12 September 1999
E&OE…………………………………………………………………………….
BONGIORNO:
Good morning and welcome to Meet the Press. Coming today from the media centre at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Auckland. Twenty-two regional countries or economies are here but their meeting designed for matters of trade and commerce has been overshadowed by the tragic abuse of human rights in the Indonesian province of East Timor. A province that voted overwhelmingly for independence only to have that dream shattered by vengeful violence apparently aided and abetted by the military assigned to guarantee the peoples security. Australia has been at the forefront of urging Jakarta to allow in armed peacekeepers and there are hopeful signs that is about to happen.
Today, the Prime Minister, John Howard, meets the press. Thanks for joining us Mr Howard.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning Paul.
BONGIORNO:
Well, how hopeful are you that peacekeepers can go into East Timor next week?
PRIME MINISTER:
Over the last 24 hours there have been some positive signs. I don’t want to put it any more strongly than that because it’s a very changeable, volatile situation. But there have been some remarks by General Wiranto which are encouraging. And President Clinton a few minutes ago made a very strong statement about the need for the involvement of peacekeepers. I think things are moving but it’s not certain yet and we have to be careful to separate the rhetoric from the actual deeds. But we’ll continue to argue and remembering that our argument is not with the Indonesian people, our argument and our criticism is of certain things that have happened in East Timor.
That’s what we are worried about and we look at this as very much something focussed on that behaviour and we hope the Indonesian Government looks to its own long-term interests and the long-term interests of the Indonesian state to have the sympathy and the understanding of the rest of the world.
BONGIORNO:
Well, yesterday President Clinton, just before he met Jiang Zemin, told reporters that he was hopeful of something happening within a couple of days. He seemed confident that Indonesia would invite in peacekeepers. Does he know something we don’t?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I don’t think he does know something we don’t, I am just naturally and properly so, in something like this, a cautious person because I know from past experience you can have statements made that apparently mean something but they don’t quite mean that.
All I can say is we are much better placed and things are looking much better now than they were but we still have a distance to go and we have to continue to maintain the pressure, but we must also be appealing to Indonesia’s own sense of self-interest because it must live with the international community. It needs the international community and it needs the goodwill of the international community. And it’s far more likely to have that if it is accommodating to what the rest of the world quite rightly wants in the face of the clear evidence, unmistakable evidence now of failure on the part of the Indonesian security forces to do the right thing.
BONGIORNO:
Just picking up on that failure, the Security Council Ambassadors, the delegation that went to Dili yesterday, the British Ambassador said that the situation there was worse than Kosovo and on the strength of that the United Kingdom is withholding the sale of eight Hawke jets, to the Indonesians. Have you had any feedback from the United Nations delegation?
PRIME MINISTER:
Paul, we didn’t need feedback from that group. We have got our own sources of information and they have been telling us for days how appalling the situation is. We know that and we have known that for days. That’s why we have been pushing more strongly than any country pushing the cause of something being done.
BONGIORNO:
The evidence was obviously overwhelming, watching television news today of that delegation there. General Wiranto apparently explains the inactivity of his troops as saying that they were psychologically incapable of shooting on their friends, the militia. What sort of excuse is that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, Paul, look, you know our position. We want the Indonesians to agree to an international peace force coming in. All of my remarks, all of my responses, all of my answers to questions are designed to achieve that goal. We know it’s a deplorable situation in Indonesia. We are talking to everybody including the Indonesians and we hope that there will be movement. And there have been signs in the last 24 hours of that movement. That is encouraging, but until it actually happens I don’t think we should assume too much.
BONGIORNO:
Apparently Catholic church sources from Dili have reported – this was quoted on news late last night – that the casualties could be around 20,000 already dead. I mean…
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I’ve been asked this before. It is impossible in a situation like this to give accurate verification and it may be weeks, indeed months, even after the entry of some kind of impartial observer force, before that kind of thing is determined. We do know, however, that atrocities have occurred. We do know that people have been murdered and terrorised, we do know there have been gross abuses of human rights and we do know that the situation is not getting better and that is why we need an international peacekeeping force, but we need the acquiescence of the Indonesian government for that to occur. That is what we are working towards and somebody in my position must frame public comment and frame responses to achieve that goal, because that’s far more important than the satisfaction of giving a rhetorical answer to a question.
