Australia’s new Labor government, March 1983

The election on 5 March 1983 of a new Labor government under the populist prime minister Bob Hawke held the possibility of a change in Canberra’s direction on Timor. The Australian Labor Party came into the 1983 election with a formal Timor position strongly supporting East Timorese self-determination.

We present here some source materials which illuminate development of Labor’s Timor policy, the new government’s approach to the policy and community reaction to early signs that the government was broadly continuing the pro-integration approach of  the Whitlam and Fraser governments.

Bob Hawke, election tally room, 5 March 1983. [Source: ABC]

In 1977 the Australian Labor Party (ALP) rejected former Labor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam’s approach on Timor by adopting a strong resolution opposing the Indonesian annexation and supporting self-determination. In 1979, however, this policy was significantly reduced in scope (see both texts here). A renewal of Australian activism after the political, military and humanitarian disasters inside Timor in 1978-79 included a focus on re-invigorating ALP policy.

Renewing Labor Party policy 1981-82
In early 1981, a few Australia East Timor Association (AETA) activists* began working with members of the Victorian branch of the ALP on an early draft policy proposal. The final product described principles and actions on a range of matters like self-determination, United Nations, refugees, military aid and the sea-bed boundary.

ALP rank-and-file member support for a pro-Timor policy was particularly strong in the state of Victoria. In June 1981, leading figures on the left such as Jean McLean were instrumental in the Victorian branch adopting a policy based on the AETA proposal. The Victorian branch then led the way in establishing  a national ALP Timor draft policy. Just prior to the ALP national conference which was to vote on the draft policy in July 1982, activists began to worry about the length of the proposal and suggested a less detailed but still principled alternative.

In the end, though, the ALP adopted a detailed conference resolution which included, word for word, seven of the eight principal policy statements originally proposed by AETA in 1981. The missing item was the sea-bed boundary issue. Many of the specific government actions originally proposed by AETA were not included, except the less controversial ones on information and family reunions.

Shoring-up the policy
In Victoria ALP member (and AETA chairperson) George Preston headed an  ’East Timor Support Group’ within the party to build  support for the new policy. Established in late 1982, the group secured the signatures of four key Labor parliamentarians on a letter sent to all branches seeking their active support for the new policy. One of the signatories was Gareth Evans, later Australian Foreign Minister (1988-96); his letter agreeing to add his signature showed solid support for the policy but with some reservations.

Other encouraging signs for Timor supporters came when almost the entire membership of the Federal Parliamentary Labor Party signed a policy-supporting statement which long-time Timor activist Senator Gordon McIntosh presented to a hearing on the UN Decolonisation Committee in November 1982. Just a few days before the 1983 election, Labor foreign minister-in-waiting, Bill Hayden, gave further signs of a new Labor government’s commitment to its policy.

Labor in Government: Alarming signs
There was considerable media interest before and after the March 5 election in how the Hawke government would handle the policy (see sample coverage here). The early signs after the election were, however, alarming for the supporters of the new policy with the new prime minister failing to affirm it in other than the vaguest terms.

Only in 2012 was the Hawke Cabinet’s first Timor policy decision made public**. The 29 March 1983 Cabinet decision showed that the government had adopted a formula which broadly followed the script recommended by the Foreign Affairs Department to successive Australian governments since 1975. The essence of the formula was that while an internationally supervised act of self-determination had not taken place, any ‘support’ for the East Timorese must go through the Indonesian government (by inference: no actions supporting self-determination).

This formula was clearly reflected in Bill Hayden’s first overseas visit to Jakarta  in early April where he played down support for East Timorese self-determination and focussed on relatively minor Timor matters like aid and family reunion.

Activist disquiet and action
It didn’t take long for Timor supporters to realise they had work to do if the policy was to survive. Within two days of the election, the ALP East Timor Support Group directed a letter of concern to Labor parliamentarians and continued to be active in the months following.

