As a consequence of the
treaty as well as previous dealings with Jakarta, the Australian
treasury has been embezzling the revenues from several smaller gas
fields in the Timor Sea.
John Pilger, the maker of the
documentary film ‘Death of a Nation’, clandestinely filmed in 1994 in
the then occupied East-Timor, has revealed in a recent article that
appeared in the Green Left Weekly on 25th February that the Australian
treasury has made 5 billion dollars from Timorese Gas and oil revenues
since the independence of East-Timor on 20th may 2002.
John
Pilger's documentary film was central in documenting the genocide
conducted by Indonesia in East-Timor as well Australian
corporate-imperialist ventures.
In his
latest article, Pilger explains how Australia and U.S. were complicit in Indonesia's genocidal invasion of East Timor as:
“…conspiracy to steal East Timor's oil and gas. In leaked diplomatic
cables in August 1975, the Australian ambassador to Jakarta, Richard
Woolcott, wrote to Canberra: “It would seem to me that the Department
[of Minerals and Energy] might well have an interest in closing the
present gap in the agreed sea border and this could be much more readily
negotiated with Indonesia ... than with Portugal or independent
Portuguese Timor.” Woolcott revealed that he had been briefed on
Indonesia's secret plans for an invasion. He cabled Canberra that the
government should “assist public understanding in Australia” to counter
“criticism of Indonesia”. In 1993, I interviewed C Philip Liechty, a
former senior CIA operations officer in the Jakarta embassy during the
invasion of East Timor. He told me: “Suharto was given the green light
[by the US] to do what he did. We supplied them with everything they
needed [from] M16 rifles [to] US military logistical support ... maybe
200,000 people, almost all of them non-combatants died.”
The deal has meant the massive tapping of Timorese
natural resources by Australia, and consequently the wealth and capital
which required to rebuild impoverished East-Timor and its people after
decades of a brutal genocide under the occupation of the Indonesian
military.
Important to recall is that the Indonesian State
centred in Jakarta and the Suharto regime were a long standing strategic
ally of the U.S.A. and Australia, in fighting communism as well as the
sovereign peoples’ movement in the region.
General Suharto was
regarded as integral in Washington’s ‘domino theory’ driven policies,
the military invasion of Vietnam, and in the pursuit of larger interests
the South-East Asian region.
During the period from 1965- 66,
the Suharto regime with open U.S. support committed one of the gravest
genocides of the previous century - the massacres of over a million
communists and the Communist party’s predominant Chinese supporters in
Indonesia.
The present government of East Timor has accused the
Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS), of using espionage
against their ministers during the period of negotiation of existing
maritime borders to gain strategic and commercial advantages, and
demands that the treaty be annulled.
Following these
accusations, in both 2013 and 2014, the grass-roots of East-Timor began
mobilizing a national movement towards securing Timorese sovereignty.
The
movement to secure the maritime borders of East Timor through
re-negotiation has brought together all political parties in a show of
Timorese national unity.
The legendary leader of the Timorese
national liberation struggle Xanana Gusmao, has called the Australian
espionage and the subsequent treaty a criminal act.
On the 23rd
of February, another large demonstration was held outside the Australian
embassy in Dilli, demanding the negotiation of a permanent
international maritime border. Both the mentioned demonstrations were
organized by the Movement Against the Occupation of the Timor Sea
(MKOTT), which constitutes of organized students, youth, civil society
as well as veterans of the Timorese national liberation struggle against
Indonesia.
