Dili/Jakarta/Brussels, 21 February 2012: Timor-Leste’s upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections will be an important step in consolidating the relative stability the country has enjoyed since recovering from the 2006 crisis, but a number of security risks deserve continued attention.
Timor-Leste’s Elections: Leaving Behind a Violent Past?, the latest briefing from the International Crisis Group, provides a snapshot political briefing in advance of presidential polls to be held on 17 March and parliamentary elections due in late June, and examines potential security risks.
The breadth of the competition and the lack of any reliable polling mean predicting the outcome of either poll is difficult, but the real contest is between a handful of familiar names. In the parliamentary elections, the prime minister’s party CNRT and the opposition Fretilin are expected to out-poll the smaller parties by a large margin. Each of them is hoping to win a majority, but a coalition government led by one of them is more likely.
The country is markedly more peaceful than when general elections were last conducted in 2007, and relations among the small circle of political leaders are friendlier, keeping political tensions largely tempered. But many of the root causes of fragility persist: weak law enforcement, gang and martial arts group violence, and a growing number of unemployed youth. No one is sure how closely these issues will feed into political rivalry, but any deliberate manipulation of these frustrations has the potential to be incendiary. The unrealistic expectations of many of the 24 parties competing and the high stakes of the political competition may also stoke tensions.
“The greatest risk is the near-complete impunity for political violence”, says Cillian Nolan, Crisis Group’s South East Asia Analyst. “The candidates should make it clear now that such crimes will no longer be forgiven”.
A number of security risks deserve enhanced attention. While relations within the crowded security sector have improved, smooth cooperation is not assured. Public relations should be a key focus of the planned joint operations centre for election security response: rumours have stoked violence in the past and a quick-footed response by police in combating misinformation could help keep the peace. Careful policing will be required to respond to fears that martial arts group violence could escalate during polls, but civil society has a role to play in monitoring any use of such groups for intimidation.
The UN also has a role to play. Beyond supporting national authorities in the logistical administration of the second national polls since independence, the UN mission should be ready to take both private and public steps in response to any serious violations of electoral regulations and codes of conduct.
In the long term, several steps could be taken to reduce the pressures that build up around polls. These include staggering presidential and parliamentary polls in different years, and introducing effective pre-election opinion polling to counter the unrealistic expectations that many parties encourage, and quick counts to bolster faith in the results.
“Whatever government is inaugurated in the second half of the year, it will face difficult work trying to deliver on ambitious plans and expectations for economic development in what remains an impoverished country with a very large bank account”, says Jim Della-Giacoma, Crisis Group’s South East Asia Project Director. “Without significant progress in areas such as job creation and strengthening of the rule of law, the prospects for elections in 2017 may not look as bright”.
As Iran’s global isolation grows amid reports that it’s begun operating a new generation of centrifuges at its main uranium-enrichment facility at Natanz, India is the last major power adamantly maintaining close ties with Tehran.
The West wants India to join Western trade sanctions against Iran and accept its global responsibilities. But India’s resistance to the pressure underlines how deeply intertwined the country’s foreign policy is with its domestic concerns. Loss of Iranian oil and the ability to provide subsidized fuel could affect the electoral outcome for the ruling coalition. The bomb blast in New Delhi last week targeting an Israeli diplomat, which Tel Aviv was quick to blame on Tehran and its proxies, has posed a further challenge to India’s policy makers.
Meanwhile, Iran has pre-empted the West before the latest round of sanctions, due to start this summer, by threatening to block shipments of crude oil to six European nations. And on Wednesday, Iran’s president announced intentions to share nuclear technology abroad.
Publicly, India maintains a brave face. Yet there are growing concerns about Iranian actions making India a battleground for the proxy war between Iran on the one hand and Israel and the West on the other. India too is eager to maintain ties with Iran, as both share concern about preventing a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan after the forthcoming US withdrawal.
The Indian commerce minister was quick to underline that trade between New Delhi and Tehran was unlikely to be affected by recent events. A huge trade delegation is slated to go to Tehran in March to explore export opportunities, which according to some estimates are worth more than $10 billion annually.
