timor seas, while giving back approximately A$400
million in aid, thus making the Timorese dependent on Australian aid.
In 2002, just before the birth of an independent Timor Leste, the Howard
government announced that it would no longer submit to maritime border rulings
by the World Court.
Since then, Mr Alkatiri has had a series of heated arguments with Australia
over the issue. It was only in January this year that he was able to get
Canberra to agree to a 90-10 share, in Timor Leste's favour, of the proceeds
from the Greater Sunrise field. That was after he agreed not to proceed for at
least 40 years with Timor Leste's claim to the disputed sea under the UN Law of
the Sea convention.
Interestingly, the Australian military intervened in the nick of time, as the
Alkatiri government was preparing to sign a major oil exploration deal with
Petro China, which included building an oil refinery in Dili. That would have
undermined Australian plans to build a refinery in Darwin to process all Timor
Sea oil from both sides of the border.
The writer is a Singapore-based journalist and media analyst.
Australia's real interest in the tiny nation has always been oil Straight
Talk
Kalinga Seneviratne
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
AUSTRALIA is resisting attempts
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