BONGIORNO:
Well, certainly the American President has ratched it up here – his rhetoric – he says that the militia, the military rather – the Indonesian military – have aided and abetted...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, remarks like that have been made by us some days ago.
BONGIORNO:
So you’ve got no doubt that the President’s right?
PRIME MINISTER:
I have no doubt that the situation is deplorable and that the best way of stabilising it and providing protection is to have an international peacekeeping force, but we need the acquiescence of the Indonesian government to achieve that.
BONGIORNO:
Other reports from the UN Security Council Mission was that they have no doubt either that tens of thousands are in the hills and there is danger that they could die of starvation there. There was a call during the week for Australia to perhaps drop food parcels into the mountains of East Timor. How sympathetic are you to that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, we are very sympathetic to humanitarian aid. We’ve already announced $3 million of it and we’ve said we’ll provide more. I’ve told the Secretary-General of the United Nations that as well as being willing to lead a peacekeeping force, Australia is also willing to provide humanitarian aid. We are encouraging countries, and I’ve done that in the last 24 hours here in Auckland - those countries who feel unable to provide military assistance are being encouraged by me to provide financial assistance and I understand that one or two countries are looking at the possibility of the establishment of something like a trust fund into which countries may make contributions – to which they may make contributions – and food can be bought out of that or there could be some augmentation of other activities.
BONGIORNO:
Prime Minister, we need to take a break – we’ve got plenty more to talk to you about. We’ll be back on Meet the Press shortly.
[Commercial Break]
You’re on Meet the Press with the Prime Minister, John Howard
Mr Howard, yesterday you announced some of the countries that would join us in peacekeeping, are there any new ones to add to the list today?
PRIME MINISTER:
I think there will be. I have had a lot of discussion here about that but really it’s for other countries to indicate first or the Secretary-General of the United Nations to indicate first. But it’s looking good and our own military people are very pleased as a result of discussions that have taken place over the past few days as to how it’s coming together.
BONGIORNO:
A spokeswoman for the Indonesian President last night, Dewi Anwar, said that Indonesia would choose the peacekeepers.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, the procedure is that the UN sends in a peacekeeping force. Look, I don’t want to get caught up in an exchange with…
BONGIORNO:
But if they take objection to…
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, look, I don’t deal in hypothetical situations. The United Nations has invited us to play a role, the United Nations is inviting countries, we are tick tacking. Obviously we need the acquiescence of the Indonesians. Let’s deal with each situation as and when it arrives.
BONGIORNO:
But she seemed to be indicating that Indonesia would only be happy to have countries in there who were their friends, who they’d done similar work with in the past. Does that include us?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, let’s deal with actual situations okay.
BONGIORNO:
Right. Well, let’s talk about the risk assessment that is there. I mean, if General Wiranto was being serious in his excuse there is no doubt that peacekeepers no matter who they are would be vulnerable to being fired upon, that would have to be the case would it not?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes. That is always the case in situations like this. I would never pretend and I won’t pretend if Australian forces go in as part of a peacekeeping operation, I won’t pretend for a moment that there won’t be danger involved. Obviously if we go in as peacekeepers with the acquiescence of the Indonesians we are not in the state of war and it’s an entirely different concept. But there’s always a danger, of course there’s a danger and I wouldn’t want to pretend there wasn’t.
BONGIORNO:
Forgive me if this is the wrong impression but I get the impression that we are working very hard now to put together this peacekeeping force and I know since June we put down the idea of peacekeepers. Wouldn’t it have been better had we started earlier?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, it wouldn’t have been because you would never have had a ballot. If the international community had been seen to have been mobilising a peacekeeping force that would have sent quite the wrong signal to Jakarta and you wouldn’t have had a ballot. I mean, people who are saying that now completely misunderstand what the dynamics would have been. It was right for us inside Australia by raising a second brigade to a state of readiness to put ourselves internally in a position to provide a force. But if we had been running around the world or the United Nations had been running around drumming up a peacekeeping force that would have tipped the hand in favour of no ballot. There’s a lot of people in Jakarta didn’t want a ballot and, I think, everybody who has followed this knows that that Dr Habibie showed great leadership and strength in deciding to have a ballot. And he went against the views of a lot of people inside his own country. And if those people had been able to draw upon the gathering of a peacekeeping force in my view the ballot would never have taken place.
