
Issue No 31		17 September 1999

Interview

Sadly Vindicated

Interview with Peter Lewis

Labor's foreign affairs spokesman Laurie Brereton has spent the past year warning that East Timor would explode without a UN peacekeeping force. Now he's had to watch his predictions come true.


	Laurie Brereton

What is your evaluation of how the Howard Government has handled the East Timor situation?

Looked at over the course of this year it must represent the greatest foreign affairs blunder and debacle that we've seen - certainly in our life time. It was Australia who campaigned against peacekeepers, who insisted internationally that Indonesia should be entrusted with security over East Timor before the ballot, during the ballot and after the ballot, up until November of this year. In the process they gave comfort to the Indonesian military, who have now been deeply implicated in this genocide on our doorstep.

East Timor has been destroyed. Most of its people are either hiding in the hills or have fled the territory. All of its infrastructure as we know it has been destroyed. There are no houses or businesses left. This is the result of the complete failure by the Australian Government to see all the signs and to understand all the many warnings that were given. And the warnings started from Xanana Gusmao himself, and from Ramos Horta and from Bishop Belo at the start of this year. They all called for a gradual process involving reconciliation without rushing headlong into the process that was finally undertaken.

The Australian Defence Intelligence, in the very clearest of terms, indicated to the Howard Government the extreme dangers involved in going down the path and they reported to the Australian Government on 4 March in a now leaked, secret Defence Intelligence Organisation Intelligence Brief, that the Indonesian military were condoning the activities of the militias and further violence was certain and Dili would be the focus. They indicated in secret information that the Army were protecting, and in some instances operating with the militias, that they could easily be apprehended or controlled but the Army had decided not to do so, that they were, at the very least turning a blind eye to many of these operations, and that, unless Jakarta took firm action, the military would continue to support intimidation and violence, or at the very least would not prevent it.

Now, all that was known, in secret intelligence briefs prepared by our DIO and passed to Prime Minister Howard on 4 March. That's the one we've seen leaked. There are many, many others as well, we are led to believe. And in spite of all the warnings, and in spite of our repeated calls upon the Government to insist on peacekeepers the Australian Government literally campaigned against them.

Can you understand at all why they have taken the course of action they did?

Because they were completely blind to the potential disaster. Even when they saw 58 men, women and children slaughtered in a churchyard in Licquica in March of this year, they still remained blind. Even when the UN convoy itself was attacked by the militia and Bishop Belo held up, they still remained blind. Even when the UN was forced to pull out of Licquasa, as they did in the middle of June, they remained blind. This is a collective blind spot which represents a disastrous failure of analysis in understanding, and its consequences for the people of East Timor are nothing short of a genocide.

If you could pick one point where they have totally gone wrong, what would it be?

I think in having a deadbeat for a Foreign Minister, and having a disengaged Minister for Defence. The Minister for Defence has spent the last few months arguing about how he could go about sacking the Secretary of his own Department. He obviously hasn't been on the job, and Alexander Downer, tragically - tragically, went out of his way to deny that this could ever happen. Every time I called for peacekeepers he said "you couldn't have peacekeepers until there was a peace to keep." Everytime we called for peacekeepers he said it was completely premature.

I repeat, this represents a failure of monumental proportions with catastrophic repercussions. And can I say that another grave mistake has been made in New York this week with the decision to send in peacekeepers without arguing for the rapid withdrawal of the Indonesian military. These are the people who have organised, armed, orchestrated and managed the affairs of the militia. They have been responsible for the violence. They will now be working alongside Australian and other international troops. They will have a deep knowledge of our troop movements, and they certainly can't be trusted. They mustn't be trusted and we need them confined to barracks and withdrawn from the territory. I think that is the next round of complete miscalculation by the Howard Government.

So, how do you see the situation playing itself out over the next weeks?

Well, we'll have to wait and see, but the first priority is for us to support the international presence and to get the aid distributed on the ground, and to knock over the militias. To bring some aid and comfort to the people of East Timor to make up for the commitment given by the United Nations before the ballot, that they would be there after the ballot - a commitment that has been dishonoured with the complete withdrawal of all but 12 United Nations officers, which is the current position.

Clearly in the future we will have a huge humanitarian challenge ahead of us and we'll have to be very generous in committing ourselves to rebuilding the health and the lives of the East Timorese people. There's a huge bill running into many billions of dollars as a result of the devastation brought about by these criminal thugs in the course of the last 18 days. So East Timor will have to be rebuilt as well.

And to what degree is it Australia's responsibility now to rebuild the country?

Well, Australia has a special relationship with East Timor. It's a special relationship that we have not always lived up to and they have rightly felt very let down at the blind eye that Australia turned to the Indonesian invasion at the end of 1975, and the subsequent recognition by Australia of Indonesian sovereignty over East Timor. It is a tragedy that for 24 years of occupation - it wasn't until this year that either a Minister for Foreign Affairs or a Shadow Minister of Foreign Affairs ever visited East Timor. Alexander Downer visited it this year for a few hours one day. I visited it for a week as part of the United Nations Observer Group, looking at the election process.