So far, India’s response has been low key, but New Delhi is readying itself to tackle the challenge of growing Iranian isolation. Saudi Arabia has offered to make up for the Iranian oil shortfall. But India opposes the US and EU unilateral sanctions, particularly if Turkey blocks India’s use of an intermediary bank to make payments for $12 billion worth of Iranian annual crude exports. US policy makers have warned New Delhi that it would be subject to American sanctions if New Delhi is seen in any way trying to bail out Iran from its tough economic situation.
India imports 12 percent of its oil from Iran, its second-largest supplier after Saudi Arabia. India’s finance minister was merely reflecting on the intersection between domestic and foreign policy when he suggested that it’s impossible for India to “reduce the imports from Iran drastically” in light of a growing budget deficit and need to continue oil subsidies so as not to enrage citizens during a state election year.
India and the United States have begun to transform their ties, with the 2005 framework for the Indian-US civilian nuclear agreement, which accommodated India into the global nuclear order. Given the US obsession, Iran has become a litmus test that India is occasionally asked to pass to satisfy US policy makers: India has been asked to prove its loyalty to the United States by lining up behind Washington at the International Atomic Energy Agency on the question of Iran’s nuclear program.
The Bush administration stated that if India voted against the February 2006 US motion on Iran at the IAEA, Congress would likely not approve the Indian-US nuclear agreement. India finally voted with 26 other nations to refer Iran to the UN Security Council.
Still, many members of Congress continued to demand that Washington make the nuclear deal conditional on New Delhi’s ending all military relations with Tehran, a demand rejected by the Bush administration as it would have led the collapse of the nuclear deal.
At the same time, the Indian Left parties also developed a parallel obsession, making Iran an issue emblematic of India’s “strategic autonomy,” an attempt to coerce New Delhi into following an ideological, anti-American foreign policy.
These trends persist in New Delhi and Washington. Navigating the crosscurrents, India’s official position on the Iranian nuclear question has remained largely consistent. Although India maintains that Iran has the right to pursue civilian nuclear energy, it has insisted that Iran should clarify doubts raised by the IAEA regarding Iran’s compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
India shares with the West the belief that Iranian nuclear ambitions would destabilize the Middle East. The Indian prime minister is on record suggesting that a nuclear Iran is not in India’s national interest. But New Delhi does not have the luxury of viewing Iranian nuclear ambitions only through the prism of Iran-Israel rivalry, a norm in the West. India, a country with sizable Sunni and Shia Muslim populations, must consider this issue from a wider perspective where the Iranian nuclear drive instigates Arab-Iran and Sunni-Shia rivalry.
For Tehran, its nuclear ambitions are as much a counter to a two-front encirclement of Shiites by Sunni Pakistan and Sunni Saudi Arabia as it is about ending Israel’s nuclear monopoly in the region.
The 2010 Saudi-Indian Riyadh Declaration asked Iran to “remove regional and international doubts about its nuclear weapons program.” India even endorsed the Arab call for a nuclear-weapons free Middle East — a proposal traditionally targeting Israel, but increasingly focused on Iran.
India has its own energy interests and would like to increase its presence in the Iranian energy sector. Given rapidly rising energy needs, New Delhi feels restless about its own marginalization in Iran.
Western sanctions over the years have led to an entrenchment of Chinese companies in the Iranian oil and gas sector with contracts worth up to $40 billion in recent years. Chinese companies bring much-needed foreign capital to Iran, and its oil trading companies are likely to be main beneficiaries of the Western embargo on Iranian oil exports.
Where Beijing’s economic engagement with Iran is growing, India’s presence is shrinking, as firms like Reliance Industries have, partially under Western pressure, withdrawn from Iran and others shelve investment plans.
India has enforced UN measures against Iran, often to the detriment of its energy investments. Yet China, as a permanent Security Council member, helps shape UN policy toward Iran and has been able to sustain its own energy business in the country with little trouble.
