Canberra, 28 April 1969
Secret
Border situation1
• Spoke to the Minister.
• He feels very strongly that stiff formal protest should be sent, that it should seek assurance re appropriate instructions to Indonesian border police and that it should say we are reinforcing border posts and want to avoid further incidents of kind which occurred at weekend.
• I mentioned that I had talked to External Affairs and that that Department, whilst accepting the idea of a formal protest, wanted to await Freeth’s return tomorrow morning.2 The Minister said we should go along with this.
• Minister himsel fraised question of P.I.R. and said he thought we ought to locate appropriate size units along the border in a background role to back up police if necessary.
• He commented that police should be armed and it should be made clear to Indonesians that if our people were fired upon again we regretted we would simply have to defend ourselves.
• In commenting on Jockel’s message about Malik’s agreement that Indonesian border police should ignore dissident camps near border3 I mentioned that earlier in the year when the Indonesian patrol had crossed into T.P.N.G. we had received a similar message from Loveday4and this underlined the need for formal instructions being given now with an assurance from the Indonesians that they would be enforced. He agreed with this.
• Spoke to Booker again and he said that in view of recent press announcement that whole complication5 of matter had now changed and that there was likely to be a row in Parliament. He said that Government had a political requirement to play it cool with the Indonesians and all the publicity which appeared to be being given to the incident would react strongly against this requirement. He therefore felt that a protest might not now be in order.
• I repeated Minister’s firm view that we should make stiff protest and it was agreed that matter would be resolved in morning following consultations with Ministers. Booker also agreed that any messages to Djakarta should be cleared by us.6
[NAA: A452, 1969/2608]
1 Hay had reported that Indonesian forces had crossed the border on 26 April in the course of an operation against a refugee camp opposite Wutung village and station. Hay wrote that the Indonesians had raided a hamlet, and fired on and threatened unarmed Territory officials. Final retreat occurred after lengthy discussion with Wutung’s OIC (cablegram 1219, DEA to Djakarta, 28 April 1969, NAA: A1838, 3034/10/1/4 part 5; for a later report from Hay, see telex 3019, 29 April 1969, ibid.).
2 DEA had previously advised Territories ‘to keep public handling of the matter in a low key’ (cablegram 1207, DEA to Djakarta, 27 April 1969, ibid.). Jockel (who had replaced Loveday on 17 March) later reported that Freeth—who was in Djakarta—‘supports [the] view that [the] matter should be handled in low key’ (cablegram 1067, Jockel to DEA, 28 April 1969, ibid.).
3 In conversation with Jockel, Malik (who was aware of the incident) had agreed with the suggestion that the camps be ignored ‘for the time being’ (loc. cit.).
4 See Document 255.
5 Presumably, this should read ‘complexion’.
6 Jockel spoke with Soepardjo on 29 April and was told that Soemitro had given his ‘full agreement not only that Indonesian police were not to cross the border into Australian territory in pursuit of refugees, but also that they were not to try and intercept refugees wanting to go across into our territory’. Soepardjo also said that there had been ‘gaps’ in communication between Irian and Djakarta. Jockel commented to DEA that in time he expected ‘some effective action on the ground’ and that, although it was doubtful the Indonesians would simply watch refugees moving toward PNG, ‘in practical terms this may mean they will be less aggressive in operations against the dissident camps in the border regions’. Jockel also reported a remark by Malik that the incident was being investigated and that Indonesia would ‘satisfactorily resolve with Australia’ if reports were verified. Jockel concluded: ‘In this connection, I hope you will be able to avoid any question of a formal protest. To do so would be to li[f]t these matters into major proportions affecting the relations of the two governments and to imply doubt about the good faith of the present Indonesian government. Moreover, while the Indonesian government would accept that we had the right to react strongly, they would feel that such an action on our part would be a setback to their efforts to restore relations of confidence among their neighbours and their international good standing. The firmness and admirable discipline shown by our own officers in the incident … will not be lost on the Indonesian officials dealing with this matter’ (cablegram 1079, Jockel to DEA, 29 April 1969, NAA: A1838, 3034/10/1/4 part 5). External Affairs apparently recommended to Freeth that ‘every effort should be made to avoid any question of a formal protest’ (see undated submission, J.R. Rowland (First Assistant Secretary, Division I, DEA) to Freeth, ibid., which appears to have been the basis of a teletype message to Freeth in Perth (not found)), to which Freeth responded: ‘I agree that [a] strong protest on [the] border incident is not … desirable. Malik has assured me his government will take appropriate action. Better results will be obtained by follow up talks in Djakarta to ascertain what action has been taken and to sug[gest] what more if anything can be done to restrain excitable and over zealous local officials’ (teletype message, Freeth to Booker, 29 April 1969, ibid.). In Territories, Warwick Smith wrote (30 April) in the margins of Besley’s minute: ‘We need to follow up the question of a formal protest. I don’t think what has been done is enough to rest on’.