By Tracy Sorensen
DARWIN — The Australian government should stop trying to delay the inevitable and recognise East Timor's right to independence, Fretilin's representative in Australia, Alfredo Ferreira, told Green Left in an interview here last month.
The Australian government is putting itself on the wrong side of international law in its negotiations with Indonesia for oil exploration rights in the Timor Sea, Ferreira said. A free East Timor would seek compensation for damages, and look to those countries which support independence for help in reconstructing the country and developing East Timor's natural resources.
Contrary to the claim by foreign minister Gareth Evans that the East Timorese would benefit through Australia's relationship with Indonesia, "their constant support for Indonesia is encouraging the Indonesians to kill more people", said Ferreira.
"Since 1975, the Australian government's relations with the Indonesians have improved quite a lot, but the human rights record in East Timor is getting worse; the two things are going in opposite directions."
Indonesia's rulers "don't think it means anything when the Australian government says you should stop this or improve that. The Indonesian government just doesn't care."
The government should "withdraw recognition of the Indonesian takeover of East Timor, and force Indonesia to accept international law, as outlined by the UN Security Council in December 1975".
Australia's negotiations with Indonesia over oil exploration rights were illegal, said Ferreira.
"Australia and Indonesia are using our national resources. Australia is not guilty because it is exploiting that area. It is guilty because it has entered negotiations with a power that is not legitimate in East Timor.
"By doing this, Australia has put itself on the wrong side of the law. We can't accept the view that Australia is right and Indonesia is wrong. Once the Australian government entered into negotiations and signed the treaty, it automatically puts them on the wrong side. We should seek compensation for all the damage caused to us.
"Australia is giving them the chance to prop up their economy at the cost of the East Timorese people, using an East Timorese resource. They are using that money, that resource, to kill our own people. That's not on, we can't accept it."
If the Australian government was in such a hurry to exploit oil in the a, an alternative would be to recognise the right to self-determination of the East Timorese people and enter negotiations with a free East Timor.
On the other hand, "if Australia keeps refusing till such a day that East Timor gets its independence with the help of other big countries than Australia, obviously we would have to turn to other countries to help us. How could we tell the Timorese people who have suffered all those years that Australia is now entitled to do such and such a thing, even though it never did anything for us at all?"
Ferreira said that the Dutch government was cutting financial aid to Indonesia, and the Danish government had already done so.
At the same time, any agreements signed by a free East Timorese government would be in the people's interests. "We are not fighting and dying in order for the multinational companies to come in and exploit the East Timorese people."
He pointed out that the Australian government's record on East Timor appeared to contradict the sympathy the Australian people had consistently shown with the national liberation struggle a few hundred kilometres to the north.
"When the November 12 massacre occurred, the impact was so great that Bob Hawke, Gareth Evans and the whole government couldn't avoid it; public opinion forced them to take some action. The Labor caucus resolution after the massacre was quite strong, not because they wanted it to be, but because they had no choice ...
"But I think we are going to run up against the big capitalists like BHP, Esso and Santos and so on. They are quite prepared to exploit the oil in East Timor. They don't want to hear the human side of the story."
The Northern Territory's chief minister, Marshall Perron, signed a memorandum of understanding on trade and development with Indonesia's foreign minister, Ali Alatas, on January 22. In what the Financial Review described as "an unexpected diplomatic coup", Perron was careful to assure Alatas that "Australia should not apply its own standards when making judgments on Indonesia".
The Northern Territory News, Darwin's daily newspaper, is pushing a line particularly hostile to Fretilin, said Ferreira, although all progressive groups in the territory tend to get the same treatment. Darwin's East Timorese community, the majority of them Fretilin supporters, were being branded as a "ratbag element" in the letters pages. Ferreira said he knew of letters supporting Fretilin that were not published.
"The problem is a human rights problem, the right of the people to say what they want. That's what they are fighting for, and that's what Fretilin is fighting for.
"When Fretilin came into being in 1974, it said clearly that it is a l Timorese from every part of the political spectrum to fight for the independence of East Timor. We didn't say that only people who espouse communist ideals could enter Fretilin; we had people from one side to the other. Now, 90% of the people of East Timor support us."
The Catholic Church, said Ferreira, was now an important base of support for the independence movement, although this was not always the case. In 1974-75, Fretilin's ideas were "quite straightforward and progressive" and therefore took the church, based as it was on Portuguese colonial power, by surprise.
"They weren't used to being contested; what they said was law. But we had a different way to go. We thought the people had the right to choose what they wanted. We wanted to bring up democracy, to have discussions and change social life and a society in which a small elite force was ruling the majority of the people."
Now, said Ferreira, there are Fretilin priests. Many in the church came to see Fretilin as the saviour of the Catholic faith against the new Indonesian rulers. Meanwhile, the East Timorese people had learned to get religion and politics into perspective:
"People used to go to church every Sunday, have their lessons, and go home and pray. It's all right, but when you pray it's like salt in food. You only need so much salt to make the food nice, but if you put too much salt in it, you spoil the food. We have to balance everything."
The East Timorese people are both optimistic and realistic, said Ferreira. "The day the Indonesians are forced to withdraw, we have to be in touch with reality. We have to look around the world and see how the world is, what sort of society we are living with. When these things happen, we'll count on international support. We'll be counting on those who have been supporting us all this time."