The strategic reality confronting New Delhi in the Middle East today is that India has significant interests to preserve in the Gulf. As tensions rise between Sunni Arab regimes and Iran, India’s larger stakes in the Arab world will continue to inhibit Indian–Iranian ties. At the same time, New Delhi’s outreach to Tehran remains circumscribed by the internal power struggle within Iran, growing tensions between Iran and Arab neighbors and Iran’s defiance of the global nuclear order.
Tehran’s purported role in a bomb attack on an Israeli Embassy vehicle in New Delhi and the use of India as a platform for such an attack would further intensify pressure on India to curtail its trade relationship with Iran.
Yet given the domestic political situation shaped by the coming elections and growing energy needs, and a looming void in Afghanistan after the US leaves, New Delhi isn’t in a position to jettison Tehran completely in the near future.
YaleGlobal
Harsh V. Pant teaches at King’s College London.
Om Swastiastu ...
Read the full report at http://www.balidiscovery.com/update/update807.asp
Lead news stories this week include the “re-declaration” of an extraordinary state of alert for rabies after what was apparently a premature lifting of that warning by Bali health authorities last month.
After years of debate, the controversial 2009 Bali Zoning Law is now officially law. Meanwhile, the Gianyar Regency has outlawed Condotel developments. The troubled Bali International Park project may have run out of time, causing its cancellation. In other news, the Blue Eye Karaoke and Hotel Harrad in Sanur have serious problems with Denpasar zoning and tax officials.
The Bali Golf & Country Club at Nusa Dua has closed for an extended period for major rebuilding and renovations.
A major television network in Sydney has issues an ominous warning from a Bali prison official for Australians not to behave badly while visiting Bali.
We also look at why IPO’s are rare for companies in Bali. We examine moves by Badung regency officials to tax restaurants with live music at higher tax rates. Meanwhile, Badung tourism officials are in the process of redrafting all local tourism regulations.
A local association estimates that 40% of the moneychangers operating in Bali are unregistered and illegal.
Culture is a focus in this week’s Update. An activist forum has been established to defend the rights of the Balinese as a simultaneous call is issued to stop marginalizing the Balinese people.
Hotel news include plans for a new US$44.4 million hotel project in Seminyak and English lessons provided to tourism police and hotel workers by the Bali Hotels Association.
Bali is moving towards establishing a Bali Tourism Promotion Board, We’ll tell you why.
In aviation news you’ll read of the worldwide grounding of Australia Air; how Indonesian aircraft purchases dominated in a spectacular way the Singapore Air Show; that while Garuda is curtailing flights to Amsterdam KLM is going daily with their flights to Bali; and Philippine Airlines want to start flying to Bali from Manila.
We’ve also got news on meetings and conferences in Bali, including the coming launch of the Bali MICE Guide 2012-2013.
Looking Ahead:
• “Mellow Yellow” paintings by Sony Irawan at Kendra Gallery through March 18, 2012
• Bali Life Foundation Fund Raising Weekend at Karma Kandara Resort together with chef Luke Mangan February 24-26, 2012
• “Sound of Life” a fund-raising tribute to Ibu Robin Lim – Bali’s very own CNN Hero of the Year on February 26, 2012
• Visit FHT 2012 – a major hotel and restaurant show at Nusa Dua March 1-3, 2012
• 3 Dimensions of asie.one at the Ganesha Gallery through April 2, 2012
• Grey Line – Dance and Art meet at the Gaya Art Space in Ubud through March 4, 2012.
• “Adi’s Art” by Adi Bachmann at Adi’s Gallery in Ubud through July 29, 2012.
• BII Maybank Bali Marathon on Sunday, April 22, 2012
• The 6th Annual BIZNET Bali International Triathlon returns on June 26, 2012. www.balitriathlon.com
See the exciting video clip on "Devdan – Treasures of the Archipelago" - the latest breathtaking theatrical show opening the Nusa Dua Theatre.
Om Çanti Çanti Çanti Om ...