And Australia has not lived up to the obligations that we committed ourselves to in 1942, when 30,000 East Timorese, in what was neutral Portuguese territory, chose to fight beside Australian Diggers and paid for that with their lives. We were the ones who trained their guerillas; we were the ones who leafleted from the air the Territory of East Timor in 1942, saying that "we will never forget you." That's where the great debt began, and we now, and in the future, must make up for all the disappointments and all of the disillusionment and help them build a free, fair and democratic East Timor. A free East Timor as a new, independent nation in our region.

There has been debate within the union movement about the usefulness of industrial bans. First up, I would be interested in you view on whether that has been a good thing or not, and also what can ordinary people and ordinary workers do, who feel outraged about the situation over there?

Well, I think the extraordinary concern demonstrated by the Australian electorate over recent weeks has been a very real factor in pressing the Australian Government to finally live up to our responsibilities, and I welcome that. I think the demonstrations and the protests have given the Howard Government a clear indication of the extraordinary distress; the sense of frustration and the shame that is felt by so many Australians. And if that helps them to not make any more blunders in the future it will be a very good outcome indeed.

Personally, how have you felt watching the situation unfold, but not having any real input into the decision-making process. How has it been for you over the last two weeks?

I probably feel more frustrated than at any time in my life. To have been following this so closely and yet to have to admit that I've not managed to save a single life, makes you feel very sad, and politically impotent. That's what happens when you lose elections.

And given what's unfolded, if you had your time over again would you have pushed so hard for the Government to move on East Timor?

Well, I would certainly have been pushing for an act of self-determination, but we certainly would not have allowed it to go ahead with Australia's backing without adequate security to guarantee that the United Nations' commitment to the East Timorese could be met after the ballot. And for there to be the availability of speedy intervention by the world community in the event of a breakdown of security. For us to have been involved in this mad scramble for the last two weeks indicates the complete lack of preparedness. It's inconceivable that Kim Beazley as Minister for Defence would have been unprepared for such an eventuality. And certainly as far as I am concerned, I have warned repeatedly that this was likely to happen, and of course, it has all come to pass.

From a personal point of view, there's a particular sadness in knowing that so many of the people one has worked with in support of a free East Timor, have paid for it with their lives.

People like Leandro Isaacs, who sat with Tim Fisher and myself and Ambassador McCarthy the night before the ballot - the principal spokesman for the CNRT in Dili - who said that if they won the next day independence, he'd been told he'd be on a death list. And we asked him what he was going to do. He said:"I'm going to vote and go to the hills." And of course 78.5 per cent of East Timor voted for Independence - and the following Tuesday he was assassinated. And when you are dealing with people like that - real people who had tears in his eyes as he left us on the eve of the ballot, saying "I don't know whether I'll ever see you again. I hope I will." - you get some idea of the personal impact of this.

When the elderly nun who handed out Holy Communion at Bishop Belo's compound on the Sunday - the day before the ballot - is murdered, and when the head of the Caritas relief agency, Father Francesco Renta, who sat here in my office and Alexander Downer's office earlier this year and told us of his dread and foreboding of what would happen in the absence of international peacekeepers -. it leaves you with an overwhelming sadness. But also with a determination that we must never again betray the East Timorese people.

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Issue 31 contents

Interview: Sadly Vindicated
Laborï¿½s foreign affairs spokesman Laurie Brereton has spent the past year warning that East Timor would explode without a UN peacekeeping force. Now heï¿½s had to watch his predictions come true.

International: In the Bunker
One of the last reporters to leave East Timor, Workers Online's HT Lee remembers the week that Dili burned.

Republic: Tarred With the Same Brush
Neville Wran asks why it is that the most fervant monarchists are also the most eager union-bashers.

Unions: Hard Labour
Prisoner educators argue more attention needs to be given to rehabilitation through teaching, but theyï¿½re facing an uphill battle to convince authorities.

History: Labour and Community
A history conference in Wollongong next month will look at the changing role for labour into the next century.

Review: Bobbin' Up - 40 Years On
Forty years after its first publicaton and several European translations Bobbin Up, a classic of industrial fiction, is coming home.

Satire: East Timor Poll Triumph: Support for Jakarta Up 21 Per Cent
The Indonesian Government has declared that it is pleased with the result of the independence referendum in which 21% of East Timorese voted in support of maintaining links with Indonesia.

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» Commission Tells AGC to Get Into the Nineties

» Cost-Cutting Puts Clinical Waste in Landfill

» Prisons Reject Free Computers

» US Defence Giant Eyes Welfare Sector