By Jose Ramos-Horta
Foreign Minister Gareth Evans and his Indonesian counterpart, Ali Alatas, met in Denpasar last week to celebrate the Indonesian parliament's ratification of the so-called "Timor Gap Treaty". Both men, in their roles of daylight train robbers, met in a secluded island to divide the spoils of their robbery.
Relying on opinions by Indonesian apologists at the ANU (a sort of Annex of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade), Gareth Evans believes that Australia is on solid legal (and moral?) ground in signing the Timor Gap Zone of Cooperation Treaty.
Senator Evans argues that there is no legal obligation not to recognise territorial acquisition by force. In fact, as far back as the 1933 Montevideo Convention on Rights and Duties of States, there was a clear prohibition of the threat or the use of force in international relations and of recognition of territorial acquisition by force.
Australia was a sponsor of the 1970 United Nations General Assembly Declaration on Principles of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations Among States which declares, inter alia, that "no territorial acquisition resulting from the threat or use of force shall be recognised as legal".
If Senator Evans' arguments are to be taken seriously, then I wonder what are Australian forces doing in the Gulf? Does Australia know what it is doing or is it just following the big American brother?
Answering journalists in Denpasar about the ongoing war in East Timor, Senator Evans suggested that the Timorese should simply surrender and the war would then end. How about telling the Kuwaitis and, for that matter, the Coalition forces arrayed against Iraq, to surrender to Saddam Hussein? After all, Mr Evans would not have difficulties in finding Kuwaiti "freedom-fighters" in the casinos of Cairo and brothels of Europe while young men are dying to "liberate" the oil-rich enclave so that the sheikhs may continue to live ostentatiously and make a mockery of the poverty of the millions of Arabs, not to mention Africans who are dying each day by the thousands.
We are told we should accept the reality of the occupation. We are told to accept the rule of terror, the rape of our women and torture of our children. We are told to accept with humility the desecration of our homes and land.
No, Mr Evans, you and your cabinet fellows might have no sense of dignity and of history, no attachment to sacred lands because you are newcomers to this Aboriginal land, which you usurped and claimed as yours after killing off the indigenous inhabitants. But the Timorese will not surrender so that you may sleep in peace, because the island has been theirs for thousands of years. They will fight on because they prefer to die for freedom than to live without it.
Your comments, Mr Evans, serve only to illustrate the nment's policies. You sent warships to a conflict 20,000 miles away in the name of international law. But you say that international law allows Indonesia to invade and annex East Timor.
Australia's grandstanding on the Gulf crisis is laughable in view of its blatant hypocrisy on East Timor. The Timor Gap Treaty is only the last of a long list of acts of cowardice, appeasement and servility by successive governments in Canberra who are paralysed by their fear of Indonesia and disdain towards anything or anybody that comes in between.
Australian policies towards East Timor have not changed since 1974, when Gough Whitlam decided that the East Timorese did not qualify to be free. Gough Whitlam, who reminds me of police chief Gavert in Victor Hugo's Les Miserables, became vindictive against me and the Timorese people because we dared to refuse to disappear from the scene. As a Christian, I wish Gough no harm and pray that when his conscience (does he have one?) finally wakes him up, he will not follow Gavert's path by jumping into the Seine, or into the polluted waters of Sydney Harbour.
East Timorese will be free one day whether Gough and Evans like it or not. The day will come when Xanana Gusmao, the legendary Timorese resistance leader, will descend from the mountains of East Timor to lead the independence celebrations just as Sam Nujoma of SWAPO returned to Namibia's independence after 30 years in exile. There will be no hard feelings and I hope then to have Gough, Bob, Gareth, Dick Woolcott and Co. among our guests.