Australia condemned over 'stolen' oil, gas and Timor Sea 'neocolonial greed'

Timorese protest in Dili over Australian 'greed' over the Timor Sea boundary issue.
Photo: Juvinal Dias/La'o Hamutuk

An alternative view to the mainstream media coverage on the Timor Sea issue. A statement from the Movement against the Occupation of the Timor Sea, a Timor-Leste activist group that has been smeared by a false AFP report about a demonstration across the road from the Autralian Embassy in the East Timorese capital of Dili on December 5:

FOR MANY years, Australia has been stealing the oil and gas from the Timor Sea, in an area which belongs to Timor-Leste under international legal principles.

Sadly, Australia has shown its manner and its greed to make our small and poor country in this region lose our resources and sovereignty.

After it became aware of the oil and gas reserves in the Timor Sea, Australia supported Indonesia for more than two decades as it committed genocide against the people of this land, stealing and using its strong economic and political power to trample us, making themselves rich by leaving us in poverty.

A few days ago, the Australian government used its intelligence service to seize documents from Timor-Leste's lawyer in the CMATS (Certain Maritime Arrangements in the Timor Sea) arbitration case, and to put pressure on a "whistleblower" so that he could not testify.

What Timor-Leste is entitled to if fair median boundaries
are drawn up on the Timor Sea based on international maritime law.
Link here to La'o Hamutuk for a larger version of this map
and a separate map showing the current CMATS Treaty compromise.
Source: La'o Hamutuk

These are not the practices of a nation which values democracy, freedom and morality.

In addition, Australia's leaders showed their disrepect for the Timor-Leste people - a small, poor peole who generously helped Australia during the Second World War against Japan, at the cost of 40,000 Timorese people's lives.

Today, the Movement Against the Occupation of the Timor Sea asks the government of Australia to:

1. Stop stealing and occupying the Timor Sea, but show your goodwill as a large nation which follows democratic prniciples to accept a maritime boundary which follows international law principles.

2. Australia should set an example as a sovereign nation which respects and recognises the rights of Timor-Leste's people.

3. Australia should not promote or continue neocolonialism against Timor-Leste's people, who have suffered this for centuries. We will no longer be your slaves.

4. The Abbott government should apologise to the Maubere people, who have been hugely discriminated against by Australia from the past to the present.

If not, we will continue to demonstrate at the Australian Embassy for the indefinite future. This concludes our press release, and thank you for your attention.

The struggle continues.

Dili
5 December 2013

Juvinal Dias
Representative
Movement Against the Occupation of the Timor Sea
Contact number (+670) 77348703/77126417

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• The 40-year battle over Timor's oil 
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