Pip Hinman
The Melbourne-based Timor Sea Justice Campaign on November 23 described the Howard government's decision to discontinue funding to 13 East Timorese NGOs as "political interference".
Timor Sea Justice Campaign spokesperson Vanessa Hearman said that AusAID's (the Australian Agency for International Development) decision was "a blatant attempt to silence critics of the Australian government". The organisations had signed joint statements, in September and October of last year, calling for the maritime boundaries between Australia and East Timor to be set according to international law, which would grant East Timor a much greater share of the Timor Sea oil and gas resources than Canberra would be happy with.
"Punishing Timorese NGOs flies in the face of government claims that its East Timor aid program reduces poverty and benefits the people", Hearman said. The East Timorese need access to their oil and gas resources, she continued, if they are to combat poverty and devastation after being occupied by Indonesia for so long.
Demetrio do Amaral de Carvalho, director of the Haburas Foundation, said that AusAID informed him on November 10 that it would not receive funding for its project supporting environmental education in schools because it had signed the joint statements.
The NGOs that signed the joint statements in 2004 are: Haburas Foundation (recipients of the Goldman International Environmental Prize 2004); HAK Association (Association for Law, Rights and Justice); La'o Hamutuk (Institute for Reconstruction Monitoring and Analysis); Sahe Institute for Liberation; Kdadalak Sulimutu Institute (founded by Nobel Prize winner Bishop Carlos Belo); Timor Leste Community Radio Association (AKRTL); Judicial System Monitoring Program (JSMP); KSTL (Timor-Leste Trade Union Confederation); Labour Advocacy Institute for East Timor; FOKUPERS (East Timor Women's Communications Forum); Forum Tau Matan (FTM); LABEH (Mirror for the People); and the Timor Leste Students Association.
Hearman claims the decision is typical of the bullying that foreign minister Alexander Downer has become known for and said the campaign for justice for the Timorese people would continue.
[For more information go to <http://www.timorseajustice.org>.]
From Green Left Weekly, November 30, 2005.
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