Evans faces protest over Timor

By Nick Everett

BRISBANE -- Foreign minister Gareth Evans, addressing a breakfast on Australia's trade relations with Asia, faced questions and a protest picket from members of Aksi -- Indonesia Solidarity Action on February 25.

Evans described Australia's relationship with Indonesia as “very strong, very firm, very close” and claimed this to be “a much more productive environment for working change, both political and economic, than maintaining the kind of stridency” of countries “like Portugal [which] jump up and down on the international scene whenever some tragedy like Dili occurs”.

Aksi spokesperson Brenden Greenhill stated, “Indonesia's invasion of East Timor has, since 1975, cost the lives of 200,000 people. The massacre in Dili, and continued human rights violations throughout Indonesia, reveal the intransigence of the regime.

“The role of the Australian government, uncritically aiding the Suharto regime while companies like Woodside Petroleum and BHP plunder East Timor's oil, makes Evans and the Labor government complicit in these atrocities.”

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