Warwick Fry, SC Good Times, June 14th 2021
East Timor! The rape of a nascent nation. Morally, legally, ethically – physiologically, when you include the genocidal casualty rate (estimated at 200,000 – more as a percentage of population than Pol Pot). Rape, with Australia’s turning its blind eye and giving the nod to the Indonesian invasion of 1975 and constant attempts to airbrush the enormity of the ongoing violation of a vulnerable people for the next 25 years amounting to collaboration in the political gang bang.
1999 was supposed to mark Australia’s recognition of East Timor (now known as Timor Leste) as a sovereign nation; something that had been advocated in the UN since the 1970s.* But the economic rapine continued for another twenty years. Australia’s recognition of Timorese sovereignty did not extend to recognition of the seabed boundary, which included the “Timor Gap”. Australia gave ‘de jure’ recognition to Indonesia’s seizure of East Timor, paving the way to exploit the seabed resources in favour of both nations leaving the Timorese out altogether. Gareth Evans signed off on the deal, complete with champagne, in 1989.
1999, and Timorese sovereignty threw a very large spanner in the legal works. The ‘Gap’ suddenly became a gaping legal hole, its rich resource fields nearing empty. But there was more…another field, ‘Greater Sunrise’ sent its siren calls to Australia, dizzy at the thought of more filthy lucre. But the Timorese needed money and wanted a border. They settled for money and signed a Treaty with Australia.
But the Australian Security and Intelligence Service (ASIS) bugged the offices where the negotiations were taking place (under the guise of an Australian ‘Foreign Aid’ project). This grubby act was at the behest of the Howard government, specifically under the dull hand of Foreign Minister Alexander Downer. ‘Witness K’, one of the spies, believed the bugging was unethical and went beyond the ASIS brief of ‘National Security’. He saw that the intervention was more in the interests of ‘commercial security’ particularly when he realised that Downer was lobbying for Woodside, the multinational company exploiting the seabed resources.
The newly independent Timor-Leste government was horrified when the bugging became clear, and took Australia, kicking and screaming, to the International Court in The Hague. The gloves were off.
Suddenly, the ‘rule of law’ claimed by Morrison and Attorney General Christian Porter to shelter their behaviour starts to look like a fig leaf cover to a lot of indecent exposure. Which is where Bernard Collaery comes in. He is a former Attorney General for the ACT, and as an approved lawyer for the intelligence community, was recommended to act for Witness K.
K was about to take his evidence to The Hague (where Collaery was waiting) when his passport was cancelled, he was put under home arrest, and Collaery’s office in Canberra was raided (SWAT Squad style) to ensure that the evidence would not arrive at the Court.
Both Collaery and Witness K’have been involved in the process of long, dragged out prosecutions. The fourth year has begun. Both have had their careers wrecked by the legal process that has been blocked by the Attorney General of the government under the excuse of “National Security”. Porter has used his powers of Attorney General to both delay the hearings and insist that they continue behind ‘closed doors’. Michaelia Cash follows suit.
The Collaery prosecution is ‘bringing it all back home’ - the perversion of the justice system to exploit the people of East Timor, the question of whether Porter is a ‘fit and proper person’ to be the Attorney General and the legal persecution of Witness K and Bernard Collaery.
It reflects the mindset of the Porters in power. It is a reflection of the ongoing stripping down of civil rights in the name of ‘National Security’ over the years since 9/11. It is increasingly obvious that the ‘National Security’ issue, the stronger laws and harassment of outspoken journalists and whistle-blowers is a creeping trend based on false assumptions of entitlement. The silencing of Witness K and Bernard Collaery is based on the fear that the international community would see unveiled the seediness, corruption and naked greed of agents like John Howard, Alexander Downer, and their collaborators in the exploitation and persecution of the privileged against the underprivileged.
Christian Porter is very much a part of this. The gender issues have finally exposed the sociopolitical rot in the heart of conservative Australian politics. And perhaps this issue should be taken into account when at last attention is being drawn to the influence of the ‘old boy network’ and ‘the men’s club’ by the Porter case and the “me too” exposures of members of the judiciary.
*The Howard government was forced to acknowledge the results of the referendum when Australian observers (like Jim Dunn and journalist John Martinkus) as well as Australian police and military personnel refused to succumb to pressures passed down to Ian Martin to evacuate the UN compound which was the last refuge from the scorched earth policy of the Indonesian militia and government after having lost the referendum. If they had evacuated (free lifts to the airport under the protection of the Indonesian military) the results of the referendum might never have been recognised and Timorese who had taken refuge in the compound become the victims of yet another Indonesian massacre.