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TRANSCRIPTION: Press Conference with Minister Downer on East Timor Situation

PROOF COPY E&OE

MINISTER DOWNER: This is just really sort of if you want to ask any questions about yesterday. I don't have anything particularly new to say but maybe I could just start off with one comment, which is that the Government was very pleased with the outcome of the summit, but there still is a very long way to go in this process of bringing peace and stability to East Timor.

We have no illusions about the enormous difficulties that lie ahead. The challenges are vast, and there are lot of risks involved, so we are doing everything we possibly can within the powers of Australia to try to bring a peaceful conclusion to the East Timor issue.

I said some time ago that we'd have bad days and we'd have good days, and some people criticised me for that, but I'm right. Yesterday was a good day. Now not every day in the future is going to be a good day on this issue. There is a very long way to go and it's going to be very tough. There are a lot of risks involved, but all Australia can do is do its best to try to achieve a successful conclusion.

QUESTION: Mr Downer, can you tell us something about this Commission for Peace and Stability, what it is and what its role is supposed to me?

MINISTER DOWNER: Well it was established by the Indonesians on 21st April and it is designed to bring together people from across the political spectrum in East Timor.

One of the things we would like to see is Xanana Gusmao released from prison soon - well we would have liked him to have been released quite some time ago, but a good opportunity for the Indonesians will be after the 5th May Agreement assuming that that goes through, and people like Xanana Gusmao can then help to play a role in the Peace and Stability Commission.

The other thing just let me mention to you is that we have proposed to the Indonesian Government that some UN personnel or outsiders also participate in the Peace and Stability Commission and the Indonesians told us yesterday that they'd give some consideration to that. They haven't given us a firm commitment yet, but they will think about that.

QUESTION: Under the document though does this Commission, it has a very key role in the disarmament doesn't it?

MINISTER DOWNER: Well it's obviously rather a leading question that, but I suppose that's what you're paid to do, and I'm paid to be discreet.

QUESTION: Exactly, that's understood.

MINISTER DOWNER: I'm trying to think how I could do it discreetly. Look, just to say obviously the document hasn't been released yet and it's not going to be released until 5th May.

There are two aspects to it over and above the autonomy package. One aspect relates to the modalities of the ballot and the other aspect relates to the security situation on the ground, and this whole question of the disarmament, the laying down of arms and the disarmament of the para militaries and pro-independence militias and so on is addressed in the second of those supplementary documents, that is, the document that relates to the security situation.

The United Nations documents do address the question of disarmament, and the laying down of arms, and just to say, to go a little bit further and to say that this does involve some role for the Peace and Stability Commission in coordination with the United Nations.

QUESTION: What's your view of the willingness of the armed forces generally, not just General Wiranto, to cooperate in this disarmament process?

MINISTER DOWNER: Well that's a hard question to answer you know after the experience that we've been through over the last few weeks or months, but we have been given assurances that the armed forces and the police will behave in an impartial way.

The Indonesians insist that they should be responsible for security within their own boundaries therefore they should be responsible for peace and security within East Timor, and they don't want an international force coming and doing that for them.

But what we pushed very hard was for there to be a significant United Nations presence including a civilian police advisory presence, and they accept that there can be a UN police advisory presence but there is still a question of how large that presence will be and not surprisingly we would like that presence to be quite considerable, and we got an agreement out of the Indonesians yesterday that this would be a matter that would be resolved by the Secretary-General in New York and naturally enough we will be now heading off to the Secretary-General in New York - not me personally, but I mean our diplomacy will be heading to New York to lobby him.

QUESTION: How big would you like to see the Australian contingent and will the police officers be armed?

MINISTER DOWNER: In so far as the police would be armed the level of armaments would probably only be hand guns rather than any other, you know, substantial form of armament like Steyer rifles or whatever.

How many Australians. Well in the police contingent it is likely that there would be quite a lot of Australians, but Australians will form a reasonable proportion of that force. How many though - I can tell you about the proportions, I can't tell you how many because the question of how big the police contingent will be hasn't been resolved and I've explained that.

QUESTION: Would police be adequately trained to handle a job like that Mr Downer?

MINISTER DOWNER: Well police will be adequately trained to undertake police functions, I think that follows pretty well.

QUESTION: Would Australians be a majority of the police, the UN police group?

MINISTER DOWNER: I'm not sure about a majority, but would be a considerable proportion. The Indonesians would like Australians to play a particularly significant role in that respect, but we would like to share it around with other countries and there are the six countries that have been identified already as you know and I think it's fair to say, having to spoken to two of those six countries last night that they are happy to play a role.

QUESTION: I was going to say - your talks last night with a British Minister, who ...

MINISTER DOWNER: The British Minister of State for Foreign Affairs. He's called Derek Thatchet(?), he's like a junior minister responsible for Asia Pacific affairs.

QUESTION: And the American ...

MINISTER DOWNER: And the American Ambassador.

QUESTION: How realistic do you think it is that the military can successfully be disarmed?

