PETER CRONAU A Sydney journalist who works for the ABC Four Corners investigative programme.

Correcting the myth of East Timor

Reluctant Saviour: , Indonesia and the Independence of East Timor, by Clinton Fernandes, 2004. Melbourne: Scribe Publications. 138 pp. ISBN 1 920769 28 5

HE MEDIA are willing partners public stories. This is particularly Tin the creation of myths. In Aus- important with more contemporary tralia, the ‘Anzac Cove’ and ‘Don stories – such as the truth about refu- Bradman’ stories have been writ large. gees who never threw their children All usually told without much refer- overboard, the non-existent weapons ence to the political context, or to the of mass destruction used to justify alternate histories that might also be Australia’s participation in the Iraq explained. invasion, and one other myth that has Usually the cue is taken from remained largely unchallenged in the some major figures giving their analy- media, that of the late 1990s role of sis of an event, and the media just the Australian Government in the lib- takes a big megaphone to amplify the eration of East Timor. view. But should it be so? Shouldn’t The world knows that the Aus- the media be trying to deconstruct the tralian Liberal Government in 1999 line being offered? liberated the East Timorese from 24 Many good journalists do try to years of Indonesian occupation, right? tell the public the truth about key That’s certainly the line served up by

210 PACIFIC JOURNALISM REVIEW 10 (2) 2004 MEDIA OWNERSHIP AND DEMOCRACY Prime Minister John Howard when independence vote, despite much ad- he claimed it as the Australian Gov- vice and evidence against this. ernment’s greatest source of pride: The ’s posi- tion on post-Suharto East Timor was The story of Australia at the moment visible early on, in the letter he sent to is a story of immense achievement of new President Habibie in December great strength and enormous pride. I 1998. It came as an attempt to counter don’t think this country has stood a new policy initiative crafted by taller and stronger in the chanceries Labor Shadow Foreign Minister, of the world than it does at the present time. … Above all the achievement Laurie Brereton and his adviser Dr of bringing to the people of East Phillip Dorling, to dump Labor’s long- Timor the freedom that they had the held policy supporting Indonesian oc- opportunity of voting for and they cupation. voted for so overwhelmingly. … that The letter was leaked to many is a source of enormous strength to journalists at the time, but remained this country and a source of very fairly inaccessible to the public till great pride and it reflects enormous only recently. Shame, as it tells the credit on the Coalition Government story of the Howard Government’s (Howard, 1999). real intentions on East Timor:

That is normally pretty much it. That My dear President, … I want to em- is the story that has been peddled by phasise that Australia’s support for repeated media stories, by prominent Indonesia’s sovereignty is unchanged. rightwing columnists, and by the Lib- It has been a long-standing Austral- eral Government itself. But with thou- ian position that the interests of Aus- sands dead, and the infrastructure of tralia, Indonesia and East Timor are East Timor destroyed, all at the hands best served by East Timor remaining of the Indonesian military, and their part of Indonesia. … It might be proxies, there is a lot more to it. The worth considering a means of ad- Australian INTERFET troops who dressing the East Timorese desire for an act of self-determination in a man- deployed to East Timor certainly de- ner that avoids an early and final serve the greatest praise for actually decision on the future status of the securing a peace in Timor. The extent province. … [This] would allow time of death and destruction happened to convince the East Timorese of the significantly because the Australian benefits of autonomy within the In- Government had accepted the Indo- donesian republic (1998). nesian provision of security for the

PACIFIC JOURNALISM REVIEW 10 (2) 2004 211 MEDIA OWNERSHIP AND DEMOCRACY The letter, contrary to most media That ‘last chance’ involved Australia reports that still depict it as a request arguing on Indonesia’s behalf in pub- to the Indonesians for independence lic forums and in the media that the for East Timor, was actually a bold Indonesian generals could be trusted attempt to help Indonesia retain its – despite their blood-soaked reputa- hold on East Timor. Dispelling this tion, and despite publicly known in- myth is the theme of an important telligence advice that warned of the new work, Reluctant Saviour, by Indonesian intentions to try to hold Melbourne historian and former mili- the territory or, failing that, to destroy tary analyst, Clinton Fernandes. it. By trawling through the public We know now that President record of the events of the time, Habibie rejected the Australian ad- Fernandes has amassed a convincing vice to indefinitely delay an inde- collection of little-known evidence pendence vote, and instead opted for showing just how reluctant the Aus- an immediate referendum on inde- tralian Government was to assist the pendence. But the Australian govern- Timorese. He has used often obscure ment, ever with an eye on the opinion examples, passed-over by the media polling showing enormous public sup- at the time, to show the true intent of port for the Timorese, was happy to the government. claim credit for this – and the media The book shows one of Austral- largely fell into line, and so a myth ia’s most senior diplomats, DFAT was born. Deputy Secretary John Dauth, now Reluctant Saviour helps set the Australia’s ambassador to the UN, at record straight, showing that the a Senate hearing in 1999, confirming Howard Government’s efforts were that Howard’s letter was designed as designed ‘to contain the forces of an effort to strengthen Indonesia’s independence’ (p 39). In this task, hold on East Timor: Fernandes uses sources available to any journalist – indeed all of his A very important part of our thinking sources are from the public record. at the time that the Prime Minister Fernandes explains how a reform- dispatched his letter, was that Indo- ist President Habibie used Howard’s nesia really had only one last chance letter as a catalyst for drawing sup- to keep East Timor as part of Indone- port from his reluctant military who sia (Senate References Committee, 1999). believed they could orchestrate a sham UN referendum in East Timor, just as

