27 September 1999
Subjects: East Timor, Food supplies, relationship with Indonesia, message to troops
E&OE…………………………………………………………………………………..
LAWS:
Good evening and welcome to our program.
Tonight a special look at the crisis in East Timor where United Nations peacekeepers have just taken over responsibility for maintaining law and order. As Indonesian troops left Dili earlier today, the battle to feed and house the thousands returning from the hills became a priority for the UN while troops readied themselves for attacks from militia groups.
First up tonight we talk to the Prime Minister and later in the program I’ll speaking with Australia’s Ambassador in Jakarta, John McCarthy. But firstly, the Prime Minister has just come out of an extra meeting of the Cabinet and joins us from his office. Good evening Mr Howard, thanks for your time.
PRIME MINISTER:
It’s nice to be talking to you John.
LAWS:
John is this the most sensitive situation in your political career?
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh yes. This is the most difficult foreign policy and defence issue Australia has faced in I’d say 25 to 30 years. So far from a military and peacekeeping point of view it’s gone well but it’s very early days and we shouldn’t imagine that there can’t still be tragedy and difficulty ahead of us.
LAWS:
Can we read anything into the late afternoon Cabinet meeting or should we not?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no, no, that’s got nothing to do with this. We took a bit longer this morning to get through the normal agenda and I reconvened it after question time to finish it off. We actually, without giving secrets away I can say we didn’t mention Timor this afternoon but I have regular briefings every day from our defence people along with my senior colleagues on Timor.
Our military personnel have done brilliantly. I think General Cosgrove is a tremendous person and I think the leadership he’s giving and the fact that he’s working in such an intelligent, cooperative way with other countries from the region is very encouraging.
LAWS:
Is the destruction that we see there, and I imagine you’ve seen it, you’ve probably seen more than we have, the destruction of towns and villages, is that much worse than you expected?
PRIME MINISTER:
It’s worse than most people expected. The reports I got this morning indicate that the most basic of all facilities, even clean running water, is something you can’t take for granted in many parts of Dili so it is very extensive, it’s been quite wilful and I can understand the sense of despair of the local population although they are gathering confidence. There are a lot more people on the streets of Dili now than a week ago and those television images of people smiling again are really very heartening.
LAWS:
It’s certainly refreshing and there’s certainly a change. Why was there a delay, if you can answer the question, in getting food and supplies to the refugees in the hills at the back behind Dili?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well the only way you could have got them there for a long time was from an air drop and we didn’t want a situation arising where any of the food dropped, the aircraft dropping it could be shot down because we needed them to carry troops into East Timor and we also wanted to be certain that the dropping of the food didn’t create a magnet for the refugees to come and then be perhaps shot by the militia.
LAWS:
Two very valid reasons John but did you think that it could have been that bad that aircraft would have been shot down?
PRIME MINISTER:
You could never tell and I think in a situation like this you can never afford to expose to unreasonable risk not only the people but also the aircraft and other assets that you will need to carry the peacekeepers into East Timor. Now I’m going back more than a week now when there was a lot of pressure on us and you’ve got to remember that we’re walking on egg shells here. We were still dealing with flying over Indonesian air space and I know this sounds maddeningly technical to people who just want to get food in but this is a very difficult operation. We are still technically on Indonesian territory. East Timor is part of Indonesia until there’s a formal act of separation sanctioned by the Indonesian Parliament and we are there under a United Nations resolution because the Indonesian government acquiesced in us going there so it’s a very difficult operation and I’ve got to worry not only about the refugees and about peacekeeping in Dili, I’ve also got to worry about the long term implications of our association with Indonesia and that is important to us.
LAWS:
Yes I understand that and that’s why it’s important we talk to you so you can clarify the situation which you’ve done most admirably for which I thank you.
How honourable do you think the people are with whom you’re dealing in Indonesia?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I think it varies John. I think we’ve been badly let down in relation to many of the commitments that were made about keeping the peace. On the other hand there are a lot of people in Indonesia who want democracy in that country and a lot of people in Indonesia who see Australia as a long-term friend. And we’ve been a very good friend of Indonesia when she’s needed help. When the Asian economic crisis hit her we helped, and way back in the 1940s Australia was one of the earliest countries to support Indonesian independence from the Dutch. So I’m quite happy to point that out and I think Australia’s got a very proud record of trying to make the best of our relationship with Indonesia but we couldn’t agree with what was happening in East Timor, we had to take a stand. I know that’s put strain on the relationship but you can never have an attitude that you preserve a relationship at any cost.
LAWS:
Do you think we should have done something about it earlier?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don’t think we could have done any more. Both sides of politics for a long time…
LAWS:
Yeah, 25 years.
PRIME MINISTER:
…went along with basically turning a blind eye to East Timor. Now I said that in Parliament today, both sides did, and there’s no point in sort of going over that now. We changed our attitude at the end of last year. You would never have got peacekeepers in earlier because the Indonesians would never have agreed and all this talk about putting off the ballot, heavens above, people have been wanting to give them a vote for 25 years and can you imagine the reaction in Australia after Dr Habibie said I’m going to have a referendum, I’m going to give them a vote on their freedom. If I’d have said no, that’s a bad idea, I don’t want you to have a ballot, people would never have understood that.
LAWS:
No but you couldn’t or wouldn’t have said it would you?
PRIME MINISTER:
No I would never have said it because it would have been seen as a taking away from these poor people the one opportunity that they’d been offered to have a vote. Now people say you should have got peacekeepers in earlier. The Indonesian government, if it’d been faced with a demand from the rest of the world for peacekeepers earlier, they’d have said well we not only won’t have the peacekeepers, we won’t have the ballot either.
