Cablegram to Jakarta, Lisbon, Lima and New York

Canberra, 28 August 1975

O.CH260571 SECRET AUSTEO PRIORITY

Portuguese Timor

Personal for Minister, Woolcott, Cooper, Harry

In deciding to provide an RAAF aircraft to carry the Portuguese officers to Atauro (our O.CH2600651 ) timing and dangers to the aircraft and its passengers between Darwin and the island had to be taken into account.2 There were also other difficult policy questions to resolve. Although inconclusive you may find it useful to have an indication of Departmental thinking on those questions, which have implications for decisions Ministers may have to take on other matters relating to Portuguese Timor as the situation develops there.

1. On the one hand, the Australian national interest requires that, if the Indonesians do decide to intervene in Portuguese Timor, they should do so with as great a degree of international acceptance as possible. Hence our interest in some form of accounting to the UN for intervention (our O.CH2600023 and O.CH2589044 ) and in a continuing Indonesian public commitment to self-determination in Portuguese Timor, a commitment which we trust would be repeated in any Indonesian public announcement about intervention. At the least any intervention would be reported to the United Nations if only to the Secretary-General rather than to the Security Council. But the best prospect for international acceptance of an Indonesian intervention in Portuguese Timor would be for it to take place at the invitation of the Portuguese. They still play a big part politically and in any action that might be taken by others.
2. On the other hand, while Australia is not a party principal in Portuguese Timor it would scarcely be possible for the Australian Government, having regard to public opinion in Australia and the principles which inform its foreign policies, not to help in such ways as it could in facilitating negotiations between the parties in Portuguese Timor at the request of the Portuguese Government. Though Portugal is no longer able to exercise control it is the entity still legally and internationally responsible for Timor. If the Government had failed to respond to a Portuguese request for help it would have seemed to be hindering an attempt to restore order and find a political solution in Timor and indeed to be contributing to the continuation of the bloodshed there. We should have hoped that the Indonesians would appreciate arguments along these lines, especially against the background of the Prime Minister’s statement of 26 August on Portuguese Timor and his subsequent conversation with the Indonesian Ambassador. 5 In the same way, if Santos comes here we shall have to offer him assistance.
3. We realise that, while the prospects of a successful negotiation between the Timorese parties under Portuguese auspices are at best doubtful, so long as the Portuguese see or profess to see some prospects in such negotiations they are likely to delay their approach to the Indonesians. Here we need to take into account that certain of the activities of the Indonesians themselves (see O.UN365()6) could be interpreted as rendering Indonesian armed intervention less necessary and improving prospects for a negotiation between the Timorese parties.
4. But do the Portuguese need to see the Santos mission as necessarily precluding a request to Indonesians to assist in restoring law and order? Could not such a request be made before the Santos mission actually enters on its attempt to arrange negotiation? How indeed will the mission be able to operate, once on Atauro, without some degree of order in Dili? In a sense there has already been an Indonesian intervention, which seems to have enabled the Indonesians to negotiate a temporary ceasefire between the contending parties in Dili if only for the purpose of evacuation. Could not these negotiations be enlarged to cover wider political questions? Having had initial success, the Indonesians would seem well placed to slip into a wider role. And could not the Portuguese be encouraged formally to request Indonesia to initiate such a process which could, if successful, be enlarged and formalised to accommodate the Portuguese legal standing and role and perhaps subsume the discussions which the Portuguese hope to initiate at Atauro. Certainly, one consequence of this would be that the Indonesians would achieve some degree of acknowledged status in Portuguese Timor.
5. Foregoing ideas could be discussed at your discretion with Indonesians and Portuguese.
6. We note the useful outline in Lisbon’s O.LB2567 of Portugal’s thinking. It seems to us that the Portuguese will want to get out of Portuguese Timor with the least measure of international disapproval they can. But there must, however, be some residual fund of international goodwill towards the Portuguese because of the accelerated decolonisation the new regime has introduced, despite the bloodshed which has occurred in Angola and Portuguese Timor. The question is whether from the Portuguese point of view it is better for the Portuguese in their withdrawal from Timor to have Indonesian intervention occur, if it is to occur, at the invitation of the Portuguese or without it. Departmentally, our thinking is that Portugal’s international interests would be best served if an Indonesian intervention were to occur as a result of a Portuguese invitation.
7. Finally, without labouring the point, it might be mentioned that the thinking reflected above continues to lead the Department to the view that the best way out in Portuguese Timor will be by means of cooperation between the Indonesians and the Portuguese. We hope, therefore, that the Indonesians will make use of the Santos visit to explore the possibility of cooperation with the Portuguese, who, we think, are now showing a certain impartiality in their approach to the problem of Portuguese Timor and that the Portuguese for their part will see that cooperation with the Indonesians may enable them to extricate themselves from Portuguese Timor.

[NAA: A10463, 801/13/11/1, xii]

• 1 See note I to Document 194.
• 2 A submission to Whitlam on 27 August recommending the transport of Santos and his advance party records an ‘important caveat’ that ‘within a day or two the Indonesians might have launched a military operation … in which case we should probably have to cancel any planned flights’. The Defence Department had taken the view that each flight to Atauro should be subject to an individual operational decision by the Minister for Defence, based on the most up-to-date intelligence, and Indonesia should be given ‘very adequate forewarning’ of any RAAF flights.
• 3 Document 192.
• 4 Document 186.
• 5 Document 191 and 190.
• 6 27 August. It reported, inter alia, information from Sani that the Indonesian Consul in Dili and the Commander of the Indonesian naval destroyer in Dili harbour had persuaded the three parties to agree tentatively on a cease-fire to permit evacuation. Three smaller Indonesian warships were escorting vessels carrying rice to Dili and planning to return with evacuees. Mochtar had asked for a Portuguese guarantee of safety for personnel involved, a renewed request for humanitarian assistance and either an undertaking to organise unloading the rice or authority for Indonesia to do it. Girao had replied that nothing should be done until the arrival of Santos, who would have full authority; until then Indonesian ships should be withdrawn from the area.
• 7 Document 193.