On March 9 a nationally-distributed letter sought participants for a March 19 strategy meeting in Melbourne. Interstate solidarity groups like the Campaign for Independent East Timor (CIET) in Sydney and Adelaide weren’t able to attend but indicated their activities and intentions.  AETA and others wrote to Bill Hayden seeking a meeting with him; AETA distributed a pamphlet which showed what it thought needed doing.

PM Hawke casts the die
Prime Minister Bob Hawke’s visit to Jakarta in early June 1983 left no-one in any doubt that the government was indeed abandoning its party policy. AETA’s subsequent pamphlet spelled out the detail.

The next element in the Hawke government’s strategy to overturn the the policy came in the form of an Australian parliamentary delegation to Indonesia in July 1983 – but that is another story.

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Notes:
* Initial working group members were George Preston, Pat Walsh, John Waddingham and Rod Harris.

** See full Cabinet decision and briefing notes through the National Archives of Australia RecordSearch. Worth an article in its own right.

Documents reproduced here come from the archives of the ACFOA Human Rights Office and Timor Information Service – both in CHART custody in Melbourne.

1965/66 Indonesian massacres echoed in East Timor

A recent Canberra seminar on the infamous mass violence in Indonesia in 1965-66 revealed many parallels with East Timorese experience under Indonesian military occupation a decade later.

CHART’s John Waddingham participated, sharing his Timor archives project experience with those now seeking to build and share documentary evidence on Indonesia’s trauma in the 1960s.

Indonesian leftists being herded off to public execution. [Source: Unknown]

The killings of several hundred thousand communists and alleged sympathisers marked the rise to presidential power of General Suharto in 1965-66. The broad story has been well-known but the detail has not.

Any critical discussion of the Suharto government’s official narrative on the killings, and its subsequent long-term imprisonment of huge numbers of ‘leftists’, was taboo in Indonesia. The fall of Suharto in 1998 has seen the lid lifted. Indonesian non-government organisations, activists and academics are now openly exploring those events – many with the aim of seeking reparations for victims and their families and holding perpetrators accountable for crimes against humanity.

Seminar topics
Held at the Australian National University, Canberra, New perspectives on the 1965 violence in Indonesia (11-13 February 2013) was organised by Australian-based academics researching 1965. In addition to well-known western researchers in this area like Robert Cribb and Kate McGregor, a number of very active researchers and activists flew in from Indonesia to communicate their work.

Topics included the emerging public debate in Indonesia, the local and Cold War aspects of the killings, Indonesian activist actions to counter the official narrative, to remove stigmas still disadvantaging victims’ families, to collect victim and perpetrator first-hand accounts and to document claims for justice and reparations. Several presentations explored the relationship between Suharto’s military and militias and other non-state actors responsible for many killings. The evidence for external support for the military, especially from the USA and UK, was one of a number of consistent threads in seminar discussion.

Komnas HAM report launch, Jakarta, July 2012. [Jakarta Post]

Komnas HAM report
A recent four year study on 1965 by the official Indonesian National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) was also discussed. The Commission’s landmark report, completed in July 2012, reported evidence of widespread crimes against humanity including killings, slavery, forced removal and displacement, torture, rape, extra-legal executions. The report recommended State apologies and reparations for victims and that responsible Indonesian military officials be charged with crimes against humanity. The 200-page Indonesian language executive summary is available here.

The Komnas HAM investigations shows that the issue is no longer taboo, but some reactions to the report suggest resistance to truth and justice on the matter remains strong. Indonesia’s Attorney-General, responsible for implementing the recommendations, has rejected the report’s legitimacy.

Shared experience: Indonesians and East Timorese. [CHART]

CHART inputs
CHART participated in the third day of the seminar – a closed session for current activists and researchers to exchange views, information resources and strategies. While time was restricted, John Waddingham outlined CHART’s program and methods to locate, document and provide access to archival materials. He particularly emphasised the importance of authenticating documents to ensure they were genuine and the need to demonstrate the authenticity of newly collected oral and documentary evidence from victims and perpetrators so that they cannot be challenged as fabrications.

Many exact matches were observed in the language to describe the 1965/66 killings and the invasion and occupation of East Timor. This shared experience provides an opportunity for Indonesians and East Timorese to better understand each other’s modern history.