J.M. Daniels, Editor
Bali Update
Bali Discovery Tours
Competition with China is making it nicer, but India could do still more to sweeten relations with its neighbours
SOUTH ASIA is about the least integrated part of the world. Neighbours supply just 0.5% of India’s imports, and consume less than 4% of its exports. India and Pakistan, mutually antagonistic, account for a fifth of all living humans, yet their bilateral trade is puny, at less than $3 billion a year. The main regional body, the South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation, is an irrelevance. Diplomatic torpor usually reigns in the region: last week, when the elected president of one member country, the Maldives, was toppled in a coup, there was a resounding silence from the neighbours.
India, the regional superpower, is largely to blame. Though it is a democracy and has easily the biggest economy and armed forces in South Asia, it has rarely been a force for good. Instead it has treated the neighbours, by turns, with negligence and high-handedness.
Ideology and size are largely to blame. Economic self-sufficiency—the doctrine that informed Indian policymaking for nearly half a century after independence—made co-operating with the neighbours unnecessary. And India’s size—its population is seven times that of its nearest neighbour, Pakistan—has encouraged bullying tendencies. It has meddled in Nepal’s politics, and in the early stages of Sri Lanka’s civil war it backed Tamil guerrillas. Even today the opposition in Bangladesh claims nefarious Indian influence, and Pakistan says its old foe is supporting separatists in the province of Baluchistan. It has offered no evidence for the claim. But past Indian arrogance makes neighbours ready to believe anything.
This is an economic as well as a diplomatic problem. Lack of integration helps to keep South Asians poor. By one estimate, without barriers trade between India and Pakistan would grow nearly tenfold. Today the main border-crossing near Pakistan’s eastern city of Lahore is at times almost deserted. If educated Sri Lankans were allowed to work in India, they could get good jobs there instead of having to take menial work in the Gulf, thus easing a growing shortage of skilled Indian workers. A regional energy market could boost prosperity; and Indian engagement in the problem of water-sharing could reduce dangerous tensions on the issue.
As a measure of India’s priorities, consider that the world’s second-most-populous country has no more diplomats than tiny New Zealand. By contrast, China has a huge and sophisticated foreign service, housed in sleek new embassies around the world. And it is partly with an eye to a rising China that India now shows signs of change.
Niceness contest
These days India is putting more effort into improving neighbourly relations (see article), and is dishing out aid to sweeten the air. The foreign minister, S.M. Krishna, vows never to meddle inside another country. This week the trade minister led a business delegation to Lahore. And for all the accusations of anti-Pakistan meddling in Afghanistan, Indian efforts are accomplishing some good there: training police, and building roads and electricity lines. All over the region, India is opening new consulates. It may even recruit more diplomats.
But there is much more that India could do. It should unilaterally boost regional trade by unclogging roads, and by building better ports and freight parks at its borders. Non-tariff barriers—including the one that insists Pakistani cement crosses the border only by train, not lorry—should go. And India could take lessons from other big emerging powers, such as South Africa and Brazil, on how to build relationships in the region. Elephants must learn to move carefully, for fear of causing damage in the neighbourhood. The Economist
Workers’ protests dampen news of a ratings upgrade
IN THEIR presentations to foreign investors, Indonesian officials often like to begin with a montage of images from their fascinating country: the elegant mast of Jakarta’s Wisma 46 skyscraper, for example, and the vast ninth-century Borobudur monument. One presentation last year even featured a Komodo dragon peering out of the frame.
As a symbol of Indonesia’s economic virtues, these enormous and venomous lizards, native to a couple of islands, are not obviously appealing. But they are apt. The Komodo is thick-skinned, with scales resembling chain-mail, and surprisingly quick. That is a fair description of Indonesia’s resilient, resurgent economy. It grew by 6.5% in 2011, according to figures released this month, its fastest pace since the Asian financial crisis in 1997 (see chart). Ministers are already looking forward to Indonesia’s entry this year or next into the club of 14 countries with an annual GDP above $1 trillion.
