Protesters demand: &#146give back Timor oil&#146

Nick Everett, Canberra

On September 20, 70 people demonstrated outside the foreign affairs department to demand the Australian government stop trying to steal East Timor's oil and gas resources. The protest coincided with the resumption of negotiations between Dili and Canberra on Timor Sea oil and gas revenue.

"We went over there, did a really hard job and thought we were doing some good. But it turns out the [Australian] government wants the oil reserves", said former army major Chip Henriss-Anderssen. "Timor is a country that is really struggling — these people have nothing."

Former Australian Federal Police officer Wayne Sievers, who participated in the police mission to East Timor during the independence ballot in 1999, said the boundary dispute was nothing more than the theft of East Timor's oil.

"[The East Timorese] were a people who had nothing — who earned less than a dollar a day — and I don't think the price of their liberation, given that they lost 15% of their population during World War II to support us in the fight against Japanese fascism and militarism, should be the loss of their oil", Sievers told the rally.

Greens Senator Kerry Nettle said: "Timorese people need the billions of dollars from oil revenue to fund schools and hospitals and much-needed infrastructure."

The oil and gas reserves are estimated to be worth $42 billion. Already the Australian government has collected an estimated $2 billion in royalties from oil and gas deposits since the occupation of Indonesian occupation of East Timor ended in September 1999.

James Vassilopoulos, the Socialist Alliance candidate for Fraser, told the rally: "I am a maths teacher and I know that the median line — the boundary under international law — is in the middle, between Australia and East Timor. The Australian government's theft of East Timor's resources demonstrates that Australia — a rich country — is an imperialist power."

Vassilopoulos called for bans on companies that were profiting from Timor Sea oil.

The Canberra Union Voices choir performed East Timorese liberation songs and led the protest in the singing of the Australian national anthem, with the words "In defiant strains now let us sing, denounce Australian greed!"

From Green Left Weekly, September 29, 2004.

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From GLW issue 600