The strong emergence of a raft of Indonesian activists and others now digging into their hidden past is a marvellous development. We hope that one spin-off from this blossoming will be increasing interest from Indonesians in uncovering documentary and other evidence of their military’s interventions in East Timor.

- – - – - – - – - –  

Useful introductory guides to the topic:

Inside Indonesia special edition, 2010

Online Encyclopedia of mass violence item, 2009

Revisiting 1983: Thirty years on

1983 was a remarkable year in East Timor’s modern history. A renewed Fretilin-led resistance emerged from the shadows under the leadership of Xanana Gusmao with news of a ceasefire and negotiations between the occupiers and the resistance. Later that year came the removal of Timor’s ‘troublesome priest’, Monsignor Lopes, a Timorese uprising, Indonesian military campaigns and an infamous massacre.

In Australia the new Hawke Labor Government worked steadily to overcome its own Party policy supporting East Timorese self-determination. It hoped that an Australian Parliamentary delegation visit to Timor in July would undermine continuing Party and broader community disquiet about the Indonesian occupation.

CHART hopes to cover many of these topics during 2013. We start here with an introductory look at the tumultuous events marking the end of the ceasefire in August-September 1983.

General area of Kraras massacres, September 1983. [Base map source: Google]

The killing of 14-16 Indonesian soldiers at Kraras/Bibileu* on August 8 1983 and the subsequent September 1983 ‘Kraras massacre’ of a large number of civilians by Indonesian military forces became internationally-known soon after – but the detail was disputed.

A brief survey of accounts now available (see list below), largely drawn from Timorese eye-witness testimony, still leaves some unanswered questions about these important historical moments.

Uprising and massacre
Media reports in 1983 of the August 8 killings left much room for doubt about the nature of the event (see pages 9-12 of this contemporary compilation). Later credible Timorese-sourced reports claimed the killings were a spontaneous response to Indonesian military violation of local women.

There now seems little doubt that that the killings were indeed part of a resistance-planned uprising in the eastern zone. This is shown in direct testimony from Xanana Gusmao (Niner) and the person who led the attack, Ular Rihik/Virgílio dos Anjos (Jolliffe, Grimshaw) and other resistance figures at that time (Chamberlain).

The massacres of civilians by Indonesian military from about September 17 1983 are documented in some detail by Jolliffe, Pilger and CAVR (Timor-Leste’s Commission for Truth). Not surprisingly, the actual numbers of dead and disappeared remain elusive. There were several separate events and the evidence comes from multiple sources, some of whom were traumatised survivors from killing sites. A total figure of around 300 dead is oft-quoted, including the single largest massacre at Tahu Bein/Wetuku River where 80-180 were killed in cold blood.

The questions
Answers to some questions which arise from reading the available texts will help future generations understand this landmark event:

1. While Xanana admitted to a planned uprising in August, was Ular’s August 8 attack at Kraras/Bibileu premature; an error in communication or judgement? And/or was it a reaction to Indonesian provocations (such as violations against local women)?

2. Were formal Falintil resistance members directly involved in the August 8 attack or was it only villagers and Timorese defecting from Indonesian-controlled paramilitary units?

3. Was the uprising the cause of the end of the ceasfire or was it simply the first shots fired in a threatened Indonesian offensive against the resistance?

4. Why did it take the Indonesian military a full month to begin its reprisals in the Kraras/Bibileu area?

5. Is there any doubt about evidence that the Indonesian reprisal operations in the Kraras/Bibileu area were directly commanded in the field by Prabowo Subianto?

6. Do the lists of Timorese dead seen by Jolliffe and held by Pilger still exist and have steps been taken to ensure they survive and are accessible to future generations?

7. What has become of legal investigations into the massacre and has anything else been done to identify/mark the killing sites and memorialise those who died?

Indonesian sources?
The answers to some of these questions may eventually come from Indonesian sources – but the latest Timor offering from a significant Indonesian military figure suggests ‘not yet’.