Its growth also appears armour-plated. The economy withstood the global crisis of 2008 better than most, and so far appears little troubled by the euro’s strife. That resilience reflects the buoyancy of its home market—exports accounted for only 26% of its GDP last year—and Indonesia’s efforts to wean itself off foreign borrowing. Net foreign debt is now less than 10% of GDP, and Fitch, a ratings agency, believes Indonesia’s government might become a net foreign creditor by the end of next year.
That is one reason why the agency raised the country’s sovereign credit rating in December; Moody’s followed a month later. It has restored the cherished “investment-grade” status that Indonesia’s government lost during the Asian financial crisis. The establishment is thrilled.
Government officials say all the good news should be a catalyst for greater foreign-direct investment, which reached a record $19.3 billion in 2011, up a fifth from the previous year. But there is danger in reading too much into a credit rating. Maybe the government will always pay up, but other kinds of investment will not necessarily pay off.
Indeed, some of Indonesia’s fiscal austerities may have come at the expense of the economy as a whole. The government has often struggled to spend the money it has budgeted, even for worthwhile projects. In 2008-10 the central government spent less than three-quarters of the money it had allocated for public investment. Sometimes the only cash that seems to flow freely is for wasteful fuel subsidies. Part of the improvement in Indonesia’s public finances, therefore, reflects fiscal constipation more than it does budget conservatism.
Chronic underspending is partly because of heightened scrutiny of graft in the wake of some high-profile corruption busts, as well as bureaucratic bottlenecks, such as the difficulty of buying land. A new land-acquisition law passed in December should quicken spending on needed infrastructure.
But if land is one problem, labour is becoming another. On January 27th several thousand factory workers on motorcycles blocked a main toll road linking manufacturing zones in West Java to Jakarta, the capital, backing up traffic and paralysing the region’s commerce. The workers were protesting against a court ruling overturning the provincial governor’s decision to raise their minimum wage by 15.5%, to about $165 a month.
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Indonesia’s president, immediately intervened—on behalf of the blockading workers. His labour ministry asked the employers’ association, which had won the court case, to back down. The government’s handling of the dispute irked foreign investors. The South Korean embassy, according to the Jakarta Post, wrote to the government, lamenting the congestion, disruption and damage to factories. Japan’s embassy complained to the police. And an official at Taiwan’s trade office warned that some Taiwanese firms would leave Jakarta or even Indonesia. Wages, he argued, should not outstrip inflation.
Yet foreign investors protest too much. To say that wage rises should not exceed inflation is to say that real wages should remain stagnant—in other words, that Indonesia should never develop. Moreover, figures from Indonesia’s statistics agency suggest that the average wage for Indonesian production workers has not, in fact, outstripped inflation in recent years, although minimum wages have done so. So expect most foreign manufacturing firms to cough up and stay put. Nonetheless, the havoc has reminded overseas investors that a Komodo economy sometimes has a nasty bite. The Economist
AT DAWN on the first day of the Sydney 2000 Olympics, Saturday September 16, a team of Australian Federal Police and Defence Security personnel arrived at my home, armed with a search warrant.
After some brief discussion they conducted an exhaustive search that included everything in my study and library to the contents of my household garbage. They looked pretty much everywhere, though not, I recall, in my pet cat's litter tray. They also ran a comprehensive search program on my home computer looking for any trace of a long list of highly classified Defence intelligence reports and diplomatic cables.
Hours later the investigators left empty-handed.
The raid was part of a witch-hunt the scope of which has become clear with the recent release of a heavily redacted AFP report. The document, released under Freedom of Information, details the search for the person or group who in 1999 leaked a large number of secret Australian intelligence reports dealing with the tumultuous events leading to East Timor's 1999 independence ballot.
This was Australia's biggest leak of secret defence and intelligence information to the media. While not of the same scale as WikiLeaks' recent publication of US diplomatic cables, the 1999 East Timor leaks involved numerous highly sensitive documents, many classified "Top Secret Codeword", a much higher security classification than any of the WikiLeaks material.
