Subject: SMH: Canberra "defeatist" on
Timor: US envoy
Date: Sat, 14 Aug 1999 09:19:13 -0400
From: "John M. Miller" <fbp@igc.apc.org>Received from Joyo Indonesian
News:
Sydney Morning Herald Tuesday, August 10, 1999
Canberra "defeatist" on Timor: US envoy
By PETER COLE-ADAMS, Foreign Affairs Correspondent
A senior United States official told the head of Australia's Foreign Affairs
Department, Dr Ashton Calvert, in February that he believed a full-scale peacekeeping
operation would be necessary in East Timor and that Australia's attitude was
"essentially defeatist".
Nine days ago, the Foreign Affairs Minister, Mr Downer, described reports of
differences between the two governments over peacekeeping as "completely false".
A day later, his department issued a media statement "categorically" denying
such differences.
But yesterday Mr Downer conceded the US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and
Pacific Affairs, Mr Stanley Roth, had expressed a "personal view" to Mr Calvert
at their February meeting.
He insisted that Mr Roth's view at that time, pushing for a peacekeeping force, had
never been official US policy.
A leaked copy of a DFAT record of the February Roth- Calvert discussion reveals there
was "one area of difference" over security in the territory.
"Roth's approach, which he admitted was a personal view given that he had not yet
discussed it with Secretary [of State, Dr Madeleine] Albright, or other agencies, was that
a full-scale peacekeeping operation would be an unavoidable aspect of the
transition," the document states.
"Without it, East Timor was likely to collapse. Roth saw no prospect for
reconciliation between East Timorese groups which could avert the need for significant
external intervention ...
"Roth suggested that Australia's position of keeping peace keeping at arms length
was essentially defeatist, and that it was necessary to go forth and persuade Congress and
UN member states that it simply had to be done."
The DFAT document says that Dr Calvert had argued the need for the international
community to induce the East Timorese and Indonesian leaders to work towards an orderly
and peaceful transition to inde pendence or autonomy and to avert the need for
peacekeeping.
Mr Downer told Parliament yesterday that the Australian and US governments had worked
together closely and that he believed that at no stage had it been official US policy to
push for a peacekeeping force.
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