Enver Masud, "Greed At Core Of
Indonesia's Timor Problem," The Wisdom Fund, September 22, 1999
[Alkatiri, in particular, raised the ire of Canberra during the protracted
negotiations over the exploitation of the oil and gas reserves when he
denounced the Australian government for its bullying tactics.
After four years of intransigence from Howard and Downer, the Dili
government was last year forced to agree to delay the final settlement of
the maritime border between the two countries for 50 to 60 years. Under
international boundary law - which Australia has refused to recognise - East
Timor is entitled to most of the oil and gas revenues. But Canberra finally
succeeded in having Dili drop its claim of sovereignty over key
resource-rich areas of the Timor Sea for two generations; by which time the
main oil and gas fields will be commercially exhausted.--Nick Beams, "Why
Australia wants 'regime change' in East Timor," wsws.org, May 30, 2006]
[East Timor possesses considerable oil and gas deposits. But that industry
does not create many jobs, and the revenues, now growing faster than
expected because of high oil prices, are yet to be felt by people like
Almeida and his wife.--Jane Perlez, "Billions in
aid brought East Timor little," New York Times, May 31, 2006]
[The history of East Timor independence is also the history of Australian
policy flip-flops and attempts to lay hands on the vast oil deposits in the
surrounding seas, now valued at over 30 billion US dollars. Yet, Australia
has always painted its support for East Timorese independence as a "human
rights" or "humanitarian" mission.--Kalinga Seneviratne, "EAST TIMOR:
Australia - Peacekeeper or Petroleum Predator?," Inter Press Service, June
22, 2006]
Lirio da Fonseca, "Gusmao in resignation ultimatum," Reuters, June
23, 2006
Chad Bouchard, "East Timor Ruling
Party Keeps Embattled PM Alkatiri," voanews.com, June 25, 2006
"Embattled
East Timor PM resigns," BBC News, June 26, 2006
Jane Perlez, "A
Nation-Building Project Comes Apart in East Timor," New York Times, July
14, 2006
[My Entelequia piece . . . offers a historically-grounded
critique of the idea that what we did in East Timor is "humanitarian" in any
meaningful sense of the term. On the contrary, East Timor was the genocidal
outcome of imperial logic at its finest.--Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, "Humanitarian Intervention in East Timor: A Critical
Appraisal," nafeez.blogspot.com, September 26, 2006]
Simon Tisdall, "Victims of their own success: East Timor
shows signs of falling apart in the hands of the men who led the
independence struggle," Guardian, August 13, 2007
[Transcripts of meetings among Indonesian dictator Mohamed Suharto, Ford,
and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger have shown conclusively that
Kissinger and Ford authorized and encouraged Suharto's murderous
actions. . . .
After Ford's loss and Jimmy Carter's ascent to the White House in 1976,
Indonesia requested additional arms to continue its brutal occupation, even
though there was a supposed ban on arms transfers to Suharto's government.
It was Carter's appointee to the Department of State's Bureau of East Asian
and Pacific Affairs, Richard Holbrooke, who
authorized additional arms shipments to Indonesia during this supposed
blockade. Many scholars have noted that this was the period when the
Indonesian suppression of the Timorese reached genocidal levels.--Joshua
Frank, "The Blood on
Holbrooke's Hands," antiwar.com, August 13, 2007
VIDEO: John Pilger, "Death
of a Nation, The Timor Conspiracy," johnpilger.com, 2011
[In 2006, a deal was finally signed, largely on Australia's terms. Soon
afterwards, Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri, a nationalist who had stood up to
Canberra and foreign interference, was in effect deposed in what he called
an "attempted coup" by "outsiders". Australia has "peacekeeping" troops
based in East Timor and had trained his opponents.
According to a leaked Australian Defence Force document, Australia's "first
objective" in East Timor is for its military to "seek access" so that it can
exercise "influence over East Timor's decision-making". One of the two
current presidential candidates is Taur Matan Ruak, an army general and
Canberra's man, who helped see off the troublesome Alkatiri.
One independent little country astride lucrative natural resources and
strategic sea lanes is of great concern to the United States and its "deputy
sheriff" in Canberra (George W Bush actually promoted Australia to full
sheriff).--John Pilger, "East Timor - a lesson in why the poorest
threaten the powerful," newstatesman.com, April 3, 2012]
[This was a conspiracy to steal East Timor's oil and gas.--John Pilger, "The Rape of East Timor: 'Sounds Like Fun'," counterpunch.org,
February 16, 2016]
[The Greater Sunrise gas field was supposed to lift the young nation out of poverty but
that once hopeful vision is now dissipating--Hamish McDonald, "Sun
is setting on Timor-Leste's pipe dream'," asiatimes.com, October 5, 2020]