“The Australian government has taken full advantage of East Timor’s fragile financial position and gotten away with an act of thievery that would not have been tolerated by any Western country”, businessperson Ian Melrose said on July 14.

Melrose has launched a new television ad to expose the Australian government’s theft of East Timor’s oil and gas resources in the Timor Sea. The ad criticises the Australian government’s “shameful” bullying tactics and calls for a just resolution of the maritime boundary between the two countries. It demands that Australia compensate East Timor for the billions of dollars in tax and royalties that it has already been robbed of, and which could be used to build schools and hospitals.

“East Timor doesn’t want our charity — it wants justice”, the ad declares.

According to Melrose, the “Greater Sunrise [gas field] is worth about $40 billion in government royalties and if permanent maritime boundaries were established in accordance with current principles of international law, it’s likely East Timor would be entitled to all of it. Australia has already taken more than $2 billion in tax and royalties from the Laminaria and Corallina fields which, under international law, we should not have taken. It’s called stealing.”

Visit <http://www.timorseajustice.org> to view the ad or for more information.

Kerryn Williams

From Green Left Weekly, July 20, 2005.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.

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