Maire Leadbeater - Negligent Neighbour: New Zealands Complicity in the Invasion and Occupation of Timor-Leste

For almost a quarter century from 19751999 the people of East Timor lived and died under Indonesias colonial yoke. During this time East Timor lost a quarter of its population and its people endured daily violence and fear. Against all the odds East Timors resistance survived. Indonesia relied on western support for both the invasion and occupation of East Timor, but New Zealands role is often forgotten or mentioned only in passing.

Negligent Neighbour reveals that story. Using declassified official documents, historical research, records of the New Zealand solidarity movement, interviews with some key players and personal recollections and experiences, Maire Leadbeater has aimed to shine a light in a very dark place the history of New Zealands support for the invasion and occupation of East Timor.

East Timors tragedy raises deep questions about the ties that bind New Zealand to the foreign policy directions set by the United States and Australia. A small nation was cynically sacrificed to suit the geo-political agenda of the West. Negligent Neighbour exposes what went wrong in the past in the interests of putting things right in the present.

What happened in East Timor tells us much about how the modern world is ordered, and where the true source of modern terrorism lies. Maire Leadbeaters outstanding book carefully documents the often secret role played by New Zealand governments, and the opportunities that were wantonly lost.

John Pilger

With careful use of source documents, Maire Leadbeater has put together a highly readable insiders account of the tug-of-war between activists and the New Zealand Government, in the fight for East Timors independence from Indonesia. History shows the activists were right

Barry Wilson, President, Auckland Council for Civil Liberties

MAIRE LEADBEATER combines activism for peace and human rights with her employment as a social worker. She is the Spokesperson for the Auckland based Indonesia Human Rights Committee, and in the 1990s she was a prominent campaigner for East Timors independence. Prior to that she took a leading role in New Zealands anti-nuclear movement. Her writing and lobbying is motivated by the conviction that New Zealands foreign policy must change direction away from narrow self-interest to principled advocacy for peace and justice.

Negligent Neighbour

New Zealands complicity in the invasion
and occupation of Timor-Leste

Maire Leadbeater

For my granddaughter Acacia
and the children growing up in Timor-Leste,
who are the hope of that country

Hard copy edition first published in 2006 by Craig Potton Publishing

98 Vickerman Street, PO Box 555, Nelson, New Zealand.

www.craigpotton.co.nz

eBook editions published in 2015 by Maire Leadbeater

71 Martin Avenue, Auckland 1025, New Zealand

Maire Leadbeater

Individual photographers

Hard copy ISBN 10: 1-877333-59-X

Hard copy ISBN 13: 978-1-877333-59-0

Hard copy printed by Astra Print, Wellington, New Zealand

EPUB ISBN 978-0-473-30065-4

Kindle ISBN 978-0-473-30066-1

PDF ISBN 978-0-473-30067-8

iBook ISBN 978-0-473-30068-5

All rights reserved. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without the permission of the publishers.

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to acknowledge all my colleagues in the international East Timor solidarity network particularly those in Indonesia and East Timor who shared their insights with me at personal risk during the days of the Indonesian occupation. More recently, Avelino da Silva and Charlie Scheiner helped me to understand and put in perspective developments in Timor-Leste. Special thanks to my wonderful photographer friends, John Miller, Gil Hanly, Steve Snow and Karen Abplanalp for their remarkable and touching photos, and to Malcolm Evans for offering his sharply observed cartoons.

Australian East Timor colleagues kindly shared experiences and photos. I greatly appreciated my communications with Brian Manning, one of those who maintained a clandestine radio connection to Fretilin, and with Gordon McIntosh who helped to set the New Zealand solidarity movement going. Thanks to researchers in Australia, the United Kingdom and United States, including James Dunn, Hugh Dowson and Joseph Nevins.

I thank all those who worked to free East Timor in New Zealand and especially those who helped me directly with documents, photos and recollections for this book. Helen Yensen deserves a medal for reading this work several times, and helping me to find some order in the chaos. Colin Iles who has stayed the course for East Timor from 1976 to the present was an invaluable resource and source of encouragement. Joe Buchanan directed me to a treasure trove of Wellington documents and helped me source photos. Dr Steve Hoadleys 1970s resources helped fill in a crucial gap.

My brother Keith Locke shares my view that the story of New Zealands East Timor collusion is one which needs to be told. He has helped in innumerable ways, including sharing key files and documents, as well as thoughtful analysis.

Nicky Hager provided key challenges to sharpen my analysis, and freely shared his own experiences as well as reading part of the text.

I thank Brian Lynch, former diplomat, who was gracious enough to spare me some hours of his time in full knowledge that this book would critique his past role and that of his colleagues.

Former MP Aussie Malcolm was also a useful source of information about events in the 1970s for which records have not been well kept.

My thanks to Helen Todd (mother to Kamal Bamadhaj), who kindly wrote the Foreword for this book, for her support, insights, and for the photo of Kamal. I am also grateful for the kindness of Greig Cunningham who set aside time to talk with me about his familys personal tragedy.

I thank Ray Sutton, a down-to-earth policeman who served in East Timor in the worst of times. He may not have been prepared for the events he witnessed but he did not take long to grasp their significance.

My patient editor, Dr Susan Jacobs, has done a sterling job at two key stages of the process helping me to find structure and coherence within a disorganised mass of material and at the final editing stage. I am in her debt for her willingness to take on such a difficult challenge.

I acknowledge with thanks the Peace and Disarmament Education Trust (PADET) for a grant to assist with research.

My thanks to my family for putting up with me when I was so distracted and to my work colleagues at Auckland Hospital who were unfailingly supportive. A special thank you to my partner Graeme Easte. He has served as a supplementary editor, reading every draft of the text as well as acting as my research assistant and confidante through all the ups and downs that this book has entailed. It cannot have been easy.

FOREWORD

I have some personal experience of the diplomat-speak highlighted in this book. When my son, Kamal, was killed in Dili in 1991, I was told that he was caught in the crossfire. What that meant was that he was shot in the chest by an army patrol as he walked, unarmed and alone, on a Dili street. I was told that Kamal should not have joined a memorial march because he was on a tourist visa. What that meant was that any foreigner (as any Timorese or Indonesian for that matter) voicing dissent was asking to be shot.

This book tears aside the soothing curtain of deliberate lies that hid New Zealand foreign policy on East Timor for more than a generation. New material from foreign office archives shows a cosy connivance between a brutal army regime in Jakarta and a succession of democratically elected governments in New Zealand to hide the real story of East Timor from the people who elected them.