BONGIORNO:
Well, retired General Sanderson says that we should be under no illusions that they won’t be peacekeepers going in there they’ll be peace enforcers. That certainly seems to be the case doesn’t it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, as I say, it’s not free of danger.
BONGIORNO:
Rules of engagement would have to include things like shoot to kill.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, rules of engagement are things that I would discuss with the military and with great respect I am not going to canvass them but they would be appropriate. I mean, you should rest assured that if we send in peacekeeping forces they will go in on terms that guarantee the maximum safety for Australians consistent with the fact that they are soldiers and therefore they are exposed to danger.
BONGIORNO:
Will you resist any attempts by Indonesia to constrain what those forces can do?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, we will talk to the Indonesians obviously. I mean, all of these things are to come but it doesn’t help for me to be speculating about hypothetical situations and I am simply not going to do it. This is too serious, too important for me by some kind of loose comment about a piece of speculation to have the debate going off into a silly direction. We are dealing with an extraordinarily difficult sensitive situation where there has been a lot of loss of human life. There’s great concern and anger and anguish in Australia and I am trying very hard in every way possible to get a good outcome and I am simply not going to respond to some of the hypotheses that are put to me.
BONGIORNO:
It’s been put by the Opposition, among other commentators, that our request to America formally for peacekeepers was very late in the piece.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I suppose you have got to find something to say, you’re in the opposition.
BONGIORNO:
Okay. Doesn’t the whole development raise though now the very basis of our relationship with Indonesia? I mean, how can we trust General Wiranto from now on?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, it’s put a lot of strain on the relationship. And I think it reminds us all yet again as I have said in relation to our relationship with China that you should never declare special relationships. You should try and optimise the things that you have in common and you should try and build friendships but your expectations should never be too high. And that is an approach that I have tried to take. I think it’s important that notwithstanding what has happened we continue to work hard to have a good relationship with Indonesia but we must remember that Indonesia is a different society from Australia and we must remember that on occasions we are going to disagree. But our quarrel is not with the people of Indonesia and I wish them well. They are a nation of 211 million people, they are very important to our part of the world and we seek friendship and good relations with the people of that country.
BONGIORNO:
Dr John Hewson said when he was Liberal leader, Benny Mudani, Mr Wiranto’s or one of Mr Wiranto’s, or General Wiranto’s successors, said to him that Indonesia’s defence was all about internal security, that is keeping the people in check. Doesn’t what’s happened in the last couple of weeks tend to prove that and to perhaps undermine our attempts to develop a one-on-one relationship with…
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I don’t, I mean, I wasn’t there when that remark was allegedly made and I don’t know the context. But we have never had any, the Howard Government has never had false illusions about the relationship. We have tried to be friendly where that’s been in our mutual interest. We have helped the people of Indonesia in their economic adversity. But we haven’t placed, as did some other governments of Australia, over reliance on notions of joint security.
BONGIORNO:
Just briefly, we have to go in this segment, the description of Indonesia as our most important relationship. That’s looking a bit tatty now isn’t it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, various people over the years have used that relationship, have used that term. But look,…
BONGIORNO:
You don’t agree with it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, look, it’s a very important relationship but like all relationships it has to be seen realistically and a relationship is worth what it delivers in a time of stress.
BONGIORNO:
Prime Minister, time for another break, when we come back more of the fallout from the East Timor tragedy.
[Commercial break]
Welcome back to Meet the Press. Prime Minister, in the speech that President Clinton made earlier this morning that you alluded to he announced and underscored that America had cut all military aid and assistance and it was tying its economic assistance to the performance of Indonesia in mopping up the mess and in stopping the violence. Why don’t we do the same?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, we have said it’s all on the table. I mean, that carries a very clear message. Everybody has a different way of saying things.
BONGIORNO:
Well, your Treasurer during the week indicated that we wouldn’t be withholding the billion dollar promised aid.
PRIME MINISTER:
I think he also indicated that the loan agreement that would trigger the provision of $300 million of that had yet to be signed by him and for the time being was not going to be signed.