Leaking government documents can be a dangerous business. Next Thursday, in the United States, the man accused of leaking to WikiLeaks, US Army private Bradley Manning, will be arraigned before a military judge at Fort Meade, Maryland. Some of the 22 charges against him, to be read at the beginning of his court martial, include aiding the enemy and wrongfully causing secret intelligence to be published on the internet. The charge of aiding the enemy potentially carries the death penalty, although prosecutors have said they will seek a life sentence if Manning is found guilty of all charges.
In Australia, despite the best efforts of police and Defence Security, the person or people responsible for the 1999 East Timor leaks was not prosecuted. But more than a decade later, the report of Operation Keeve provides a cautionary tale for journalists and whistleblowers about the determination of governments to catch those who break the rules to expose information governments would rather keep hidden. The hunt was pursued over two years and cost taxpayers more than $1.5 million.
As the then adviser to Labor's foreign affairs spokesman, Laurie Brereton, I was one of the key "persons of interest" in the investigation.
THE EAST Timor leaks were always going to create political turmoil. Their effect was to call into question the Howard government's truthfulness as it dealt with East Timor's move to independence from Indonesia.
Privately, the Howard government hoped East Timor would remain an autonomous province within Indonesia. Australian policymakers were also anxious to maintain good relations with Indonesia's powerful military. The then foreign minister, Alexander Downer, repeatedly insisted that violent attacks on Timorese independence supporters were carried out by "rogue elements" - local pro-Indonesian militias - and that the Indonesian military could be trusted to provide security for the self-determination ballot.
However, the series of leaked Defence and DFAT (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade) documents, reported through 1999 byThe Age, ABC Radio and TV, the Bulletin magazine and other media outlets, told a very different story.
For example, a secret Defence Intelligence Organisation brief, dated March 4, 1999 and reported by the ABC AM program on April 23, reported that "The [Indonesian] military in East Timor are clearly protecting, and in some instances operating with the militias .
[Indonesian military chief] General Wiranto is at least turning a blind eye. The military will continue to support intimidation and violence or at least won't prevent it. Further violence is certain and Dili will be a focus."
A leaked DFAT cable showed the Howard government was not merely reluctant to argue for an international peacekeeping presence in East Timor, but actively worked against the idea. DFAT Secretary Ashton Calvert told the US State Department that talk about peacekeeping was "defeatist".
East Timor did vote for independence and Australia eventually did send in peacekeepers, though only after the Indonesian military had torched Dili, thousands of people had died, and tens of thousands had been forcibly removed to squalid camps in West Timor.
The hunt for the whistleblower, Operation Keeve, began in February 1999. Foreign Minister Downer first called in the AFP after The Age published two articles by Canberra correspondent Paul Daley that reported Australia's embassy in Jakarta had warned that as many as 15,000 people could flee their homes amid a breakdown of law and order in East Timor.
Later, in April, Defence Department Secretary Paul Barratt instructed his security branch to investigate the leak of the March 4 Defence Intelligence brief to ABC Radio. What was named Operation Arbite was later extended to other leaks, and the AFP and Defence Security investigations were combined and carried out from the top secret Defence Signals Directorate.
The investigators threw a wide net to identify the source of the leaks. Media articles were cross referenced against Defence Intelligence and other classified documents with some 36 "primary reports" and 29 "secondary reports" eventually identified as potential source materials. The investigators then tracked access to the documents. This proved too difficult in the case of hard copies, but more progress was made in regard to electronic distribution. Examination of footage of leaked intelligence reports on the ABC 7.30 Report and an ABC Four Corners documentary in February 2000 "suggested that the leaks had come from electronic documents rather than from hard copy." Some 21,600 persons worldwide - less than half of whom, 9600, were actually in Australia - had electronic access to the documents.
A massive data crunching exercise followed, involving access to the telephone call records of nearly 14,000 telephone services totalling more than 77,000 phone calls. Most of these numbers were the phones of Defence personnel with access to the leaked documents. However, the fishing expedition, using information obtained without warrant from telecommunication service providers, included call records of more than 130 private subscribers and in some cases internet usage and mobile phone location data.
