Timor Leste is a small island nation of 1.3 million people to the north of Australia that was subject to Portuguese colonial rule from 1702 until 1975.
In that year the military dictatorship was overthrown and the Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor (Fretilin) seized power and declared independence.
Nine days later Indonesia’s military dictatorship invaded and incorporated the territory. A bloody war between Indonesia and Fretelen continued which resulted in 200,000 deaths among the Timorese.
New Zealand and Australia never criticized Indonesia or supported the independence struggle.
The Labour Party-led governments in Australia and New Zealand supported the Indonesian invasion.
For the next two decades years, they opposed the independence movement despite the genocide being committed by Indonesia.
After the end of the Suharto dictatorship, an UN-supervised referendum was held on independence with the vote in favour.
Indondonesian-backed militias fought a violent campaign to maintain Indonesian rule. The UN asserted its control with military forces supplied by Australia and New Zealand among others.
Fretilin won the elections overwhelmingly and established an independent government.
Australia then immediately put in process a secret campaign, including the use of spies and bugging government offices, to deprive this desperately poor, newly independent nation of as much of the oil and gas resources that existed in the waters between the two countries as possible.
Wikipedia notes:
The Australia–East Timor spying scandal began in 2004 when the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) clandestinely planted covert listening devices in a room adjacent to the East Timor (Timor-Leste) Prime Minister’s Office at Dili, to obtain information in order to ensure Australia held the upper hand in negotiations with East Timor over the rich oil and gas fields in the Timor Gap.[1] Even though the East Timor government was unaware of the espionage operation undertaken by Australia, negotiations were hostile. The first Prime Minister of East Timor, Mari Alkatiri, bluntly accused the Howard Government of plundering the oil and gas in the Timor Sea, stating:
“Timor-Leste loses $1 million a day due to Australia’s unlawful exploitation of resources in the disputed area. Timor-Leste cannot be deprived of its rights or territory because of a crime.”
A settlement on the issue wasn’t finally reached until 2018 after the public humiliation Australia suffered.
The wealthy capitalist countries like Australia and New Zealand – led by the US, have plotted and waged war on poor and developing country after country to impose their domination so they can exploit the labour and raw materials they contain. NZ uses its military and spy services to serve that empire and its interests.
As the NZ Herald reports:
New Zealand is spying indiscriminately on its allies in the Pacific region and sharing the information with the US and the other “Five Eyes” alliance states, according to documents from the whistleblower Edward Snowden.
The secret papers, published by the New Zealand Herald, show that the New Zealand Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) collects phone calls and internet communications in bulk in the region at its Waihopai Station intercept facility in the South Island.
The regional surveillance conducted from the base covers Tuvalu, Nauru, Kiribati, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands. New Caledonia and French Polynesia, both French overseas territories, are also among the listed countries. Although Samoa, Fiji, Tonga and Vanuatu are named, much of their data is now transmitted via undersea cable links that are not susceptible to Waihopai’s intercept satellites.
When these countries ask China for trade and security assistance, its seems to me to be a natural and necessary step of self-protection against their so-called democratic “friends and allies.”
Nothing has changed. The NZ GCSB helped the Australians spy on East Timor’s government to rip the poorest country in the Pacific off over a gas deal.
As long as we maintain ties with evil regimes like America and Australia, we are in the wrong.
There was an accusation of ‘plundering the oil and gas in the Timor Sea’. What evidence/proof was there for this plundering?
CM, get real.
Not a decent answer!
I hate to say this, but 1975 was the year that The Muldoon government, and the Fraser govts were elected.. It was a time when both NZ and Oz were still utterly subservient to the USA, and we all know that Indonesia is a satellite of the Americans, so to speak out would have been fraught with consequences… In saying that, I have spent a large part of my adult life in Australia, and this was talked about over there, but it was a minority opinion that pointed up the injustices being inflicted upon Timor.. At no point whatsoever that there were labour governments in power when the theft of the gas reserves in the Timor sea were stolen.. I well remember when the Howard liberal/national govt secured those reserves, as the same government was able to sell off all the gas fields off the north west shelf of Australia to China, which presaged a massive infrastructure boom in WA.. At one point, I was clearing around $2500 working on the port being built to service the Barrow island refinery… NZ never got a mention… But that is normal for the Oz media. Even so, those that were agitating against the theft of Timorese property, who I was interacting with as we moved in similar circles never once mentioned NZ.. That being said, I am fully prepared to accept that NZ’s spy bases were used to gather relevant information that would have assisted the planning that was required to perpetrate the theft… My point is here, that the Labour govts in both NZ, and Australia were at the end of their life, so the fact that before the year was out, both countries had governments that were joined at the hip to the American administration.. The nats in NZ were obsequious enough to the yanks, but they paled in comparison to the outright groveling the Fraser govt indulged in…
> At no point whatsoever that there were labour governments in power when the theft of the gas reserves in the Timor sea were stolen..
On the chance you are acting in good faith, the treaty was signed in 2006. The treaty, and the prior assistance from New Zealand’s GCSB in Australian spying on the Timorese government happened under the Clark government. You know, the one that also sent NZ troops to assist in the American occupation of Iraq?
What has the Ardern government done to cut ties with the bloodstained butchers of the Five Eyes? Nothing, in fact, they’ve got even further into bed with those bloodthirsty psychopaths. The only reason for any left-wing government to maintain any ties with them would be to launch an internal cyberattack before arresting every American involved in Five Eyes spying in the country and trying them for their crimes against humanity.
NZ is in the Australian constitution as Australia’s 8th State! Look it up.
Dili hold a special place in my Heart, as one of the most depressing Capital cities I’ve ever been.
The people are lovely, the weather was wonderful, the sunsets are to die for, and a full Moon their is amazing experience that defies description.
It was the late 90’s, and well the Indo army was all over the place.
We could not go out at night, but were we stayed was awesome. Big grounds, such beauty with the smells and the food.
But depressing. The threat of violence everywhere.
I’d love to go back, but I’m to embarrassed. Embarrassed for all the diggers who put in thousands of hours to get the people their their freedom and some human dignity. I’m embarrassed that I helped in my own small way to free a people, only have poverty cripple their society. But most of all I’m embarrassed it was my country that helped steal the natural resources from a newly formed nation – in a replay of all the worst of Neo-colonial barbarism.
Typo in the title! Come on TDB -proofread !
That’s no “typo” – Aussies often fail to pronounce the “L” in words, and so pronounce their country’s name as “Ozztrayaa”. Australian former cricketer, and later cricket commentator, Bill Lawry was among the worst, and he had three “Ls” in his name.