Alan Cadman (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Would the minister advise the House how the government is working with the United Nations to achieve security and stability in East Timor?

Alexander Downer (Mayo, Liberal Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

First, I thank the honourable member for his question and the interest that he has shown. The United Nations has been playing and will play a key role in East Timor’s future, but it does need to move quickly to play its part to help East Timor through the current crisis and, importantly, beyond that crisis. The Security Council’s mandate for the present mission—UNOTIL, as it is known—expires on 20 June, and we support a short extension of that mandate by a period of a month or two. Any successor mission should focus on areas where the United Nations can be particularly helpful—first of all, in assisting the East Timorese with the process of reconciliation and, secondly, in helping with the improvement of the overall quality of governance in East Timor. Thirdly, we believe that there will be a need for international police to remain in East Timor for some time, both in helping to stand up the East Timorese police, the PNTL, and also to assist with overall policing duties. That work would best be done under the auspices of the United Nations. We would be looking at perhaps around 500 international police operating in East Timor under the umbrella of the United Nations.

The United Nations can play a key role. They can also play a role in assisting the East Timorese, should the East Timorese wish, to investigate allegations in East Timor, for example. They have been asked by the East Timorese to investigate the killing of East Timorese police last month in tragic circumstances, and Australian police are helping with the forensics of that. The United Nations might be able to assist with other inquiries, should the East Timor government wish to ask them to pursue those inquiries—for example, in relation to allegations concerning certain politicians in East Timor.

But let me make this final point about what the United Nations can do, what Australia can do and what Malaysia, New Zealand and Portugal can do: at the end of the day, the East Timorese are responsible themselves for East Timor. They are responsible for the management and the running of their country—and no amount of commentary and criticism of the United Nations, of Australia, Portugal, Malaysia or whoever it may be is a substitute for the East Timorese taking responsibility for their own destiny and their own country. If there are differences between East Timor’s politicians, it is for those politicians to resolve those differences in their national interest. It is not good enough to ask the international community to solve those differences. They must learn to solve these problems amongst themselves, just as when we have differences in this country we are able to resolve those in our own way in the national interest.

It is very important that the international community sends that message to the East Timorese. Certainly, we are prepared to help them if things go seriously awry and there are useful ways we can help—that is what we are doing now—but that is no substitute for the East Timorese taking responsibility for their own country and their own destiny.