Marian Wilkinson and Peter Cole-Adams – Australia would consider a request to hand over classified intelligence material to the Indonesian human rights inquiry investigating war crimes in Timor, the Foreign Minister, Mr Downer, said.
Speaking on the eve of his first meeting with President Abdurrahman Wahid since the East Timor independence ballot and its murderous aftermath, Mr Downer told the Herald: "We support President Wahid's desire to see those responsible brought to justice. "Insofar as Indonesia felt we could help, we would do what we could to co-operate."
However, Mr Downer said Australia did not have any "smoking gun" evidence of direct involvement in the violence by Indonesia's former defence minister and military chief, General Wiranto.
Mr Downer will arrive in Jakarta tomorrow night. He will meet Mr Wahid on Monday morning, followed by a working lunch with the Foreign Minister, Dr Alwi Shihab, and talks with other Indonesian Cabinet ministers, politicians and business leaders before he flies back to Australia on Monday night.
It will be one of the most delicate diplomatic missions Mr Downer has undertaken. Apart from a meeting between him and Dr Shihab in Macau in December, this will be the first high-level contact between Indonesia and Australia since the Australian-led multinational Interfet force moved into East Timor in September and Indonesia broke off its security pact with Canberra.
The visit comes as Indonesia is being racked by religious violence in the Maluku islands, which spread this week to the island of Lombok, forcing hundreds of Australian tourists to flee, and amid rumours that elements of the military might try to overthrow the Wahid Government.
Mr Downer conceded on ABC radio yesterday that there was still ill feeling in Australia and Indonesia, and described the overall environment in Indonesia as "very worrying".
Significantly, Mr Wahid has visited most of the main Asian capitals and the United States since his election, and plans to go to Europe next month, but Australia is not on his visiting list. The inquiry under way in Jakarta into atrocities in East Timor recently revealed that it had found evidence of Indonesian military and police involvement and questioned General Wiranto about his knowledge of the events.
The inquiry is causing serious strains between some sections of the Indonesian military and the Wahid Government.
Mr Downer confirmed Australia had already provided classified intelligence material to the United Nations panel investigating human rights violations in East Timor.
"We used the precedent of what the British and Americans did in supplying intelligence material on Bosnia," he said. The investigators were supplied with a limited amount of material that they had specifically requested. Their report is with the UN Secretary-General.
The Indonesian fact-finding inquiry has been running parallel with the UN inquiry. Critics of the Indonesian inquiry believe it was established partly to forestall a recommendation to set up an international war crimes tribunal over East Timor. However, Mr Downer said he was "satisfied with the independence" of the Indonesian inquiry.