Retired Lieutenant General Kiki Syahnakri has recently launched his Timor story. Syahnakri, a fluent Tetun speaker, served several times totalling some 12 years in Timor from late 1975. His last posting was as the Indonesian martial law administrator, 7-27 September 1999.

This book requires proper scrutiny for what it might add to insights on Indonesian military thinking and actions on Timor. On the Kraras/Bibileu story, however, Syahnakri is sadly lacking:

The Cararas (sic) Incident resulted in the immediate collapse of the spirit and positive thoughts about peace and dialogue. The Korem Commander, Colonel Poerwanto, was very disappointed and angered by the attack and cancelled the efforts for Peaceful Contact. According to retired TNI Brigadier-General Johanes Haribowo – who was the Korem chief-of-staff during the Peaceful Contact period, Xanana admitted that he did not know the reason for the attack and killings at Cararas. He truly was not involved in the incident. On the contrary, he suspected that a third party was behind that incident. Moreover, it cannot be excluded that foreign forces were successful in infiltrating the Fretilin group and setting in motion the Cararas Incident. And so, the opportunity and hope to end the East Timor conflict through peaceful dialogue was obliterated. Peaceful Contact was in dissaray and failed. Armed conflict, violence, and killing by both sides occurred again.

The  ’Cararas Incident’ refers to Ular’s attack on August 8.  ’Peaceful Contact’ was the preferred Indonesian label for the ceasfire period. Note no specific mention is made of the Indonesian reprisals against civilian Timorese.

A full translation of this part of  Syahnakri’s book can be found here.

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Accounts providing or referencing primary source materials

Chamberlain, E. The Struggle in Iliomar: Resistance in rural East Timor – 2008, revised. Extract only.

Chega! (Report of the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation). Dili, 2005. Chapter 3 (pp 100-106); Chapter 7.2 (pp 168-173)

Grimshaw, Z. Interview With Comandante Ular Rihik/Virgílio dos Anjos of Timor Leste. 2009. (pp 8-9)

Jolliffe, J. Balibo.  Scribe, Melbourne. 2009 (pp. 302-323)

Niner, S. Xanana. Leader of the struggle for independent Timor-Leste. Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne, 2009. (pp 88-104)

Pilger, J. We helped them descend into hell. 1999

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* Note on Kraras/Bibileu: Jill Jolliffe has best described the difficulties of identifying the map location of these events (see her detailed Note 19, p.377). In short, Kraras is a relatively flat area or plain, not a population centre, immediately north and west of Viqueque town. Bibileu is one of a number of small population centres holding former residents of ‘old’ Bibileu, originally located on Mount Bibileu, who were relocated by the Indonesian military in earlier years.

Credits: Many thanks to Ernie Chamberlain for his translation of the passage from Syahnakri.

Authenticating documents

During the years 1975-1999, hundreds if not thousands of documents originating in East Timor were circulated internally and internationally. Most items circulated internationally were photocopies, not the original document. Recipients of these copies could assume the document was authentic at the time because it came to them from a known or reliable source. In other words, they knew something of the document’s ‘provenance’ or chain of ownership. When documents (especially copies) appear with no obvious provenance, can we trust them as accurate and authentic records?

In the first of a series of articles about authenticity, CHART explores here one significant document whose provenance is unclear. In addition to inviting comment on the particular document, we also seek feedback and discussion on the general authenticity issue.

CAVR Library. Item TX294

The library of Timor-Leste’s Post-CAVR* Secretariat at Comarca/Balide in Dili holds a series of background documents from a wide variety of sources. Displayed in labelled magazine boxes, these documents are freely available for library users to browse and read.

A magazine box labelled ‘Fretilin’ contains a series of published and unpublished documents, including a photocopy of an untitled 53-page typescript item.

1981 Resistance re-organisation
This Portuguese-language document records the proceedings of a national conference held by the Fretilin-led East Timorese resistance in March 1981. The document reviews critically the conduct of the resistance since Indonesia’s 1975 invasion, describes the current situation and outlines future resistance structure and strategies. The document includes election results for formal positions within the organised resistance, including the election of Xanana Gusmao as Political Commissar and Commander of the armed resistance, Falantil. The document also records a formal Fretilin structural and name-change to Partido Marxista-Leninista Fretilin (PMLF).