Eventually, using new Watson analytic software, the investigation team targeted "a small group of individuals". Other than myself, the names of "persons of interest" have been redacted from the AFP report, but it is clear that as early as December 1999 the investigators had formed a working hypothesis that the secret documents had been leaked by a person or persons in Defence to myself, and then to the media. (Laurie Brereton had exploited the leaks to criticise the Howard government, and my name and contact number appeared at the bottom of Brereton's "timely" media releases.)
The AFP report states, "The accumulation of circumstantial evidence pointed to Philip Dorling receiving the classified documents, either electronically from email transmissions sent by [redacted]. The destination of the emails was believed to be either Philip Dorling's work computer in Parliament House, or his home computer."
The joint investigation team wanted to tap my telephone, but lacked the legal power to do so. In December 1999, at a meeting attended by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, the investigators asked whether ASIO could obtain a warrant to intercept "certain telephone services at Parliament House''. The ASIO representatives said no and sent a report to ASIO Director-General Dennis Richardson who wrote: "It is important that the AFP and Defence understand that, unless there is relevance to our functions under the [ASIO] Act, we cannot engage in such activity."
Apparently lacking access to the content of telephone calls or internet activity, the investigators turned to other sources of information.
In February 2000, Defence Department official and Australian National University academic Clive Williams reported a conversation with Professor Des Ball, an expert on intelligence agencies, about his part in the February ABC Four Corners program on East Timor. "When asked about the source of the leaked intelligence documents, Professor Ball speculated that 'they are probably coming from staff in Brereton's office'."
In June 2000, an AFP officer also spoke to Canberra Times editor Jack Waterford who "stated that speculation among journalists was that one source of the leak was an ex-DFAT employee and another was in Laurie Brereton's office''.
Four months later there was the dawn knock on my door and Federal Agent Catherine Castles announced that she had a warrant to search the premises. ACT magistrate Peter Dingwall had apparently been persuaded that the crown jewels of Australian intelligence were somewhere in my home, but the efforts of the AFP and Defence Security officers came to nothing. Had they searched Brereton's Parliament House office, they would have had the same result.
That same morning AFP agents also raided the home of a friend, Captain Clinton Fernandes, an army intelligence officer based in Sydney.
Fernandes was suspended from duty pending further investigation. After a long inquiry he was reinstated and promoted to the rank of major. He has always denied being the source of the leaks. Had the AFP tapped our phone conversations they would have heard lengthy discussion about his PhD thesis on "transformational analysis of the national interest" in Australian foreign policy.
Fernandes later left the army to take up an academic appointment at the Australian Defence Force Academy and as an associate professor now teaches politics and strategic studies to the next generation of Australia's military leaders.
Unlike Fernandes, I declined to be interviewed and I won't be drawn on the source or sources of the leaks. However, I did learn some years ago that the investigators believed they were hunting a person with "a strong sense of injustice about developments in East Timor". That is certainly an inference that could be drawn.
In the end, the East Timor leak investigation came to nothing. The ''highly protected'' AFP report on operations Keeve and Arbite was consigned to the archives, and Australia's Bradley Manning remains at large, a rare case of a whistleblower avoiding retribution.
But the risks are clear - for journalists and for covert sources. In an electronic age there are no fingerprints easier to find than electronic fingerprints. And as the circumstances of Bradley Manning show, the potential consequences for those who blow the whistle can be grave indeed. By Philip Dorling The Age (Melbourne)
Beijing's candidate shot himself in both feet and reloaded with lightning speed
The media scrum was unprecedented. Cameramen perched atop six cranes hired for the purpose to beam live footage of Hong Kong Chief Secretary for Administration Henry Tang's twin properties in Kowloon Tong on primetime TV newscasts. You could have easily assumed a millionaire family was mass-murdered or a special forces raid was in progress against a terrorist bomb-making bunker.
It was all far more trivial. Five buildings department inspectors were confirming the vast illegal structure constructed without planning permission under Tang's twin luxury homes. The candidate to take over as Hong Kong’s chief executive hadn’t declared this despite an executive order to Executive Committee members. When caught after denials and evasions, he blamed it all on his wife.
