91
VI
On 12 December 1975 Australia's East Timor policy (under Fraser's caretaker administration) appeared to change at the public level. Australia vote^d with the jority in support of United Nations General Assembly resolution 348 5 (XXX) . This vote represented a much stronger stance than that followed by the previous Labor government. It was to reflect the position of the
incoming Fraser government which was elected on 13 December 1975.
Some months later the public image that the Fraser government was attempting to follow was summarised
succinctly by Peacock: 91
Michael Leifer, 'Indonesia and the incorporation of East Timor’, The herId Today, September 1976, p.349. 92
thus putting an end to the bloodshed;
a resumption of international humanitarian aid, preferably through the return to
East Timor of the International Committee of the Red Cross Society; withdrawal of Indonesian force; and a genuine act of self determination.93
This more principled stance was adopted by Mr Fraser, at least in public statements.
For example,Mr Fraser would not countenance the 94 line argued by Mr Woolcott in another leaked cable. Woolcott had argued that Australia should accept the
inevitability of the incorporation of East Timor into Indonesia. He had said that a continuing anti-Indonesian or pro-FRETILIN Australian press would cause Australian-
9 5
Indonesian relations to deteriorate further. Mr Fraser was put on the spot by the leaks. A close examination of the Woolcott line reveals that its adoption would have been in contradiction of the Australian vote at the General Assembly only a month previously. This
necessitated Mr Fraser’s public rejection of the Woolcott
In contrast to its public statements, the Fraser government’s actions were not always as impressive. The attempted visit by. the United Nations Special envoy, Mr Winspeare Guicciardi, to FRETILIN held areas in late January and early February 1976, illustrates this point.
93 ,
APD (h of R ) , 4 March 1976, p.568. 94 TI
Uruce Juddery in Canberra Times, 16 January 1976. 91 T
ln particular Indonesia looked to Australia to counter 3 themes:
(i) that East Timor v/as another Vietnam in the making; }fi) that PNG and East Malaysia would be threatened next;
that the Indonesian occupation v/as analagous
with the Japanese occupation of East Timor during c the w a r .
S-- ibid.
Sgftoerra Times, 19 January 1976. 96
The Portuguese government had indicated its
illingness for Mr Winspeare to visit East Timor, but did not have the means to facilitate the visit.,
pustralia did. The PGET issued a six point statement .j- sting the conditions it wanted to be met before it
would agree to the visit.97 The most important
condition was the request that the PGET be notified, • ^ advance, of the time and place cf lancing of the rroDOsed mission. That the UN envoy agreed to accept the conditions did not reflect that he recognised the pcpT but more that he had already decided that visiting
^ ' 98
FRETILIN held areas was impracticable. Immediately after PGET was notified, Indonesia bombarded the five FRETILIN held airstrips, thus ruling out finally any chance Mr Winspeare had of visiting FRETILIN held areas. The important point about this incident was not how Australia reacted to the PGET statement, but how it did not take positive measures to land Mr Winspeare,
the UN envoy, in a FRETILIN held area of East Timor. The explanation offered by several members of the Department of Foreign Affairs (and reported in the Indonesian Times) on the Fraser government’s public stance adds weight to the view that there was a difference between the government's private andpublic position.
The officers of Foreign Affairs are reported to have' said that the public anti-Indonesian stance of the Fraser government (on issues such as the UN vote ano the Woolcott * cables) was followed only because of anti—Indonesian
100
interests in Australia.
Two later events caused a further deterioration cf Australia-Indonesia relations. One need not be
97
Press release of PGET, issued through the Indonesian Embassy’, Canberra', 4~ February 19 76 .
38 .
Discussions with J.S. Dunn. 99 ~
One suggestion at the time was to take Mr Winspeare kb Australian destroyer to the coast of Ease Timor, then fiY him by helicopter into FRETILIN held areas. ibid. 100
discussed here 01 but the other illustrated the problem of being seen to be following a public policy, and
trying to follow a private one. On 31 May 1976
Australia along with the US, Japan, PNG, Philippines and Singapore, amongst others, refused to send
representatives to the provisional assembly meeting in Dili which was being promoted by Indonesia as the
in?
territory’s act of self determination. Such a claim was rejected by the Australian Government. Several
further statements were made in June and July of 1976
in?
reiterating this.
According to news reports, Washington warned Australia not to let its relations with Indonesia
deteriorate too far, as this might have secondary effects on the US strategic position.
Shortly after this, one plank of the Australian government’s four point East Timor policy disappeared.
Mr Peacock’s announcement that $250,000 would be channelled through the Indonesian Red Cross could be interpreted
as a weakening resolve to the Indonesian ban on the 10 5
International Red Cross.
On* the eve of the Prime Minister’s visit to Indonesia a mobile transmitter unit in the Northern Territory,
which had been used to monitor messages from and send
101
While visiting China in June 1976 Mr Fraser is reported to have described the Indonesian leadership as 'ineffective and unstable’. See the Sydney Morning fcerald, 29 June 1976.
102
In fact only 7 nations of 24 invited sent representatives They were New Zealand, Malaysia, Thailand, India, Iran,
Saudi Arabia and Nigeria. See footnote 35, 103 «
For example Press release issued by Foreign Minister on 20 July 1976.
