Prime Minister John Howard's Coalition government has released foreign affairs documents relating to the 1974-76 period in a cynical ploy to use Australian people's outrage at the 1975 invasion and occupation of East Timor to score points against the "opposition" Labor Party. The documents confirm what was obvious from the public actions and statements of then ALP prime minister Gough Whitlam: the Australian government urged and encouraged the Suharto dictatorship to invade East Timor.
In September 1974, in central Java, Whitlam told Suharto that East Timor was "too small to be independent". The internal documents confirm that this was government policy. "I am in favour of incorporation but obeisance must be made to self-determination", one document quotes Whitlam as saying.
The legal front for the Indonesian military's black operations at the time, the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), recognised this stance in Whitlam's private secretary, Peter Wilenski. The centre was so convinced of the Australian government's support that it immediately began briefing the Australian embassy on its planned covert operations. Thus it was that the embassy knew three days beforehand that Indonesian troops would attack Balibo, where the five Australian journalists were killed.
The documents underline that all public references to self-determination in East Timor were part of a pretence to this principle by the government, to prevent "argument in Australia" as one document described Whitlam's concerns. This pretence was part of a greater pretence: that the Australian government supported democracy in the region in general.
Like the previous Liberal governments, Whitlam's Labor government heaped praise on Suharto and engaged in so-called batik shirt diplomacy. The murder of 1 million Indonesian workers, peasants and left-wing activists in 1965 and 1966, during and after the military coup that brought Suharto to power, was welcomed by both the Labor and Liberal political elites as a blow against the threat of communism.
Whitlam's support for the incorporation of East Timor into Indonesia meant support for East Timorese people living under the same dictatorship conditions as Indonesia's workers and peasants. Whitlam knew that "obeisance to self-determination" could only be a pretence given that he was dealing with a military dictatorship with a horrendous record.
Liberal hypocrisy
Answering a question about the documents, Howard said that he wouldn't comment on past governments' record, but asserted that his government had an "honourable" record. This is hypocritical on two counts.
First, Howard was a member of the opposition at the time of the invasion, an opposition that enthusiastically supported the Whitlam government's pro-dictatorship position. Later, Howard was a member of Malcolm Fraser's Coalition government, the first government to declare de jure recognition of the integration of East Timor into Indonesia. The Fraser government also massively increased material aid to the Indonesian military throughout the late 1970s, when it was engaged in its most savage operations against the East Timorese guerilla resistance.
Secondly, Howard's own government was a no less enthusiastic supporter of Suharto than Whitlam's, or Bob Hawke and Paul Keating's later Labor governments. While Hawke raised the champagne glass to Suharto and declared, "Your people love you, Mr President" during his 1983 visit to Jakarta, Howard described Suharto as a "caring and sensitive leader".
The Howard government continued previous governments' policy of holding joint military exercises with Indonesia and training its military.
It was also the Howard government that wrote to Indonesia's President B.J. Habibie (Suharto's successor) suggesting that he try to con the East Timorese into dropping their resistance by promising a vaguely described act of self-determination at some indefinite time in the future. When this backfired and Habibie, afraid of having to finance the occupation of East Timor for another 10 or 15 years and still lose it, called a referendum in 1999, the Howard government did its best to aid the pro-integration militia in East Timor. It refused to apply any pressure on the Habibie government to rein in the army and militia.
Howard and his foreign affairs minister Alexander Downer repeatedly assured the Australian people that they could rely on the Indonesian military to do the right thing in East Timor, even as the militia violence against East Timorese independence supporters was being broadcast on television sets worldwide. And it was the Howard government that refused to press Habibie to allow the referendum process to be protected by an armed United Nations force.
The Howard government stood by as the post-referendum violence exploded, afraid of any confrontation with Jakarta. Only massive public anger at its passivity in the face of these developments forced the government into a frenzied lobbying of the United States to pressure Habibie into surrendering East Timor to UN forces.
Continuity
Today, as Jakarta refuses to take any serious action against the persistent militia violence in West and East Timor, Howard and Downer express their confidence in President Abdurrahman Wahid's stated commitment to improving the situation — just as they did with Suharto and Habibie. But it has been obvious for a long time that Wahid is not interested in subjugating the militia in East Timor. He has made no statement during his tenure criticising the militia atrocities and the situation in West Timor was not even raised for discussion during the recent sitting of Indonesia's People's Consultative Assembly.
The Howard government would know that Wahid is a member of the CSIS advisory council and that Wahid appointed Yusus Wanandi, a key crony businessperson and a central figure in the CSIS, to a top advisory role in the government.
Wahid maintains close contact with the infamous General Benny Murdani, who was in charge of the 1975 invasion of East Timor.
When Wahid visited East Timor before the referendum, the anti-independence Aitarak militia provided the security outside his residence. His long-time friend and vice-president, Megawati Sukarnoputri, has appointed the Aitarak leader, Eurico Guterres, head of her party's youth organisation in West Timor.
All Australian governments, Liberal and Labor, have been and remain complicit in the oppression of East Timor. Any international war crimes tribunal should not only haul Suharto and his military and political cronies before it, but also Whitlam, Fraser, Hawke, Keating, Howard and all the other Australian government accomplices to the crimes committed against the East Timorese people.
BY MAX LANE