Tang should withdraw from the race or be ordered to do so. The bosses in Beijing know he has lost the public’s trust. He has used his long-suffering wife twice to take the heat off him.
Having had to own up to the fact that he had built an illegal structure at his home in the luxurious district of Kowloon Tong – as the second-ranking official in a government that does its best to eliminate such structures – he has no moral authority to lead Hong Kong, a fact that the public appears to have taken on board and collapsed his candidacy in the public mind.
Beijing’s carefully choreographed opera for Hong Kong’s quasi-election process has buckled so fast and so critically close to the end-game that it leaves Chinese officials scrambling. There are barely10 days left for the Hong Kong-Macau Affairs Office to quick-fix this crisis before the official deadline. The puppeteer has to pull the strings for the DAB, the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions and other allies to cast their nominations and votes to a revised script. But for which candidate?
The business lobby within the 1,200-member electoral college that selects the chief executive is stymied. The tycoons do not want CY Leung but voting for the third candidate Albert Ho of the Democratic Party is a waste as Beijing won’t even allow leading Democrats travel access into the mainland.
Beijing’s mantra of “preserving the stability and prosperity of Hong Kong” - which they adopted as the narrative from the British administration, is lacking a stage prop. The quasi-election is in real danger of degenerating into pure farce.
Regina Ip’s golden moment?
Regina Ip, infamous as security secretary for trying to ram through the flawed Article 23 Security Bill amendment in 2003 to align it with mainland-style criminalization of the freedom of assembly, expression, press freedom and guaranteed human rights, now leads the New People’s Party. She was elected to the Legislative Council in 2008. She declared her interest to run for chief executive before but withdrew when it became apparent that she could not secure the minimal 150 nominations.
Ip hopes the business lobby may swing behind her as the de-facto alternative to CY Leung. Despite a supportive response from her party caucus last night, she is still dithering, unsure if at this late stage she can secure the150 nominations or have time to pitch for votes from the Election Committee. She will need momentum which only a nod from Beijing can energize. She is viewed a ‘neutral’ candidate not beholden either to the business lobby or the leftists. She is well regarded by civil servants who fear the whip of CY Leung.
The nomination window for the selection process closes on 29 Feb and the Election Committee will vote on 25 March. If Ip does contest and is by default elected chief executive, she would have to resign from the party she founded. That is a stipulation of the Chief Executive Election Ordinance. Michael Tien is available to take up the leadership of the New People’s Party.
Regina Ip in a press interview at the start of the race described both Henry Tang and Cy Leung as lacking the necessary "leadership qualities, competence and stamina" for the top job. She had received feelers from both camps for the position of chief secretary in the civil service. She declared she would not serve in an administration of either candidate.
Why not CY Leung?
The government’s leak of the 10-year old conflict of interest issue on the West Kowloon Arts Centre design selection apart, CY Leung has conducted a dignified campaign on his own. No one in the HK administration has explained why it was necessary to exhume this 10-year old case at this time. It could have just ignored the East Week report instead of responding to it in the middle of the race.
Leung is neither a stooge of the business lobby nor leftwing ideologues, although his strident anti-British sentiment is well known. Beijing has long identified him as a patriot in Hong Kong. He was given very senior responsibility in drafting the Basic Law and as convenor of the post-1997 Exco.
He knows how the Hong Kong government operates and why it has been dysfunctional for the last 14 years. He understands the festering issues left unresolved and sympathizes with the bottom rung of society. He knows the tricks of the property lobby only too well and they fear him for that. He has been consistently preferred by a wide margin on all the public polls.
Perhaps it is in Leung’s consistently independent streak that Beijing has misgivings. The minders at the HK-Macau Affairs Office and the Central Government Liaison Office are relaxed about the vacuity of candidate Tang. He just coasts along and is happy to follow any path shown. Leung has a mind of his own. He thinks. Such men are dangerous? Asia Sentinel
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