Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am ashamed that the Australian government has allowed the alleged war criminal, Guy Campos, to leave the country today. I have it on very reliable authority that that is so, although we do not know because the government has chosen not to make any statement on the matter. Madam Acting Deputy President, you will know that I have repeatedly raised this matter in the chamber and questioned the government about its intentions. I have sought assurances from the government that Guy Campos would not be allowed to leave this country until investigations into his alleged criminal activities during the occupation of East Timor by the Indonesian military were carried to fruition. But Mr Campos has been allowed, and I would say aided and abetted, to leave this country by the Rudd government. First of all, I draw attention to Dr Ben Saul, the head of the Sydney Centre for International and Global Law, who said this about Australia’s obligations:

As a party to the 1949 Geneva Conventions, Australia has a duty to search for, investigate, prosecute and extradite any suspected war criminal found in the jurisdiction …

Today the Rudd government has failed in that duty under the Geneva conventions, to which Australia is an original signatory. It is a shameful abrogation of duty by the Rudd government not just to the people of this country but to the people of the world. We have an obligation, and this government has failed to carry through that obligation.

I go back to the case of Mr Campos. He was a collaborator with the Indonesian intelligence operatives in Timor Leste during the dreadful years of occupation in which hundreds of thousands of people died. Amongst those hundreds of thousands of people were many thousands who were dobbed in by collaborators like Mr Campos. They were taken to torture chambers or they simply disappeared—that is, they were executed.

I remember the terrible process vividly because during those years before liberation I tried to hold a photographic exhibition here in this parliament of what was happening in those torture chambers. Under the Howard government, the Presiding Officers of the day refused to have those photographs shown. They then went to the ACT Legislative Assembly, where they were put on public display. There was a mindset against seeing what was happening in East Timor in those dreadful years and that mindset has not yet gone, as we can see from the government letting Mr Campos leave the country today.

I wrote repeatedly to the Attorney-General, Robert McClelland, to the minister for immigration and to the Australian Federal Police about the matter. Mr Campos came to see the Pope in July last year on a visa provided by the federal government. That was two years after his activities in Timor Leste had been notified to the Australian authorities. He, nevertheless, got the visa. He came and no doubt saw the Pope. His presence in Sydney was brought to the attention of the authorities by the sister of Francisco Ximines, the 11-year-old boy it is alleged Gui Campos bashed to death in 1979 because he wanted to get information out of him about the presence of the Fretilin, the then patriots, in the forests of East Timor. He was convicted of that killing, but that was overturned very rapidly by a higher court, as no doubt was the process of injustice by the Indonesian authorities occupying East Timor.

His sister brought the matter to the attention of the police because she ran into the man in the street in Sydney. In August last year it was drawn to the attention of the Australian Federal Police. An investigation was under way. Federal Police Assistant Commissioner Mandy Newton wrote to me in May:

On 5th May a brief of evidence was delivered to the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions.

The AFP continues to work closely with other Commonwealth agencies, including the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions, to progress this investigation.

Based on legal advice received by the AFP, there may be legal jurisdiction in Australia for the offences committed in the 1990s …

And that included the naming, framing and then arrest and torture of fellow citizens, including students from the Dili university, in the presence of this man in the Indonesian intelligence torture chambers in Dili.

Mr Belo, now a journalist in East Timor, said:

I was very badly tortured by Kopassus soldiers while Mr Gui Campos with two other Timorese was working as the Indonesian intelligence spies were present in the room.

He called for the arrest and prosecution of this man, and so have a number of others. I congratulate James Thomas of Today Tonight on Channel 7. He has run a campaign in the media to have this man brought to justice. I cannot imagine what he is feeling tonight at what the Australian government has done.

I called on the Attorney-General by mail a month ago to have a criminal justice stay visa given to Mr Campos so that he would remain in the country. Instead of that, the government allowed his current visa to expire so that he was forced to leave the country. There has been aiding and abetting of this man leaving this country. Why is that? One can only presume that is because the government was too gutless to take the action required under the Geneva convention. It wanted to avoid discomfort with the authorities in Jakarta. That is disgraceful behaviour by the Attorney-General, by the Prime Minister and by the other ministers involved.

This country has never brought to justice a war criminal on our shores. Today’s activity by this government has enhanced Australia’s sorry reputation—and I am ashamed of it—of never having prosecuted a war criminal and enhanced its reputation as a haven for people who have performed despicable acts against fellow citizens during wartime. It is an incredible lapse that is aided by deliberation by this government. I cannot express my dismay at the injustice that has been deliberated upon by this government. Just last week we had reason to think that a government had at last gained some gumption by deciding to proceed with an investigation about the death of the Balibo five, those innocent Australians who were gunned down at Balibo when the Indonesian army invaded Timor Leste back in 1975. The people the coroner named in Sydney are in Indonesia, outside the reach of the law in this country.

Here we have an alleged war criminal—and I believe Australian police officers have been to Dili to talk with victims of this man—a police investigation under way and this government not only lets him go but lets his visa expire so he has to go out of the country. What despicable behaviour by this government. It is not just remiss; this is by deliberation. It is a shameful day for injustice coming from this Australian government. It should hang its head in shame.