LAWS:
Do you think that you’re dealing with Dr Habibie or General Wiranto? Who do you think is in charge?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I think Indonesia is in a state of political transition. Dr Habibie’s party lost the election but he’s still there. It’s not clear precisely who will be the next President. There would be a lot of pressure on Dr Habibie at the present time but I again say in his defence, he offered the East Timorese people a ballot, he was courageous enough to do that and he was also courageous enough to take Indonesia down the path of democracy and I think the world should give him credit for that. But it’s very unclear at the moment, the power lines in Jakarta, because it’s a huge country in a state of political and social transition. It’s an extraordinary chapter in that country’s history and therefore a very critical and remarkable chapter in our relations with that country.
LAWS:
Has our reputation been irrevocably damaged in Indonesia?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don’t believe so, no I don’t. I believe there are a lot of Indonesians who understand why we acted as we did and in six months time when the transition has been completed, I believe you will get a different response from the Indonesians.
LAWS:
We’ll have a short break here Prime Minister but we’ll come back in a moment or two and talk more to the Prime Minister of Australia, John Howard.
[Commercial break]
Thank you very much for staying with us, our guest is the Prime Minister of Australia, John Howard.
Prime Minister, I know the question has been asked time and time again and is still being asked and probably unnecessarily but could you in the simplest of terms just tell us why Australia didn’t intervene before?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well if we’d have intervened before, in other words before the United Nations sanctioned it, that would have represented an invasion of Indonesia and that would have been crazy. The reason that the United Nations finally sanctioned it was that Indonesia finally agreed to accept a peacekeeping operation. So people who are saying that we should have acted in advance of that were really advocating an invasion of Indonesia.
The other criticism that is made after the event is that we should have been more active in trying to encourage Indonesia to let in a peacekeeping force and getting that peacekeeping force ready. Now if we had acted to mobilise a peacekeeping force months ago, that in my opinion would have provoked the Indonesians into cancelling the ballot. I raised with Dr Habibie in April of this year when I saw him in Bali the possibility of peacekeepers coming in before the ballot and to put it mildly, he hit the roof and he made it, well I could, I mean I knew he would do that and he said look, there’s no way I can do that, that is impossible, that would be an invasion of Indonesian sovereignty.
Now people who are arguing now that with the benefit of hindsight that we should have done this, we should have done that, are really, have taken leave of reality. It just wasn’t possible. The Secretary-General of the United Nations understood that and he said so and I don’t think the world could have acted any more quickly than it did.
LAWS:
So in essence you couldn’t have done anything until the United Nations gave permission for it to be done.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that’s right because it would have represented an invasion of Indonesia and the United Nations was not going to sanction it until Indonesia acquiesced and there was no way Indonesia would have acquiesced under international pressure but for the combination of two things, the 80% of people who voted for independence plus the bloodshed that followed that vote for independence. Those two events represented the final catalyst for international pressure, Indonesian acquiescence, United Nations resolution.
LAWS:
Okay. While on the subject of hindsight, do you think it might have been a mistake to disband the Ready Reserve a couple of years back?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don’t know. I don’t think, no, I don’t agree with that because as far as this operation is concerned, the key decision was the one we took a few months ago to get that extra brigade in a state of readiness and we’re very confident that we will have the people to provide even up to 4,500 for at least a year and if we have to go beyond that well we’re going to be saying some things about that in a few weeks time.
LAWS:
Will you be saying things about conscription as such, national service?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, we won’t be. My position on national service or conscription is that I have no in principle objection to it if there is a defence need. I don’t have some deep-seated conscientious objection to it but at the moment there is no defence need and that was confirmed yesterday by Admiral Barrie when he said that in his opinion it was unnecessary and not needed. Now that chimes very much with what I said last Friday, that in principle if it were needed I would advocate it but it is not now needed and we don’t at the moment see the circumstances in the near future when it will be needed.
LAWS:
The Indonesian people, or a lot of them, have apparently now very strong anti-Australian feelings and have actually suggested that Australia is being arrogant. Given the answers that you’ve just given me to a couple of questions I’ve put to you, arrogance is hardly the right word is it? I mean you waited and did everything according to….
PRIME MINISTER:
We have been anything but arrogant. We have accepted our responsibilities, we have respected Indonesian sovereignty. We have tried as best we can consistent with what we are doing to be sensitive to Indonesian national pride and I would say to the Indonesian people it remains an objective of Australian foreign policy to be friendly with you and friendly with your country and when you have needed our help in the past, we’ve always been willing to give it.
LAWS:
Do you have a message for the people in Dili?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, can I first of all address a message to the Australian force.
LAWS:
Yes I was going to ask you that next but do it in …,
PRIME MINISTER:
Well first of all to them. Your country is very proud of what you are doing. You are well led. We think of you a lot and you are very much in our thoughts and our prayers and we’re doing our best to look after your families back here.
To the people of East Timor. You have a lot of friends in Australia and your plight has touched Australians and that is why we are willing to get involved. We remember your help from years back and will do our best to make your life as safe and as predictable and as comfortable as possible but recognising that that could well take some time.
LAWS:
Prime Minister thank you very much. It was good of you to give us time because I know you have got an awful lot on your plate. Not only do you have to worry about that but you’ve got to worry about the goings on in Australia and there’s a lot happening here so we do appreciate it and thank you very much.
[ENDS]