In an October 27 statement, Action in Solidarity with Indonesia and East Timor (ASIET) called on Australians, “Don't let Howard get away with squeezing the East Timorese people again”. The group asked people to write letters to the foreign minister, Alexander Downer, and to join its campaign. Its statement reads:

Stop the Howard government's oil grab! Timor's oil for the Timorese!

Tens of thousands of people in Australia struggled for more than a decade in support of the East Timorese peoples' freedom. This freedom was finally exercised in September 1999 when around 80% of the East Timorese voted for independence.

Action in Solidarity with Indonesia and East Timor was among those organisations campaigning in support of a free East Timor. ASIET called and chaired the 40,000-strong demonstration on September 11, 1999 in Sydney demanding Australian and UN armed intervention in defence of the East Timorese people against the rampaging Indonesian army-backed militias.

ASIET, and all other true friends of East Timor, will not stand by now and allow the Australian government, still greedy for blood money, pressure the East Timorese for royalties on oil and gas deposits from their own territorial waters. That is what is happening now.

While Indonesia occupied East Timor, everybody's attention was focussed on the fact that Australia and Indonesia were illegally sharing in another peoples resources. There was little discussion of the fact that Canberra had squeezed a concession out of Jakarta which gave Canberra a 50% share in royalties from oil and gas that were not even in Australian territorial waters.

Canberra pressured Jakarta into agreeing to setting up a Zone of Cooperation (ZOCA) which was entirely on the East Timorese side of the median line, half-way between East Timor and Australia. In fact, the southern boundary of this Zone of Cooperation is the internationally acknowledged median line.

East Timor has now won the right to political independence. It has also won the right to full sovereignty over all its natural resources, including all oil and gas on its side of the median line border between East Timor and Australia.

Australia has no rights to any royalties or any say on what happens in the Zone of Cooperation. If the East Timorese decide they do wish to continue a ZOCA arrangement for technical or other reasons, Australia should receive no royalties from this — the debt to East Timor is already too great.

If the East Timorese want to abandon a ZOCA agreement altogether, and make arrangements with other institutions or countries to help develop their resources, they have an absolute right to do so.

ASIET will stand beside the East Timorese in any struggle to achieve full sovereignty over their resources, including a struggle against the Australian government.

The Howard government likes to boast that it has spent millions on the Australian military operations in East Timor. But Australian military intervention in East Timor was only ever necessary because of the 25 years of unqualified support for Suharto's invasion of East Timor.

A consistent policy of refusing military, political and diplomatic support for Suharto's policy during this period, combined with a principled stand in support of the right of self-determination, would have helped end the suffering of the East Timorese people years ago.

Such a policy could have been easily explained to the Indonesian people through Radio Australia and other means. But oil money was more important than the lives of East Timorese.

And now the Australian government is once again putting profits ahead of people. ASIET says no to this and makes the following demands on the federal government:

* Unconditionally recognise a seabed boundary equidistant between East Timor and Australia, as it already does in relation to ocean resources above the seabed.

* Immediately declare to the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) and East Timorese that if the East Timorese people decide, for whatever reason, they wish to keep the Zone of Cooperation, Australia will require no royalties. This is part compensation for the damage done by 25 years of complicity in Suharto's war against the East Timorese people.

* Immediately announce a commitment to hand over to an independent East Timor all royalties already collected from the Zone of Cooperation.

Don't let Howard get away with squeezing the East Timorese people again. Start campaigning now by writing to Foreign Minister Downer in Canberra. Join ASIET and help build pressure on Canberra.

Letters of protest can be sent to: Alexander Downer, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Parliament House, Canberra 2600, fax (02) 6273 7500, email <minister.downer@dfat.gov.au>; and UNTAET, PO Box 2436, Darwin 0801, fax (08) 8942 2198, email <pwgalb@yahoo.com>.

Copies of messages should be sent to ASIET, PO Box 458, Broadway 2007, Australia, fax (02) 9690 1381, email <asiet@asiet.org.au>.

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