Timor, morality and human rights
In its actions on East Timor over the past two weeks, the Hawke government has demonstrated just how hollow is its commitment to human rights, proclaimed so loudly earlier this year when George Bush was looking for allies against Saddam Hussein. The loud declarations of January become a whisper in November when Australian business interests are stacked up against Timorese lives.
Yet compared to President Suharto's regime, the Iraqi dictatorship looks almost saintly. Suharto puts even Pol Pot in the shade as one of the 20th century's bloodiest dictators. Apart from the 500,000 people massacred in the 1965 coup that brought him to power, Suharto's troops are involved in ongoing slaughter in West Papua and Aceh as well as East Timor. This leaves aside the death squads operating around Jakarta and other Indonesian cities, and the regime's numerous judicial executions of political opponents. Since 1975, Indonesian forces have slaughtered a larger proportion of the East Timorese population than even Pol Pot could manage against the people of Cambodia.
The Hawke position was put most bluntly by Department of Foreign Affairs secretary Richard Woolcott on November 19, when he told ABC television that Australia's relationship with Indonesia was too important to permit an "exclusively moralistic view" of human rights. The Australian government calls meekly for a "credible" inquiry into the massacre rather than one independent of the Indonesian regime. It rejects any United Nations role in either investigating the killings or initiating a negotiated settlement in East Timor, and recognises Indonesian sovereignty, based on invasion, over East Timor.
The Australian government refuses even to cut or suspend, let alone end, aid and cooperation with the murderous Indonesian military. At the moment, at least 50 Indonesian military officers are being trained in Australia, 22 of them at the Land Warfare Centre in Queensland, where they are learning what is described as "low-level tactics".
While international reaction was generally negative regarding the composition of President Suharto's commission of inquiry, the Hawke government found it acceptable.
There is no mystery as to the forces driving this sordid collaboration of the Hawke government with the butchers of the Suharto regime. Industry minister John Button is preparing for a visit to Indonesia in December to study investment prospects. Bob Hawke will also go there early next year. In 1990, Australian exports to Indonesia — led by wheat, alumina, cotton and petroleum — were worth $1.2 billion, and Indonesian exports to Australia topped $480 million. Australian business has $864 million invested in Indonesia.
It was reported in April that Australia and Indonesia are discussing cooperation in designing and building military aircraft. Some of the biggest Australian mining companies — BHP, CRA and Renison Goldfields — have set up offices in Jakarta. BHP has two major coal operations in Kalimantan province, with combined reserves of 225 million metric tons. Australian food giant Goodman Fielder Wattie is building a multimillion dollar margarine and cooking a joint venture with the Indonesian conglomerate Sinar Mas.
Perhaps the most complete symbol of the Australian government's international policy is the notorious Timor Gap Treaty of 1989, signed by Nobel peace prize candidate Gareth Evans, which carved up the oil fields of the Timor Sea by denying the people of East Timor the right to self-determination.