Australia and East Timor are at loggerheads over
drawing a maritime boundary to finally and permanently resolve the division of
undersea oil and gas resources. What might ordinarily be regarded as a quarrel
between otherwise close friends has slowly festered into a toxic dispute, and
now presents a serious obstacle to cordial neighbourly relations.
Trust has seemingly evaporated,
in large part because of the extraordinary allegation that Australia spied on
its tiny neighbour during its first days of independence to win commercial
advantage. There is also a vexed history of Australia's dealings with Indonesia
during the years of occupation. It is a notable sign of how prickly relations
have become that no senior Australian politician, other than deputy Labor
leader Tanya Plibersek, has visited East Timor since 2013, shortly
after the spying claims first came to light.
The allegation is that Australian
intelligence agents, under the guise of aid workers, bugged the cabinet office
in Dili in 2004 during negotiations for a deal to share undersea resources,
known as the Treaty on Certain Maritime Arrangements in the Timor Sea. The
treaty included a 50-50 split for resources in a rich gas field known as Greater
Sunrise, but put off final negotiations on a maritime boundary for 50 years.
East Timor declared the treaty
invalid in 2013 and instigated proceedings against Australia in The Hague in a
bid to resolve the dispute. It is true Dili's hopes of developing Greater
Sunrise have long been frustrated. It wants a pipeline to the south coast of
East Timor for processing the resources, rather than proposals to use
facilities in Darwin or a floating processing platform. But the
cloak-and-dagger suspicions swirling around this case have fuelled a not
unreasonable perception of bullying by the larger neighbour.
Shortly before the arbitration
was to begin, ASIO raided the home and offices of an Australian lawyer working
on the case. Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has also confiscated the passport of
a former Australian Secret Intelligence Service officer, known as "Witness
K", which has prevented him from travelling to the arbitration hearing to
testify. Australia disputes the spying allegation, and has every right to defend
its conduct.
But the view that Australia has
acted unreasonably is compounded by the otherwise inexplicable decision in 2002
to exempt itself under the law of the sea from any arbitration proceedings to
resolve maritime boundaries. This exemption was announced just before East
Timor formally won its independence.
East Timor has now turned to a
never before invoked "conciliation commission" provision in
international law in a bid to force negotiation. Dili claims the Greater
Sunrise deposits fall entirely within its territory, and the existing
arrangement was unfairly forced upon a new nation desperate for income but
poorly equipped to negotiate. The first hearing was broadcast live from the
Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague last week. Former guerrilla and
independence hero Xanana Gusmao told of being "shocked and appalled"
when he first heard of the alleged espionage.
This is an appeal to
Australians' sense of fairness. Australia's stubborn response is
disappointing. The government chose to reject the jurisdiction of the
conciliation commission. Should its challenge fail, it has said it will
participate in the process, but made a point of stressing before the hearing
had even got under way that any outcome is not enforceable.
When friends fall out, it can
sometimes take an independent mediator to make a judgment about who stands on
the side of right. Australia should see conciliation as a chance to move this
bitter dispute towards a resolution
The
Age, Melbourne
Basically the deep state is there to protect the criminal enterprise called Government.
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