212 PACIFIC JOURNALISM REVIEW 10 (2) 2004 MEDIA OWNERSHIP AND DEMOCRACY they had done in West Papua 30 years nalists and the UN, then provoking earlier. He writes: open warfare with the Timorese re- sistance at the same time evacuating For the strategy to work, the Indone- half of the population – what sian military needed a foreign ally to Fernandes, echoing , provide diplomatic cover in the inter- describes as ‘the Carthaginian solu- national arena. Such an ally would tion’. run the propaganda line that East Explaining why this did not oc- Timorese society was not united on the question of independence, but cur is the book’s paramount achieve- divided between rival factions so hos- ment. Buried under the Howard Gov- tile towards each other that only the ernment’s myth of championing the presence of the military was prevent- independence of the East Timorese, ing a civil war (p 47). is the story of activists’ and the pub- lic’s efforts to support the Timorese. Fernandes concludes that ‘the Howard (The book is devoted to the late Government filled this role of an ideal Andrew McNaughtan, ‘and his foreign ally. At every stage the transnational family of activists’.) The Howard government’s diplomacy deep support for the East Timorese worked in concert with the strategy of always held by the Australian public plausible denial, and functioned to found a focus – supporting the ballot reduce the prospect of international result and demanding action from the intervention’ (p 48). Government. The book runs through the chro- Fernandes mounts a convincing nology of media reports of the time argument that a combination of mas- showing the Australian Government sive public concern, expressed partly denying or minimising atrocities, and in street rallies and in media talkback, defending the Indonesian military. A and the mounting threat of massive series of intelligence leaks showed union action against Indonesian in- the media how they were being mis- terests, was roused by the organising led, but the Government continued to efforts of seasoned activists, and the deflect calls upon the Indonesians to nightly reporting in the media. let in international peacekeepers. Fernandes’ descriptions of the Reluctant Saviour reveals the full rushed Defence response to set up an nature of the Indonesian military’s East Timor response team in a tempo- plans to subvert and overthrow the rary conference room at Defence HQ results of the ballot, by removing jour- a week after the ballot, shows just

PACIFIC JOURNALISM REVIEW 10 (2) 2004 213 MEDIA OWNERSHIP AND DEMOCRACY how quickly the Australian govern- Liberal Government policy towards ment policy position changed. Pru- the Indonesian terror in East Timor. It dent military planning had prepared debunks the fondly-held myth that for the possibility of the peacekeep- the Government of the time urged and ing operation, but absence of govern- supported an independence referen- ment policy for peacekeepers until dum. It reminds us that the media the last moment had left the military must look behind such myth-making, scurrying to be ready. and not forget the same Government The book makes use of informa- has failed to push for the prosecution tion that has been made public in a of the Indonesian perpetrators who little-reported 2002 Audit Office re- are set to continue their handiwork in view of Defence’s performance which other areas of the Indonesian archi- found that ‘the actual nature and size pelago. of the military operations to be under- taken were not clear until shortly be- Note fore deployment’ (p 109). Many of Peter Cronau’s documentary on Austral- the military preparations, Fernandes ian-Indonesian ties, Intelligence Wars, points out, were in support of a short ran on ABC Radio in May 2004. The views in this article are his and do not evacuation operation by the Austral- represent the views of the ABC or the ian defence force – shown for exam- Four Corners programme. ple by the scramble to find enough [email protected] fresh food for the deployed forces – rather than the new mission, of peace- References keeping. Howard, J. (1999). Transcript of speech The success of the peacekeeping by Prime Minister given at the official mission in taking over from the Indo- launch of the Millennium Forum, Syd- ney, November 30. nesian occupation force and its ragtag Senate References Committee on For- militias has overshadowed a view of eign Affairs, Defence and Trade. the reluctance of the Australian Gov- (1999, December 9). Hansard, p 1028; ernment – an institutional reluctance cited in Reluctant Saviour, p 39.] which crumbled in the face of the Text of Prime Minister Howard’s Letter to President Habibie. (1998, Decem- overwhelming vote for independence, ber 19). Annex 2, East Timor in Tran- and the massive public support for the sition 1998-2000: An Australian Policy Timorese. Challenge. : Department of Reluctant Saviour presents for us Foreign Affairs and Trade, 2001. a concise chronicle of the Howard

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