MINISTER DOWNER: Well I mean I have no illusions about this having myself been so heavily engaged in the Bougainville peace process and having watched from further away the Northern Ireland peace process just to give you two very recent examples, but in both of those cases despite the relative success of the peace processes, the militias, if you like, in those cases have not been disarmed. The de-commissioning, as they call it in the case of Northern Ireland has yet to be achieved, so I have no illusions about it being very difficult to do, but it is a laudable objective and it's an important objective and one that is worth pursuing.

Now the Indonesians say that they're committed to this and they'll do everything they can to try to achieve it and we hope that that happens.

But, look, in a sense once the political processes are in place if that's going to be possible, then people are less likely to start shooting each other even if they still have arms, obviously.

QUESTION: Minister, is East Timor likely to become a significant issue in the parliamentary and presidential elections over there or is that a bit of a second order issue to this?

MINISTER DOWNER: Well that's a good question. I mean it seems to me that it's, as you put it, a second order issue at the moment but it has the potential to be a difficult issue because it plays into the very heart of the nationalist debate as it would in any country the notion of separating part of your country, turning a part of your country into an independent country is obviously a fairly emotional sort of issue and you know it's often been said that Megawati Sukarnoputri doesn't support the Habibie program for East Timor. I mean I think her position is influenced by the fact that they've got an election very soon. What she would do after the election I don't know in practice.

But, you know, it's a political debate in Indonesia but it's a second order political debate in a country that's going through the worst economic crisis in a generation or more and it has other civil problems in other parts of the country, like Ambon, Aceh and parts of Kalimantan and so on.

QUESTION: Why did the election date slip to August, and does that pose a risk of just leaving too big an opportunity for more civil unrest?

MINISTER DOWNER: There's been some slippage in the time table for a couple of reasons. One is that you will recall there was supposed to be agreement in New York on this total package, UN package, quite some weeks ago. What happened was that the Indonesian Cabinet wanted to reconsider the autonomy plan which was taken to New York by Ali Alatas and that autonomy plan has subsequently been changed somewhat. So that led to a delay of a month.

And the other reason there is some delay is that the just this share organisation of a UN conducted ballot of this kind means that it's going to take a little longer than was expected.

The original intention was - I think I'm right in saying - to have the ballot by the very original intention by the end of June and then it sort of slipped to the end of July and now, as you know, it's going to be 8th August. That's still a tight time table, but as I've said before, we want the ballot to be held as soon as is practical. There's no point in having it much earlier if it can't be properly organised, and that's obviously a matter that the UN has looked at and we've been talking with the UN about.

QUESTION: Mr Downer, on a related matter, did you have any discussion of what would happen to the Timor Gap Treaty under autonomy?

MINISTER DOWNER: We didn't talk about the Timor Gap Treaty, but I've just spoken with Xanana Gusmao about the Timor Gap Treaty and he can't see any reason for it to be changed except for the inevitable consequential amendments that would have to be made if East Timor became independent.

Some of the East Timor lobby in Australia and in fact not just in Australia, elsewhere, seemed to think that we as a government are driven by some sort of perfidious plan which all revolves around the Timor Gap oil resources. They are, not to put too fine a point on it, modest resources, and at the moment we, in terms of royalties get a tiny amount of money out of it, so it's, and I can absolutely assure people we are not in the slightest driven by the Timor Gap issue at all.

QUESTION: Did you get any agreement or put to the Indonesians, or get any agreement from them on releasing Gusmao at all?

MINISTER DOWNER: They haven't given any firm commitments on that although I think they are edging towards a decision on releasing him. Anyway I very much hope so. I think some of the signs are promising, I'll put it to you that way.

QUESTION: Did you get anything yesterday from Wiranto or the President that makes you any more confident about the so-called rogue elements in East Timor? Was there anything that changed your view on rogue elements?

MINISTER DOWNER: Well I don't know about - my view hasn't changed in this one respect and that is that there are clearly a lot of people in Indonesia, including in the military who don't favour independence for East Timor. There's no question of that. But I think by, just by us having this summit, quite apart from what actually happened at the summit and what commitments we got out of it, but just by having the summit, we have drawn the international community's attention to what has been happening in East Timor, and to the commitments that the Indonesian Government have now given and to the United Nations process.

If there is transparent evidence that the military in East Timor is somehow playing a very partisan role in the future then obviously that will have a heightened international focus as a result of this summit, and the result of the work we'd done over the last few weeks, and this, as we've explained to the Indonesians, would be something that would be very negative for Indonesia's international reputation.

Now this is a time in Indonesia's history when it needs all the help it can get from the international community, with its economy in very serious condition, but hopefully bottoming out and if they handle the East Timor issue well they handle their elections well and their election process seems to be going very well then those things can contribute to a growth of international confidence in Indonesia and recovery of Indonesia's economy.

Now that's a point I made to the Japanese when I was in Japan as well last week and it's a point that we made yesterday to the Indonesians.

So I hope that answers your question because we can't prove the future. I don't know what will happen in the future just as you don't, but this is - I'm not sure that there's a great deal more we can do than we've done so far.

Thank you.

ENDS