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Australian support for IndonesiaIt's important for Australia that the world understand that big countries cannot invade small neighbors and get away with it.Australia supported the first UN resolution condemning the invasion, and both Prime Minister Fraser and his foreign minister publicly rejected Indonesia's absorption of East Timor. But this was largely due to massive popular opposition to the invasion. Beneath the surface, a different story was unfolding.Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke, 1990,I don't see what you are getting excited about! The plain fact is that there are only 700,000 Timorese; what we are really concerned about is our relationship with 130,000,000 Indonesians. In January 1976, a month after the invasion, Australia's ambassador to Indonesia, Richard Woolcott, sent the following cable to Canberra: On the Timor issue...we face one of those broad foreign-policy decisions which face most countries at one timor [sic] or another. The Government is confronted by a choice between a moral stance, based on condemnation of Indonesia for the invasion of East Timor and on the assertion of the inalienable right of the people of East Timor to the right of self-determination, on the one hand, and a pragmatic and realistic acceptance of the longer-term inevitabilities of the situation on the other hand.From the actions that followed, Australia's choice is clear. Prime Minister Fraser attempted to undermine support for FRETILIN within Australia. He seized a radio transmitter in Darwin that had been used to communicate with FRETILIN inside East Timor, and later denied Australian entry visas to FRETILIN leaders in exile. In addition, he reportedly gave an informal OK to Indonesia's takeover of East Timor during a visit with Suharto in Jakarta in October 1976. Australian military assistance to Jakarta nearly doubled between 1975 and 1981. Australia now exchanges military intelligence with Indonesia and supplies both military hardware (like naval patrol boats) and training to ABRI. US pressure may have had an influence on Australia's stance. It's been reported that high-ranking members of the Ford administration warned Fraser to back down from his criticisms of Indonesia's takeover of East Timor. Given US influence over Australia, it seems likely that Australia would have complied. As a 1974 Australian Defense Department paper noted, "It is desirable...that Australian policy...pay regard to US interests and reactions, as an important ally and principal power in the Western strategic community." Still, as with other Western powers, Australia's reasons for acquiescing to the invasion were largely economic. When Gough Whitlam became prime minister in 1972, he made it clear that Indonesia was the key to establishing stronger trade and investment connections with the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). Whitlam then stated, "It goes without saying that the number one [foreign policy] goal of my government is to strengthen relations with Indonesia." Australia also has a major economic interest in Timor itself. Between Australia and East Timor lies the Timor Gap, which contains an underwater oil field that's thought to be one of the world's 25 richest deposits. As Ambassador Woolcott wrote in August 1975: We are all aware of the Australian defense interest in the Portuguese Timor situation but I wonder whether the Department has ascertained the interest of the Minister of the Department of Minerals and Energy in the Timor situation.... The present gap in the agreed sea border...could be much more readily negotiated with Indonesia...than with Portugal or an independent Portuguese Timor.In January 1978, Australia became the only Western country ever to grant Indonesia official recognition of its sovereignty over East Timor; with that out of the way, the two countries entered into negotiations over the Timor Gap (a final agreement between them was signed in December 1989). A number of major oil companies—including Australian-based BHP, Dutch-based Shell and US-based Marathon—have already begun exploratory drilling there. Portugal has filed a case against Australia with the International Court of Justice (which meets at the Hague, in the Netherlands), charging it with ignoring Portugal's legal status as the administering power of East Timor. A verdict against Australia (the decision is due in the summer of 1995) would force it to choose between losing enormous oil profits or abandoning the pretense of being a moral country. back to Contents...
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