Palace of Ashes
Australia’s Unlawful Bid for East Timorese Oil
In a 1999 radio interview given to Scoop Australia, Australian Prime Minister John Howard reiterated what has become the dominant narrative in explaining his country’s relationship to the East Timor’s thirty-year struggle for independence. Two months before, Australia initiated and led the International Force in East Timor (InterFET), a UN backed mission to stave off political violence in the wake of the self-determination vote that had taken place on August 30th of that year. Enjoying a media storm that celebrated Australia’s commitment to the region, the PM proclaimed: “The central essence of what we’re doing is fundamentally and overwhelmingly correct. We seek peace and order in East Timor. We seek a peaceful climate for the people of that territory.” Pressed on the level of troop commitment necessary to ensure such security, Howard would only coyly respond, “fortunately, we are in a strong financial position.” 1
Australia’s current altruism towards East Timor, as well as its extra pocket money, are rooted in a much more complicated and troubling relationship. It has been characterized, almost uniformly, by Australia’s repeated attempts to secure and exploit the considerable oil and natural gas reserves that lie between the two countries in the Timor Sea. Through aggressive negotiations first with Indonesia (1975 – 1999), then with the UN provisional authority (1999 – 2002), and finally with the newly formed government of Timor-Leste (2002 – present), Australia has repeatedly and effectively marginalized the interests of the destitute Timorese people, strong-arming them into agreements that favor Australian business interests while threatening to send the country into another era of civil unrest. Intervention from both the UN and the International Court of Justice have been ineffective in arbitrating a just resolution to the maritime border dispute, preventing the fragile Timorese government from rightfully claiming the staggering (and desperately needed) $60 billion in potential profits from the Greater Sunrise oil field.2
