A arrogância australiana perante Timor-Leste

In the late 1990s, the growing surge for independence in Timor-Leste threw all previous agreements between Indonesia and Australia into doubt. In anticipation, Australia withdrew its recognition of the maritime boundary dispute jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, just two months prior to Timor-Leste’s declaration of independence. At the time, Downer asserted that it was it was Australia’s ‘strong view is that any maritime boundary dispute is best settled by negotiation rather than litigation.’ Timor Sea agreements between the newly independent Timor-Leste and Australia were then negotiated directly between the two countries, without reference to UNCLOS. The resulting Timor Sea Treaty (signed in 2002, ratified in 2003) established that fields in the Joint Petroleum Development Area (JPDA), such as Bayu Undan, are shared via a 90% (Timor-Leste) and 10% (Australia) split, an improvement on the 50/50 split under Indonesian rule. This appears considerably more equitable than the earlier arrangement; however, it must be kept in mind that Australia would not be entitled to any of these resources under the median line principle. During the negotiations, Timor-Leste repeatedly tried to raise the issue of permanent maritime boundaries along a median line, prompting this well documented outburst from Alexander Downer: ‘We don’t have to exploit the resources (in Bayu Undan). They can stay there for 20, 40, 50 years…. We are very tough. We will not care if you give information to the media. Let me give you a tutorial in politics- not a chance.’ Another key problem of the Timor Sea Treaty was its link to the Sunrise-International Unification Agreement (referred to in this article as the ‘Sunrise Agreement’). Despite the Greater Sunrise field falling entirely in Timor-Leste’s maritime territory under UNCLOS, the Sunrise Agreement stated that less than 20% of Greater Sunrise lay within the JPDA, with the remaining 80% assigned to Australia. Australia would not ratify the Timor Sea Treaty until Timor had signed the Sunrise Agreement, delaying desperately needed cash flow to Timor from Bayu Undan. At the time, Greens Senator Bob Brown accused the Howard Government of ‘blackmail’, and was suspended from the Senate for the day as a result. Timor-Leste is now claiming, through its case at the Permanent Court of Arbitration, that Australia was well aware of its desperate position through the bugging of government offices in Dili, and that these agreements were made in bad faith on Australia’s part. Timor-Leste resisted ratifying the Sunrise Agreement for years after signing it, and in 2006 the Certain Maritime Arrangements in the Timor Sea (CMATS) Treaty was devised as a compromise, giving each country a 50% share of Greater Sunrise. The treaty also came with the condition that Timor-Leste would not raise the issue for another fifty years, thus effectively closing the possibility for Timor-Leste to set permanent maritime boundaries, at least until after Timor Sea oil and gas reserves had been exhausted. As far back as 1974, it was acknowledged in Australian government circles that it was important to balance Australia’s resource aspirations with establishing a cooperative relationship with an independent Timor-Leste: ‘If Australia thus became a focus of antagonism, we would almost certainly lose much of our capability to influence or assist a newly independent government’ (38 Cablegram to New York, 1974). Australia is acknowledged as a key actor in Timor-Leste’s independence narrative; our assistance through the INTERFET peace keeping force during the 1999 independence referendum and subsequent violence is well remembered and appreciated, and AusAID (now DFAT) contributes roughly $116 million per year in aid expenditure, making Australia Timor’s largest bilateral donor. However, it has also been well noted that Australia’s profits from Timor Sea reserves, both during Indonesian occupation and post-independence, far outweigh the costs of any military and humanitarian assistance to Timor-Leste. As Dias exclaimed during our conversation: ‘You can’t give me a hand and take my arm!’ That the alleged spying occurred under the cover of an AusAID program is uncomfortably symbolic of Australia’s long-standing position towards Timor-Leste. Timorese sovereignty and Australia’s economic self-interest in the Timor Sea have never sat easily together. In January 2014, Downer wrote an opinion piece promoting Australia as a responsible international citizen after a series of attacks by the ABC and others, describing such criticism as a ‘standard practice at the ABC. Whenever a foreigner criticises us, it’s always our fault.’ Downer describes CMATS as an act of charitable goodwill by the Australia government: ‘In 2006 we struck a deal with the Timorese: we’d give them 50 percent of the revenue (of Greater Sunrise) because they were poor and we were rich….We didn’t really need the money to the extent that they did.’ Strikingly, not once in Downer’s opinion piece does he mention the awkward reality of the median line principle and UNCLOS, which might suggest that Australia may have ‘given away’ that which was, in fact, not its to give. The upcoming months may prove to be dramatic for the relationship between Australia and Timor-Leste. It could well be that Australia walks away from the Permanent Court of Arbitration not just with the loss of Greater Sunrise, but with an unenviable reputation as a country that conducts international agreements in bad faith, and exploits small, poor countries for its own economic gain. The game may well have changed. If Timor-Leste is successful in the Court, it will certainly seek to establish its own permanent maritime boundaries, in accordance with the median line principle. For Timor-Leste, this would be the conclusion of a struggle for self-determination spanning forty years. For Australia, it may well prove to be a clear sign that its economic self-interest in the Timor Sea is simply at odds with both the sovereignty of its tiny neighbor, and principles of international law. Perhaps having it both ways was never really possible. Sarita Ryan, teacher and researcher of labour, education and informal economies.