104
It was alleged that US submarines use the deep water straits of Ombai and Wetter on Timor’s northern Coast, in the Sydney Morning HeraId, 3 August 1976 . 105 _
Sydney Morning Herald, 6 September 1976. The actual announcement was made in late August 1976.
government acted when it did was an obvious gesture of friendliness towards Indonesia. It had earlier been reported that the existence of the transmitter had been thesubiect of discussions between the Indonesian Foreign
^ -1 10 7
Minister and Ambassador Woolcott. Senator Missen’s question in the Senate summed up the substance of the issue. He asked whether the government was going to content itself with Indonesian propaganda intimating that although the transmitter’s activities were
technically illegal, they fulfilled the important
function of providing an alternative source of information. Mr Fraser’s attempt to smooth over problems in
the Australia-Indonesia relationship ran into a brick wall. Prominent Indonesian government officials made statements during and after the Prime Minister’s visit designed to make the Australian government admit its by now obvious private position on East Timor, in the public arena.
At the State banquet for Mr Fraser, President Soeharto bluntly restated Indonesia’s position:
...the problem of East Timor is a problem of colonialism and deciding their own future ... They have declared their integration with their Indonesian brothers,.and the Indonesian nation has accepted such integration with full responsibility. l'-!^
In reply Mr Fraser did not restate the Australian position,
# " pig
He made no reference to East Timor, This type of deference could only be interpreted to mean general acceptance of Soeharto’s position, The private stand appeared to be favoured over the public one.
106 107 108 109
Australi a n , 2 October 1976.
Canberra Tires, 5 October 197 6 . APD (Senate), 5 October 1976, p.969.
Australian Foreign Affairs Record, October Pp. 526-7” ~
110
i b i d ., pp,527-3.
In the major speech of his Indonesian tour Mr Fraser again avoided replying to the Indonesian President's
challenge. He said the Australian position on East
Timor had been documented elsewhere. Eut which position
was he referring to? Mr Peacock's original position did not recognise the Indonesian Red Cross for aid purooses, but in Mr Fraser's speech he drew attention
" 111
to the Australian government grant to that institution.
President Soeharto's influential personal assistant.
General Sudharmono, as the Australian Financial Review
112
headlined its s t o r y , ~ 'pull[ed] the rug from under
Fraser'. General Sudharmono commented 'Mr F r a s e r ’s statement [in the Indonesian Parliament] has very great importance for us. It implies that Australia has
recognised the integration of East Timor with Indonesia'. Indonesia now considered Australia's four point Timor
113
poli.cy a thing of the past. ' Whether Fraser had implied
this was not clear - his statements gave little indication of what he really meant. In some ways the comments by
Sudharmono were a gross breach of courtesy. Not only was Indonesia retaliating against F r a s e r ’s discourteous Peking remarks, ‘ but it was playing the game at hand roughly. It considered the differences between the
Australian government's declared and action policy to be
hypocritical. Australia did not protest strongly against
General Sudharmono’s comments, It merely sought clarification of the statement. Even after Sud h a r m o n o ’s comments,
Mr Fraser declined to be drawn into a restatement of
the government's position. By adhering to this approach hr Fraser did little for Australia-Indonesia relations.
If would not be inacc ' to : y that this policy of
i b i d . , p.532.
Age, 12 October 1976.
Reception rather than honesty kept the Timor issue
alive in Australia, and had the opposite impact on
foreign relations to that it was designed to have.
The Fraser government further damaged Australia's
relations with Indonesia by leaking a confidential cable
reporting a conversation between the Indonesian and Canadian foreign mini s t e r s . Putting the allegations
of the cable aside (these have been repudiated elsewhere^‘L° )
the incident showed how far the government was prepared
to go to restore its sagging domestic image. It v;as willing to undermine long established and respected
confidences in order to draw the attention of the press
off its own errors.
In an interview on State of the Nation on 14 October
1976 Mr Fraser attempted to explain his government's
position on East Timor. What he said w a s :
...there is a proper and responsible path between the two extremes - one of de facto recognition, and the other of a situation which demands that statements need to be continued to be made, even
though they in part relate to actions that took place a considerable time ago. What * we said ... stands as a condemnation
of those actions. And time d o e s n ’t rub that out.l-^
Fraser claimed that the government had told Indonesia that Australia 'won't* just go along with actions or
policies if it disagrees with those actions', but he
continued 'At the same time it is important to understand taut we recognise the need for good relations with
Indonesia...' " The above quotations illustrate the
Canberra Times and the Syda?y_Morning_Hera1d , 14 October 1976, and Mungo Macallum in N ation Revie w ,
15-21 October 1976. 116 w
For example see Press Release by Tom U r e n . .. , 15 October
19 76 . “ ---- --- — “ .... ~
117
118
Department of Foreign Affairs B a c k g r o u n d e r , N o . 62,
i b i d ., p .1 3.
dilemmas that Mr Fraser faced. His refusal to restate his position emphatically indicated that he was moving towards a de facto stance.
In November 1976 Australia abstained in a vote on a draft resolution in the United Nations General Assembly's Fourth Committee. In an explanation of the vote, Australia said that the resolution was not
•realistic or constructive'.119 Finally, it appears that the public image is drifting toward the private one. This vote is the closest indication to date that Ausc.. aria o.nusnds to give de facto recognition to the Indonesian position.
U9
,uCHAPTER III