By Jon Lamb
A number of major oil projects in the Timor Sea have recently been approved by the Howard government. On February 14, BHP Petroleum and partners (Petroz, Santos and Inpex Sahul Ltd.) received permission to develop the Elang-Kakatua oil fields in the Timor Gap zone of co-operation. This venture will mark the first development in the joint zone between Australia and Indonesia.
The Elang-Kakatua fields are expected to produce some 17 million barrels of oil over three years. Approval of this project was preceded by the approval on February 11 of the Laminaria oil fields development.
The Laminaria project will involve the world's largest offshore floating oil production facility, which is expected to produce 200 to 250 million barrels of oil. Woodside Petroleum, which heads up the consortium for the Laminaria project, is forecast to increase its profits from $200 million to at least $500 million when production commences in 1999. The announcement of these projects has sparked a renewed interest in other concessions throughout the Timor Gap.
The Timor Gap Treaty was signed on December 11, 1989, after extensive negotiations between Australia and Indonesia. It represented a major turning point in "normalising" relations between the Australian government and the Suharto regime — relations which had soured over reports in the Australian media three years earlier which detailed the rampant corruption and rorts conducted by Suharto and his associates.
Both governments are now set to make a huge amount of money from the stolen Timorese oil. Under the terms of the treaty, administered by the Timor Gap Joint Authority, Indonesia and Australia will share around 50% of the profits. Minister for federal resources, Warwick Parer, claims that the Laminaria project alone will improve Australia's balance of payments by $1.8 Billion a year.
With this amount of capital at stake it is not surprising that the policy of giving priority to economic and trade relations with the regime over and above human rights and freedom for the East Timorese people is being pursued as vigorously by the Coalition as it was under the previous Labor government.
After almost a year in office, there has been no indication of any change by the government on the issue of self-determination for East Timor (or support for democracy within Indonesia). When Alexander Downer met on February 14 with East Timorese resistance leader Jose Ramos Horta and Joao Carrascalao, president of the Timorese Democratic Union, little progress was made. Horta appealed for special consideration for the 1350 East Timorese asylum seekers who may be deported from Australia pending a decision on a test case in the Federal Court to be handed down soon.
Downer was reported in the Adelaide Advertiser on February 15 as saying: "We are not changing our policy on East Timor. We will continue to pursue the present policy because we think that is the best mix to serve the interest of Australia ... and the people of East Timor."
The reality is that the people of East Timor will continue to suffer for the sake of oil and trade profits for Australian-based companies.