Evans attacks picket of Indonesian Embassy
By Sue Bolton
CANBERRA — Foreign Minister Gareth Evans is attempting to put an end to the East Timor picket of the Indonesian Embassy here.
The picket has been maintained for the last two months with support from the ACT Trades and Labor Council. Many delivery drivers have refused to cross the picket line, and embassy staff have had to remove their garbage themselves.
The incident being used by Evans as the excuse to move on the picket happened on New Year's Day. After demonstrating outside the United States Embassy, a large number of protesters moved to the Indonesian Embassy. Staff from the embassy made rude gestures towards the Timorese, provoking a protester to hit the windscreen of a diplomat's car. Embassy staff then started throwing rocks and bricks over the fence at the protesters, hitting a 14-year-old Timorese boy and breaking his hand.
Evans immediately demanded that the picket be removed altogether. Protesters managed to maintain the picket by relocating the East Timor Embassy about 50 metres away.
Now Evans is demanding that the East Timor Embassy be moved further away, and that the banners, the blood-spattered crosses representing people killed in the Dili massacre and the TLC picket sign be totally removed.
Lawyers for the protesters have obtained an injunction from the Federal Court in Melbourne stopping Australian Federal Police from moving the 100 crosses until the legality of Evans' regulation has been disputed in Court.