SENATOR GARETH EVANS
MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Senator Evans, thanks for coming in.

Thank you very much, it’s a great pleasure to be here.

I’d like to talk about the events that took place this week in East Timor.

Well yes, technically speaking of course it’s not East Timor. It’s part of Indonesia.

Well, a number of Timorese people were killed this week by the Indonesian Army. What is Australia’s attitude to this question?

Well, let me go back a bit. When Indonesia liberated the freedom-loving people of East Timor in 1975, Australia of course was led by Gough Whitlam.

Who was later sacked.

Who was later sacked, indeed, although not quite as badly as East Timor was.

And what did Australia do?

We watched developments very closely and immediately did nothing.

We did nothing at all?

We did nothing at all. We did it immediately and we remained dedicated to an eloquence which I think can only flow from lengthy periods of complete silence.

How did this affect the military takeover?

Of a very small and relatively powerless East Timor by the biggest standing army in Asia?

Yes.

It went ahead as if absolutely nothing had happened.

A fair reading of the position.

As it happened, yes, an uncanny reading of our attitude at that time.

What have we done since?

Since then we’ve remained completely consistent with the determinations made steadfastly and with the highest possible motivation at that time.

We’ve continued not to do anything?

I wouldn’t have put it like that.

How would you put it?

I wouldn’t put it at all. I’m a member of the Australian Government. Our policy is not to put anything at all at any time.

If you had to put it, how would you put it?

Well, I would say we’ve remained completely consistent with the central tenets of an arrangement going back over a period of time and we’ve made a measured and very carefully worded response.

We’ve done nothing?

It’s a lot more carefully worded than that.

How carefully worded?

Look, there are one hundred and eighty million Indonesians. How carefully worded do you want it to be?

So we don’t do anything?

We are with the central Asian island republics in the sense of a commonality of purpose (interviewer packs up and leaves) in the theatre of central Asian economic and political development. And if we’re going to talk about the current position up there, by which I… (interviewer leaves studio)…there is a position which one could quite sensibly submit which suggests that these ideas are felt more keenly perhaps in Jakarta even than they are here, in Fantasyland. (Looking around.) Where on earth has everybody gone?