Australian foreign policy and East Timor

Closing the Gap: Australian–Indonesian Relations, the ‘Perilous Moment’ and the Maritime Boundary Zone

“…The events surrounding the 1997 general election in Indonesia (including the June 1996 ousting of the opposition PDI leader, Megawati Sukarnoputri, and the ensuing street riots (Sulistiyanto 1997)) clearly underscored how profoundly undemocratic are many Indonesian institutions by comparison with their Australian counterparts and highlighted the continuing range of security and other problems associated with Indonesia's annexation of East Timor more than 20 years earlier (Salla 1995;Catley 1997). It should also be remembered that in the mid 1960s Australian and Indonesian infantry fought against each other in Borneo, and that in 1971 Australia joined with New Zealand, the UK, Singapore and Malaysia to sign the Five Power Defence Arrangement to provide security for Malaysia against further incursions by Indonesia.…”

“…It is also worth noting that in January 1996, in a seventh biannual meeting chaired by UN Secretary-General, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Indonesia and Portugal failed yet again to reach agreement on fundamental differences (Boundary and Security Bulletin Spring 1996, p. 42). Salla (1995) has argued that over time Australian foreign policy towards East Timor has moved progressively through a number of stages which he characterises as acquiescence, ambiguous opposition, humanitarian agenda, human rights diplomacy and co-operative security. Prime Minister Gough Whitlam established the foundation of Australia's position with his`principled aversion to mini-states' (Salla 1995, p. 210) and his belief that an independent East Timor would be a destabilising in¯uence in the region.…”