Canberra, 20 July 1976
O.CH383967 RESTRICTED IMMEDIATE
Timor
The following press statement is to be issued in Canberra later today.
Begins
The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Andrew Peacock, said today that the Government had long held the view that the process of decolonisation in East Timor should be based on a proper act of self-determination, preferably carried out with the observation and participation of the United Nations.
‘In the case of the consultative acts carried out in East Timor on 31 May and 24 June there must still be uncertainty about how extensive and representative the exercise of self-determination has been,’ he said.
Mr Peacock recalled that Indonesia had invited the United Nations to send its representative to East Timor, and had renewed the invitation on several occasions. In doing so, Indonesia and the PGET gave assurances of freedom of movement in all thirteen districts of the territory.
‘We ourselves made repeated representations to the United Nations seeking a return visit by Mr Winspeare Guicciardi’, he said. ‘We encouraged other Governments to make similar representations’.
‘We informed the Secretary-General that if Fretilin were able to name an accessible venue in East Timor for a meeting with Mr Winspeare Guicciardi and if all parties had given satisfactory assurances of safety, Australia would have been prepared to consider a request from the United Nations for help with transport’.
The Minister said that the Government regretted, in all these circumstances, that further efforts were not made by the United Nations to play a more decisive role.
‘The present situation is that Indonesia has moved, without United Nations involvement, to integrate East Timor as its twenty-seventh province,’ he said. ‘But in the circumstances Australia cannot regard the broad requirements for a satisfactory process of decolonisation as having been met’.1
Ends
[NAA: Al209, 76/55, vi]
- 1 Initial Australian press reaction was critical of the statement as not strong enough. The Indonesian press gave it wide coverage and reported Malik’s comment: ‘I understand Minister Peacock’s way of thinking but he should also understand the way of thinking of the people of East Tunor who want to integrate with their fellow brothers in Indonesia’ (Cablegram JA7921, 22 July 1976).The Australian Embassy in Jakarta requested further advice on ‘how the conditions of decolonisation can now be fulfilled in the future. Guidance on this point would be appreciated in case the Indonesians raise with us the question of whether we formally object to integration, as Radio Australia reported last night, or whether we intend to contest the legality of integration. The latter could of course have serious consequences here’ (Cablegram JA7904, 21July 1976).Cablegram CH385239 (22 July 1976) conveyed Canberra’s reply: ‘we do not wish to elaborate on or interpret in any way the Minister’s statement. If pressed something would probably have to be said to the effect that the statement means non-recognition of integration. The corollary, of course, is that Indonesia would do better not to press us’. In a later discussion with Woolcott, Moerdani asked ‘what the final paragraph really meant. I said that we had received no elaboration of the statement and that I thought it would be preferable not to make an issue of its interpretation. Moerdani said that, speaking frankly, he and other senior Indonesians had been “annoyed” by the statement’ (Cablegram JA8119, 2 August 1976).