By Max Lane The Australian government's support for the 1975 invasion of East Timor; its August, 1983 legal recognition of Indonesia's annexation by force; its policy of continuing joint military exercises and training with the Indonesian occupation forces; its defence of the Suharto dictatorship's atrocious human rights record in numerous international fora; and its complicity in dividing up East Timor's oil with Suharto's oil cronies in the Timor Gap Treaty, make it a willing accomplice in the repression and persecution of the people of East Timor. The moral and political bankruptcy of the federal Labor government is further exposed now when it cannot even bring itself to allow human beings, who try to flee this war, the right to reside in Australia. The government's refusal to consider this most basic humanitarian gesture to the victims of its own foreign policy is evident in its handling of the East Timorese refugees. On October 16, WA Green Senator Christabel Chamarette quizzed immigration minister Nick Bolkus on the government's policy regarding the Portuguese nationality of East Timorese refugees currently seeking to stay in Australia. In his response, Bolkus insisted that, as far as processing the applications of the East Timorese were concerned, "We have not interfered; we will not interfere; and international laws will be applied".
Legal loophole
Bolkus's denial of interference in the refugee review process rests on very shaky ground. The government has been straining to find some legal loophole to enable it to avoid granting visas to the more than 1350 East Timorese seeking permission to stay in Australia. Bolkus's defence rests on the assertion that the government has only been seeking to clarify, for the Refugee Review Tribunal, whether the East Timorese refugees would be able to be received by Portugal as residents under Portuguese law. Under international law, a country to which refugees have fled does not have to grant them permanency if another country, in which they have a legal right of residence, accepts them. This defence completely avoids the Australian government's complicity in helping to create the situation from which the East Timorese are fleeing. There is no doubt that
all the East Timorese in Australia are fleeing persecution. The applicants have all been granted refugee status in the four cases the Refugee Review Tribunal (RRT) has dealt with this year. In the latest decision, made on October 4, tribunal member Andrew Jacovides decided that, "the individual's circumstances, in conjunction with current conditions in Indonesia, will place him at risk of persecution of he returns to Indonesia". The decision also noted that, "Indonesia has a huge security network which operates throughout the entire nation, and [RRT] agrees with the applicant that he will not be able to avoid the adverse attention of the authorities". It is clear from the RRT documents that the Australian government is also aware of the persecution of the East Timorese people. The October 4 decision quotes from a Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Cable O.J1264 of September 30, 1993, which provided the following advice: "Participation or suspected involvement in outlawed, anti-government or so called 'anti-Indonesian' political groupings or movements particularly, but not exclusively in East Timor, is likely to lead suspected persons to be monitored by security and intelligence authorities on a more or less regular and continuing basis. "In East Timor, suspect people are liable to be picked up and detained for indeterminate periods for questioning, observation, or as a preventative security measure. They may be removed from their own town or village and taken to another place, or military unit, some distance away from their home. This applies equally to family members, particularly immediate family and close associates of the person targeted by the security forces ... "The attitudes of the authorities to a returning Indonesian, particularly an East Timorese, who is known or suspected of holding anti-government activities, is likely to be negative. Moreover, because the problem of anti-government feeling is more acute in East Timor than other areas of Indonesia, and because the physical ratio of security and intelligence personnel per head of population is higher in East Timor, this negative attitude will likely manifest itself in more direct and obvious forms." The government cannot deny, what has become common knowledge for Australians, that East Timorese are being persecuted by the Indonesians in East Timor. It is clear that the Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs has been keen to roll back the precedent created by the success of the four applicants in attaining refugee status. With regard to one of the applicants (whose names are kept confidential) the RRT's October 4 decision read in part: "The Tribunal acknowledges that the applicant may be able to obtain Portuguese nationality under certain conditions. However, the Tribunal is not satisfied that, at this time, the applicant has Portuguese nationality or that he has automatic and non-discretionary right to Portuguese nationality. "Based on the evidence and documents provided by the applicant, the Tribunal finds that the only nationality which he can be assured of having, at the time of the decision, is Indonesian nationality. Accordingly, the Tribunal has decided that for the purpose of assessing the applicant's claim to refugee status, the only country of reference is Indonesia." Seven days later, on October 11, the deputy secretary of the immigration department, Dennis Richardson, wrote to the RRT acting principal reminding him that, as early as July, the department had urged that decisions "on persons born in East Timor ... pending the receipt of a written submission from the Department" be delayed. Clearly the October 4 decision went against the July request. The October 11 letter had only one purpose — to convince RRT members that East Timorese refugees in Australia are guaranteed entry to Portugal as Portuguese citizens
even if they do not want that citizenship. Richardson's case, that the East Timorese refugees in Australia can be received by Portugal, is based on one academic's interpretation of a 1867 Portuguese law. Richardson went out if his way to emphasise that if an East Timorese renounced his or her Portuguese citizenship, under this law it "will not be effective for the purposes of the Refugees Convention". Coming so soon after the October 4 decision, it is not too far fetched to conclude that this was an attempt — "within the law" — to steer the RRT away from its previous conclusions. Missing from the immigration department's advice is any reference to the Australian government's responsibility for helping to create a situation from which the refugees have been forced to flee. This important element is also missing from the government's considerations.
Special visas
In 1989, when Bob Hawke shed his dime-a-dozen tears following the Beijing government's brutal repression of student protesters in Tiananmen Square, the Australian government decided to create four special visas. This included visa class 815, which granted a visa to any Chinese citizen in Australia on the day of the massacre. This illustrates that it is completely within the Australian government's power to create a special visa category for East Timorese wishing to stay in Australia. The federal government's immigration policy towards the East Timorese is even more ridiculous given that it has already created a visa class which allows East Timorese residents in Portugal, or the Portuguese colony of Macao, before 1989 to move to Australia for humanitarian reasons. Yet, it is refusing to create a similar humanitarian category for people fleeing East Timor to Australia to escape, what it describes as, the Indonesian military's "negative attitude [which] will likely manifest itself in more direct and obvious forms". The government should immediately create a special class of visa for the East Timorese who have escaped to Australia directly from East Timor.
Labor's motives
It is not difficult to understand what motivates the Keating government's desire to get the East Timorese refugees out of Australia and into Portugal. It is afraid of any further disruption to the smooth functioning of its political alliance with Jakarta on a range of issues — especially East Timor. Cooperation between the East Timorese activists and their Australian supporters in the protests against last year's visit by Indonesian vice-president Try Sutrisno, and this year's by research and technology minister Habibie, laid the basis for Jakarta's withdrawal of General Mantiri as Australia's ambassador. It is the current generation of East Timorese youth who are at the forefront of the struggle against the Indonesian occupation. Keating, Evans, and Bolkus are worried that Australian youth are also increasingly taking the lead in the pro-independence solidarity struggle in this country. East Timorese in Australia can be guaranteed of full support from the Australian people. If they want to stay in Australia, they should be able to refuse to leave with the knowledge that we will support them in every way we can. And we are with them if they want to continue their struggle for East Timor's freedom while in Australia.