Subject: SMH: Why Australia kept Timor secrets from
the US
Date: Sat, 14 Aug 1999 09:40:05 -0400
From: Joyo@aol.comSydney Morning Herald Friday, August 13, 1999
Why we kept Timor secrets from the US
By MARIAN WILKINSON, Herald Correspondent in Washington
Australia refused a direct request to hand over sensitive intelligence material to the
United States State Department detailing links between the Indonesian armed forces and
pro-Jakarta militias involved in violence and intimidation in East Timor.
The US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian Affairs, Mr Stanley Roth, made the
request earlier this year on several occasions to Australia's Ambassador in Jakarta, Mr
John McCarthy, including in a face-to-face meeting.
He pressed the same request in Washington with Australia's Ambassador to the US, Mr
Andrew Peacock. Both envoys refused to make the information available after consulting
officials.
The first request from Mr Roth came about March this year at a time of increased
assaults and killings by the militias and after media reports indicating that the
Indonesian military was working directly with some of the militias.
Australia's refusal to supply the information to Mr Roth, the Clinton Administration's
senior specialist on the region, appears highly unusual, but one official explained the
rebuff as a need to protect sensitive Australian intelligence sources on the ground in
Indonesia.
The detail sought by Mr Roth included the chain of command between units of the
Indonesian Army and the militias.
Mr Roth was told by Mr McCarthy that the top-secret intelligence he was requesting was
classified AUSTEO - for Australian Eyes Only. Mr Peacock apparently repeated that
explanation to him.
Australia provides a significant amount of intelligence on Indonesia and East Timor to
the US as part of its treaty obligations. But the particular detail being sought by Mr
Roth was"outside the system", as one official put it.
While Mr Roth apparently accepted Australia's explanation for withholding the critical
intelligence, his request indicates that Washington was extremely concerned over the role
of the Indonesian armed forces in the violence in East Timor leading up to this month's
vote on independence.
US and Australian officials this week sought to play down strains over the East Timor
policy but it is clear that a key difference between the two countries has been whether
the Indonesian armed forces can be relied on to maintain order and prevent worsening
violence after the August 30 vote - especially if the Timorese choose independence.
The intelligence information requested by Mr Roth could have helped the US assess
whether the Indonesian military and police will live up to the expectations raised in the
United Nations-Indonesia-Portugal agreement giving them responsibility for security, with
advice from unarmed international police and military officers.
Early this year, shortly before Mr Roth's request for this intelligence information, he
and the head of Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Dr Ashton Calvert,
met in Washington where a dispute emerged over the role of the Indonesian military during
the transition period after the vote.
According to a record of the meeting, at the time Mr Roth favoured a multinational
peacekeeping force on the ground in East Timor after the vote because without it
"East Timor was likely to collapse".
Australia was being "defeatist" for rejecting the idea, Mr Roth argued, and
he urged attempts to persuade the US Congress and the UN on a peacekeeping force.
Australia, on the other hand, favoured avoiding "a military option by the use of
adept diplomacy".
As recently as June 21, senior officers of the US Pacific Command in Hawaii were also
raising the possible need for a large-scale peace "enforcement" operation in
East Timor after the vote, according to documents leaked in Canberra this week.
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