*Australia and the Indonesian Incorporation of Portuguese Timor, 1974-1976*. Speech by Minister for Foreign Affairs (Alexander Downer) to launch publication,12 September 2000. (The book is not available on-line, but can be purchased from Melbourne University Press)
Thank you Mr Meckan; ladies and gentlemen.
I am delighted to launch today this volume of documents on Australia and the Indonesian Incorporation of Portuguese Timor, 1974 - 1976.
As you will be aware, the normal practice in Australia is for thirty years to elapse before departmental documents are opened to the public.
The early publication of these documents results from a decision by our Government in 1998 to open comprehensively those official diplomatic records relating to Australia, Indonesia and Portuguese Timor between 1974 and 1976. The launch of this book will be followed on 19 September by the release in the National Archives of all the files from which the published documents have been drawn. I am pleased to acknowledge the presence here today of Mr Steve Stuckey, Acting Director-General of the National Archives of Australia.
Few issues in Australian foreign policy have engaged as much public interest and speculation as the development of Australian policy towards the decolonisation of Portuguese Timor between 1974 and 1976.
Our Government decided to respond to the exceptional public interest in these issues by both accelerating the accessibility of relevant departmental documents and disseminating them worldwide as a publication in the prestigious series, Documents on Australian Foreign Policy.
Officers in my Department's Historical Documents Project Section have assessed all relevant material on the files of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. With the exception only of cabinet and intelligence material, excluded by the Government's decision, they have used their historical judgement to distil and publish the most important of these documents. The words "matter omitted" in the volume indicates only material left out on editorial grounds, the full text of which will be available in the documents released by the National Archives.
The publication of this book illustrates the importance which my Department, and notably its Secretary, Dr Ashton Calvert, place on the preservation and dissemination of the written record of our foreign and trade relations. As I have noted in the foreword to the volume, Dr Calvert's "very strong conviction that the Australian public should be able to make their own judgements about this difficult and controversial issue Š has driven the project forward".
Of the documents that have not been released, I expect that relevant Cabinet material will become available when the normal thirty-year release becomes due. In fact, Cabinet rarely considered the Timor question in the period 1974 to 1976. In Cabinet's most important deliberation on the subject in 1976, only two cabinet records and one departmental document relating to a cabinet discussion have been excluded from the volume.
All governments retain the right to maintain the confidentiality of material whose release would affect their national security and international relations. In this accelerated release, as in material released in the normal operation of the thirty-year rule, intelligence material has accordingly been excluded.
A small amount of intelligence-related material occurs on the files of the Department of Foreign Affairs. But, in the view of the volume's editors, in most instances it would not in any case have been considered of sufficient interest to warrant selection for publication.
References to intelligence on departmental files usually were side allusions only and only a few references had to be expunged. But very few of the key published documents were affected and in no case does the sense of the document suffer by the omission. Total excisions amount to no more than one page in an 885 page volume.
I am confident that this publication will provide readers in Australia and overseas with a clearer understanding of the development of Australian foreign policy during this critical period of Australian diplomatic history, straddling both Labor and Coalition Governments.
The story told by the documents is a fascinating and complex one, and on this occasion I can only give a very brief outline. The main body of the documents begins with the advent in April 1974 of a new government in Lisbon, presaging the dissolution of Portugal's overseas empire.
While preferring the integration of Portuguese Timor with Indonesia, the Whitlam Government wished there to be a genuine act of self-determination in the territory. Fears that Indonesia might seek to obtain the territory otherwise than by these means led the Whitlam Government to a adopt a policy of "studied detachment" from the issue.
Meanwhile, disagreements among the political parties in Portuguese Timor developed from August 1975 into a civil war in which the Fretilin party gained the upper hand. Australia's efforts to keep Portugal, Indonesia and the Timorese parties engaged in an orderly and peaceful process of decolonisation were unsuccessful.
With the possibility that Portugal might simply transfer sovereignty to the pro-independence Fretilin party at the expense of other Timorese preferring integration with Indonesia, Indonesian so called "volunteers" together with indigenous anti-Fretilin forces, launched an invasion of East Timor from the Indonesian western half of the island.
During these hostilities in October 1975, five Australia-based journalists tragically lost their lives. Theories abound about how the journalists were killed and whether their deaths could have been prevented. There is a full selection of documents on this matter published in this volume, including some suggested earlier to be missing. The selection here is full enough to allow readers to judge for themselves the worth of the different theories. This selection can also act as a guide to the departmental files to be released later by the National Archives.
I myself pass no judgement on the documents, other than to state that the Department of Foreign Affairs had no information beforehand of any intention to kill the journalists, although it did have prior knowledge of the planned invasion.
A unilateral declaration of independence by Fretilin in November 1975 was followed by an overt Indonesian invasion of East Timor in December. The newly elected Coalition Government, led by Malcolm Fraser, was robust in its criticism of this use of force but unsuccessful in achieving its objective of a United Nations-supervised act of self-determination in the territory. Indonesia-satisfied by its own political processes that the East Timorese wished for integration with Indonesia-formally incorporated the territory on 17 July 1976, an incorporation recognised by Australia in 1979.
I am not today, with the benefit of 25 years of hindsight, going to pass judgement on the actions and the decisions of Australian ministers and officials during this critical episode in our foreign relations. Nor will I offer opinions about the conduct of other governments at the time or of the political parties in Portuguese Timor.
What I will do is heartily recommend this volume as a way for every Australian to get a better understanding of the history of the decolonisation of Portuguese Timor and of Australia's efforts to grapple with this challenging issue in its regional and international relations.
These documents reveal personal views, hopes, frustrations, personalities and insoluble dilemmas which all combine to make for truly compelling reading. I doubt if there has ever been a better example of the value of publishing diplomatic documents.
I sincerely hope that the insights into our shared history that this volume delivers will enable all of us-Australians, observers in regional countries and the broader international community, and the people of East Timor alike-to come to grips with the reality of history, and then move beyond it. For our most pressing duty now is to complete the process begun last year when the people of East Timor, by an overwhelming majority, indicated their wish for independence.
I am proud of our Government's efforts to help Indonesia and the people of East Timor achieve the internationally-recognised act of self-determination that had tragically eluded the best endeavours of former Australian Governments.
The launching of this book provides an apt occasion for us all to rededicate ourselves to that noble endeavour. On behalf of the Government-and, I think, of all Australians-I am happy to pledge continued efforts, together with Indonesia and other regional states, in support of the people of East Timor as they move towards the creation of an independent and viable East Timor.