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Hundreds of Timorese men and boys served alongide Australian fighters in an amazing guerilla campaign throughout 1942 that tied up several thousand Japanese troops while the battle for New Guinea was underway. Australia has made at best half-hearted efforts to acknowledge this debt.
Kevin Rudd's failure to embrace the Timor legend with more imagination and substance was a missed opportunity to connect with Labor's Second World War legacy. Wartime Prime Minister John Curtin saw the guerilla war in Timor as a unique and significant part of turning back the Japanese tide.
Julia Gillard said 'people like my own parents who have worked hard all their lives can't abide the idea that others might get an inside track to special privileges'. Managing similar perceptions in East Timor, where there is a tide of resentment against Australia among parts of the population, will be a challenge.
Kevin Rudd calls them the 'vilest form of people on the planet'. How dare these impoverished, yet slightly entrepreneurial fishermen let their social consciousness blind them from considering the interests of white Australians?
There's good reason for East Timor to opt for a tribunal to deliver justice for past crimes. But Australia cannot expect to receive a special hearing. Our attempts to push for justice for the sake of stability would be perceived as a promotion of our own self-interest.
The first feature length film about Indonesia's invasion of East Timor and the deaths of six Australian journalists fails to inform the audience of the diplomatic dirty tricks, and Australian and American complicity.
When East Timor was struggling to get a fair deal in negotiations over Timor Sea oil, Kenneally rallied his mates to fight. Appearing on national television, he told Prime Minister Howard: 'I'd rather you did not come to my ANZAC Day parade.'
Eighteen months on from the 2006 unrest, Australian and New Zealand troops are still patrolling the streets of Dili. There has been no imperative for them to exchange berets and operate under UN auspices as occurred with the original INTERFET engagement.
A potentially unstable coalition government with few detailed policies and weak administrative ability is now certain to emerge following the fragmented result in the recent election. But grounds for hope remain.
Ugly. Rapacious. Bruising and governed by the narrowest definitions of national interest. These are a few of the descriptions that spring to mind after reading this devastating portrait of Australia’s negotiations over oil and gas resources in the Timor Sea.
Paul Cleary worked for East Timor Prime Minister Alkatiri as a consultant on a World Bank-funded project from 2003 to 2005. His book on the Timor Sea oil dispute will be published in June by Allen&Unwin.
In 2006, the East Timorese government’s inept handling of a dispute in the army involving soldiers from the western region of East Timor put the young nation on the brink of civil war. Now Jose Ramos Horta has been installed as Prime Minister, but will it make a difference?
49-60 out of 72 results.