This item is clearly a key source document on the restructuring of the formal East Timorese resistance in the wake of its decimation in 1978-79. Because the Post-CAVR Secretariat which holds this public copy has no record of the document’s origins, we need to examine it closely to attempt to establish its authenticity.

Click to view 1981 document

Authenticity – physical evidence
A viewing of the document raises some questions about its origins. Unlike many documents from Timorese sources in the 1980s, this document bears no stamps or signatures (but is attributed to Mau Hodu Ran Kadalak, Conference Secretary). The contents list (Indice) on the first page of the document includes reference to a 3-page ‘note on presentation’ but these pages are missing from the document. The otherwise untitled first page suggests the whole document may have originally included a formal cover.

It is not possible to determine from the document whether the first page and the missing introductory pages were part of the original typed record of the 1981 meeting or whether they were added by another party distributing the records. If the latter is the case, it would seem that the actual textual records of the meeting are retyped from the original versions (which introduces the possibility of errors or omissions). The document also appears to have two pages numbered ’37′.

Authenticity – content
Comparison of the document’s content with other accounts of the March 1981 meeting is one way to assess its authenticity. Both Sara Niner’s biography on Xanana Gusmao (1) and CAVR’s monumental report, Chega! (2), describe the meeting but do not cite this particular document. The principal source for these published accounts are largely writings and oral testimony by Xanana Gusmao, but other eye-witness meeting participants are cited.

There is significant agreement between the published accounts and the document. For example, the names of nine people elected to the Fretilin Central Committee (p.35) and the adoption of Marxism-Leninism (p.33-34) are also recorded in the published accounts. These and other concordances  lend significant weight to the document’s authenticity.

However, there are some puzzling questions remaining in the comparison of the content of the document with these other sources.

Chega!  (Chap.5, p.27) reports that this meeting reaffirmed the roles and positions of the Fretilin external delegation headed by Abilio Araujo in Lisbon and who was named as ‘Secretary General’ (of Fretilin). The meeting document, however, has scant mention of the external delegation and appears to name only one of its number, Mari Alkatiri, as the secretary of the Department of External Relations (p.38).

Page 46 Extract. Translation of first two sentences: The actual structure of power is the one which better responds in this period to the current situation in the country. Thus, at the national level, the Revolutionary Council of National Resistance is the highest level body which corresponds to the Party's Central Committee whose head manager is the Commander-in-chief of FALINTIL.

Chega! (Chap. 5, p.27-29) and Niner (p.73-75) report the establishment at this conference of the Revolutionary Council of National Resistance (CRRN). According to Chega!, “The CRRN was intended to be the organisational vehicle for everyone who wanted to join the struggle to end the Indonesian occupation of Timor-Leste. The CRRN was in effect the PMLF’s invitation to all East Timorese regardless of party or other affiliation to join the resistance to the Indonesian occupation” (p.28). This is seen by both published sources as a landmark change in the direction of the organised resistance. Surprising, then, that the document does not appear to record any formal resolution on the creation of the CRRN. The new body is mentioned in the latter part of the text (page 46 – see text and translation above – & page 49), but with little explanatory detail.

While there are many possible explanations for these and other differences, the most obvious one is that the current document is not a complete set of all the original documents created to record the historic meeting of 1-8 March 1981.

Some questions
The evidence suggests that the document is at least a partial record of that special meeting in East Timor in March 1981. However, it is reasonable to ask the following questions.
1. Does there exist a complete copy of the document under discussion here?
2. If, as seems likely, this document is a packaged version of the original meeting records, who created it and when?
3. Do originals or photocopies of the original typed- or hand-written records of the March 1981 meeting exist.
4. Given that oral evidence on the meeting records more than can be found in the documents available here, is it possible that other documentary records of the meeting exist (or at least were created at the time)?