BONGIORNO:
I know we have cut back on some military assistance, do we need to say, as the Americans have, that there’ll be no military assistance for the time being?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, there are a couple of arrangements that affect the involvement of the ADF personnel in East Timor at the moment. So let’s be sensible. I mean, Kofi Annan asked me not to do anything at all that would prejudice the capacity of the ADF to help the UNAMET people. I mean, the Royal Australian Air Force is providing an air bridge from Darwin into Dili. So self evidently we have to take those things into account and it would be crazy and perverse in the extreme if we did anything that limited our capacity to go on doing those sorts of things. So I think we have to keep a sense of proportion and not, sort of, get involved in, sort of, microanalysis. The main goal of this whole exercise is to return stability and protection and end the terror in East Timor. Now, that has got to be the aim of the exercise not to add up how many individual crosses you can put against the name Indonesia. That doesn’t make any sense.
BONGIORNO:
When Bob Hawke announced three ships going to the Gulf as part of the Gulf War contribution he recalled Parliament, had a full day’s debate. You have announced our biggest deployment of Australian personnel since the Vietnam War. The Opposition is calling on you to set up a special meeting of the Parliament.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, my recollection is that the Gulf War broke in January, in fact I remember watching it on television when I was on holidays. It was in January and Parliament wasn’t scheduled to sit for some weeks. We are sitting next Monday so there’s really…next Monday week, so there’s little point in recalling Parliament what in a matter of a few days earlier. I suppose the Opposition has got to say something.
BONGIORNO:
But will you suspend standing orders…
PRIME MINISTER:
We will, of course, allow full debate on this issue, absolutely. But there’s no point in allowing an earlier recall of Parliament.
BONGIORNO:
Mary Robinson, the UN Human Rights Commissioner, today said that there would be a need to get in and gather evidence of war crimes in East Timor. Kofi Annan raised the issue of war crimes yesterday. It does seem now that this would have to be inevitable, would it not, that war criminals be pursued in East Timor?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, this is a matter for the UN agencies. They have a responsibility for it and that is why both Kofi Annan and Mary Robinson have spoken of it. And, you know, I am not being…critical of that, of course they should do that. But our focus at the moment is on the more immediate issue and that is, in fact, stopping more misdeeds occurring.
BONGIORNO:
Xanana Gusmao it seems is trying to take a leaf out of Nelson Mandela’s book, was talking of reconciliation including everybody in. In light of what’s happened though in the past week or so and in light of talk of war crimes do you think that any hope of reconciliation has gone?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, it’s a measure of that man that he should speak against the background of these appalling events, that he should speak like that and that is great credit to him as a person and he is an impressive figure. We have felt that for a long time. I guess it always seems hard to talk of reconciliation in coming together but I think it is important that we have people saying that and that’s one of the hopeful signs. It’s one of the reasons why we have continued to argue the case of the East Timorese people having the right to determine their own future. If they have people like Xanana Gusmao around then they have real hope difficult though it will be for a future.
BONGIORNO:
Yesterday you endorsed Australians protesting but you warned them against protests that would include things like blockading airports or Garuda flights, you said it would be counterproductive.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yeah it would be.
BONGIORNO:
But isn’t it really a measure of the depth of anger in Australia?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, it may be that doesn’t mean to say it’s not counterproductive. There are a lot of things people do that can be counterproductive and they feel strongly about them. Look, I endorse the right of any Australian to lawfully dissent and to protest. We are a fully-fledged democracy. But don’t deface and damage the property of other people and don’t stop Australian and other citizens going lawfully about their business. They have a right to do that. They might feel strongly about it too but they might have some legitimate business. And there are thousands of Australians in Indonesia. We have a lot of important, economic and cultural and other links. And can I say to those who are feeling angry, remember your fellow Australians who may have built a business or who may be helping in a humanitarian way in Indonesia, remember them as well. There is always another side to a story like that. And it’s very important in a situation like this that strong though people may feel about something, passionate though they may be to bring about change, do it within the law and do it in a way that doesn’t inflict harm or inconvenience on people who are not part of the thing that you are protesting against.
BONGIORNO:
Wouldn’t revocation of our de jure recognition of Indonesia’s sovereignty over Timor be the strongest signal that we could send in protest?
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh, Paul, no. I mean, if Indonesia honours the agreement, I mean, if the agreement goes ahead Timor will be an independent country. We’ll be moving to independence in the hands of the United Nations in less than two months so the question of whether you keep the de jure recognition for another few weeks after its been in place for 23 years is a bit pointless.
BONGIORNO:
Prime Minister, we are right out of time, thank you very much for joining us today and all the best with your efforts.
[ends]