Location : News : Media Release : Wollongong Seminar

Don't let Papua become another Timor, diplomat warns

Date: 7 August 2006

"We must not let West Papua become another East Timor. If we try to evade this issue we will end up backing ourselves into a truly hazardous corner," a former high-ranking diplomat, Duncan Campbell, will argue at a lecture on Australia-Indonesia relations on Tuesday.

Duncan Campbell AM, a former diplomat whose experience over nearly 40 years was concentrated on the Malay world and on multilateral diplomacy, will deliver his paper at a seminar organised by the Uniya Jesuit Social Justice Centre in West Wollongong (Edmund Rice College Hall, 112 Mount Keira Rd).

In a lecture also featuring Bali expert Professor Adrian Vickers and Jesuit lawyer Fr Frank Brennan, Mr Campbell will question the need for a new bilateral security pact between Australia and Indonesia, expected to be signed later this year, saying it will not lead to better relations between the two countries but instead expose Australia to long-term pressure by aggravating the Papua question.

He says that what will amount to a non-aggression pact will partly involve - as has already been acknowledged by the Government - Australia's immutable commitment to Indonesian domination of the Papuans, which he compares to Australia's "de jure" recognition of Indonesian sovereignty over East Timor in the late 1970s.

"Exactly why we are now re-tracing our steps along the old treaty track, or a fairly parallel one, would seem to require more explanation than I've heard offered," he said, referring to the security agreement between the former Prime Minister Paul Keating and Indonesia President Suharto that was ripped up following Australia's intervention in East Timor.

"Precisely for the sake of our dominant interest in having the best possible relations with Indonesia, the future in Timor had also to be as trouble-free as possible. That could only rest on the consent of the governed, as the Indonesians were to discover," he argues.

Based on the East Timor lesson, he suggests that the very importance of Indonesia to Australia demands that issues like Papua be "confronted not conceded" by Australia, and that they be approached positively.

"If either the Australian or Indonesian Governments postpone tackling the Papuan problem, and not merely the manifestation provided by a few refugees, they will risk seriously poisoning their overarching relations," he said.

The Uniya Seminar Series were first held in 1999 to mark 150 years of Jesuit work in Australia. The free seminars are given annually and focus on topical social justice issues.

This year's Series, title "Good Neighbour, Bad Neighbour", will also visit Sydney on 16 August (with Sidney Jones and Professor Peter King) and Adelaide on 22 August (with Dr John Bruni and Tony Kevin).

Please visit www.uniya.org or call (02) 9356 3888 for more information about the seminar.

###

print this page