Answers to some or all of those questions will help future generations of East Timorese feel confident about the authenticity of this key document in the history of the formal resistance to the Indonesian occupation, 1975-1999.

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* Commission for Reception, Truth & Reconciliation

1. Sara Niner. Xanana: Leader of the struggle for independent Timor-Leste. Australian Scholarly Publishing. Melbourne. 2009.

2. Chega! The report of the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in Timor-Leste (CAVR). 2005.

Credit: Thanks to Marisa Ramos Goncalves for translation of CRRN fragments of document.

March 1982: Whitlam & Hastings in Timor

Thirty years ago, former Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam threw his considerable public weight behind the case for East Timor’s integration into Indonesia.

His robust submissions* and appearances before an Australian Senate Inquiry in May 1982 and the United Nations Decolonisation Committee in November that same year were somewhat influential in the Australian debate on Timor at the time.

Whitlam’s public interventions were based largely on a visit he made to East Timor in March 1982. We present here an annotated selection of primary source materials on that decidedly controversial visit.

Media Conference, Centre for Strategic & International Studies, Jakarta. From left: Peter Hastings, Gough Whitlam and Jusuf Wanandi. Source: Sinar Harapan, 5 March 1982

Gough Whitlam and influential veteran defence and foreign affairs journalist Peter Hastings travelled to East Timor on 1 March 1982. They were in Timor for two nights, returning to Jakarta late evening on March 4. In Timor, they were able to travel by International Red Cross (ICRC) helicopter, in the company of ICRC delegate Cedric Neukomm. Based in Dili, they visited Ermera, Suai, Maliana, Atauro, Natarbora, Dilor, Lospalos and Luro. Both men held a joint media conference in Jakarta on March 5.

Context/Origins
The main focus of Whitlam’s attention was to show that Australian media reports in January 1982 of ‘famine’ in Timor were false. It is reasonable to assume that these reports, ultimately attributed to the head of Timor’s Catholic Church, Monsignor Lopes, were a primary trigger for the trip. The forthcoming Australian Senate Inquiry may also have been a factor behind the visit.

The available public record does not show who exactly initiated plans for the Timor visit.  Peter Hastings was invited to visit Timor by the Indonesian Embassy (Editorial, Canberra Times, 13 March 1982) though the participants and organisers remained rather coy about the underlying decision-making. At the Indonesian end the visit was organised and facilitated by the Jakarta-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) which, since 1974, had been directly connected to Indonesian special operations to achieve East Timorese incorporation into Indonesia.
Article, Herald (Melb.), 3 March 1982
Article, The Age, 4 March 1982
Article, The Australian, 4 March 1982

The ‘famine’ claim
Australian media reports in January 1982 of ‘famine’ in Timor were based on a media release from Australian Catholic Relief (ACR). The ACR media release was in turn based on a November 1981 exchange of correspondence between Monsignor Lopes and Bishop John Gerry who was then ACR Chairman. The documents show that Mgr Lopes’ passing reference to ‘expected famine’ is a repeat of a term (the origins of which are unclear) used originally by Bp Gerry rather than an outright claim by Lopes of  ‘famine’. The ACR media release and subsequent media headlines appear to carry more responsibility for the ‘famine’ claim than anything directly attributable to Mgr Lopes.
Bishop JJ Gerry letter to Mgr Lopes, 11 November 1981
Mgr Lopes reply to Bishop Gerry, 19 November 1981
ACR Press Release, 6 January 1982
Article, The Age, 11 January 1982
Article, Northern Territory News, 11 January 1982
Editorial, Sydney Morning Herald (SMH), 12 January 1982

Whitlam and Hastings reports
Whitlam and Hastings both published or broadcast their findings and opinions. Whitlam’s attentions were focussed on Mgr Lopes, notably calling him in an ABC interview (see below) “a liar..(and)..a mendacious and malicious correspondent”. Hastings’ accounts contained much more detail on actual conditions in the occupied territory.
Transcript of Whitlam/Hastings press conference, Jakarta, 5 March 1982
Peter Hastings article, SMH, 6 March 1982
Peter Hastings article, SMH, 8 March 1982
Peter Hastings article, SMH, 8 March 1982
Peter Hastings article, SMH, 8 March 1982
Peter Hastings article, The Age, 8 March 1982
Peter Hastings article, SMH, 9 March 1982
Gough Whitlam interview on ABC Radio, 26 March 1982
Gough Whitlam article, The Bulletin, 30 March 1982
Peter Hastings interview, ABC Radio, 20 April 1982

Media reportage of visit
The visit itself attracted brief media coverage in Australia and Indonesia, including some editorials on the significance of the trip and its reported findings. While Indonesian media reports were uncritical of the Whitlam findings, some other mainstream media were less certain of them.

Article, The Age, 6 March 1982
Editorial, Sinar Harapan, 6 March 1982
Article, The Indonesia Times, 8 March 1982
Editorial, The Indonesia Times, 8 March 1982
Article, The Age, 12 March 1982
Editorial, Canberra Times, 13 March 1982
Article, Far Eastern Economic Review

Commentary
In Australia, Mr Whitlam’s assertions in particular attracted the most analysis and commentary from advocates for East Timor. A feature of the more detailed commentary was to use Peter Hastings’ Timor visit accounts to demonstrate shortcomings in those of Mr Whitlam. Whitlam’s case found some public support, including from Bob Santamaria who – since 1975 – had actively campaigned publicly (through his Newsweekly periodical) and privately in Catholic circles against advocates for East Timorese self-determination.
Bob Richards (unpublished?) letter to the editor, 7 March 1982
ACFOA (unpublished?) Letter to Editor, 12 March 1982
Newsweekly Editorial, 10 March 1982
Newsweekly Editorial, 17 March 1982
Jim Dunn article, The Age, 17 March 1982
David Scott (unpublished?) letter to Editor, 25 March 1982
Pat Walsh notes for ACFOA Chairperson, 30 March 1982
Former WWII Commando, Cliff Morris letter to Whitlam, 30 March 1982
Peter McCawley letter to Editor, Canberra Times 31 March 1982
Letters to Editor, The Bulletin, 20 April 1982
Jose Ramos-Horta Letter to Editor, SMH 22 April 1982
Pat Walsh article, Arena, No.60, 1982
Timor Information Service article, March/April 1982

International Red Cross
A surprising element of the Whitlam/Hastings trip to Timor was the involvement of International Red Cross (ICRC). The visitors travelled to parts of Timor in the ICRC helicopter accompanied by an ICRC delegate. Much was made of this fact in Mr Whitlam’s claims about conditions in the territory; he was able to effectively draw on ICRC authority to support his assertions. The Australian Council for Overseas Aid certainly wondered about ICRC’s involvement in a visit which became an overtly political exercise.
ACFOA Draft letter to ICRC (undated)

Concluding comment
Gough Whitlam’s direct attack on Mgr Lopes probably aided calls in Indonesia for the monsignor’s removal from Timor by the Vatican in 1983. He also had some transient impact on the public debate in Australia and inside the Labor Party, but other events in 1983 – a formal ceasefire and subsequent major Indonesian military offensive – rendered his 1982 claims outdated.

The documentary record of the Whitlam/Hastings Timor visit remains valuable. It offers a good insight into the approach of Mr Whitlam who, at the time, was one of the very few public figures to campaign publicly in Australia against East Timorese self-determination. Combined with the sample of reactions to Whitlam’s assertions, the record also provides an insight into the nature of the debate in Australia about East Timor at that time.

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* Records of these submissions can be found among a series of Timor documents available online through the Whitlam Institute at the University of Western Sydney. Enter timor as search term and click on ‘Go’ on this screen.

Sources: The selected documents presented here come from the archives of Timor Information Service and the ACFOA Human Rights Office. Both collections are in CHART custody in Melbourne and will be subject to an extensive digitisation program during 2012.

Note on Copyright:  If any original creators of the materials presented wish to assert their copyright ownership and object to our usage here, please contact us immediately and we will remove the item.