A report to the United Nations has accused Australia of violating its international duties by lobbying Jakarta to delay East Timor's independence ballot in 1999. The report by East Timor's Truth and Reconciliation Commission says the Foreign Minister Alexander Downer actively tried to delay the act of self determination by a number of years, arguing instead that East Timor should remain an Indonesian province.

Presenter/Interviewer: Anne Barker

Speakers: Kevin Rudd, Labor Party spokesperson for Foreign Affairs

Barker: East Timor's Truth and Reconciliation Commission has spent three years collating evidence about human rights abuses under Indonesia's 25-year occupation.

The massive report runs to 2,500 pages and documents thousands of witness accounts of killings, rape, torture and detention from 1974 right up to the independence ballot in 1999.

The report was handed to the United Nations two weeks ago, but the East Timorese Government is yet to release it publicly. Much of the blame and accountability is sheeted home to the Indonesian Government and militia groups, but Australia too comes in for some criticism.

In Chapter Eight, the Commission finds that Australia contributed significantly to denying the people of East Timor their right to self-determination both before and during the Indonesian occupation.

In the early years, it says Australia was well placed to influence the course of events in East Timor, but rather than playing the role of honest broker, it tilted sharply in favour of Indonesia.

It says "Had Australia given greater weight to the right of the East Timorese to self-determination and to the inviolability of its sovereign territory in its dealings with Indonesia, it may have been able to avert the Indonesian use of force.

"The Commission finds that during the Indonesian occupation, successive Australian governments not only failed to respect the right of the East Timorese people to self-determination, but actively contributed to the violation of that right."

Barker: The report acknowledges the leading role Australia played in the international force that ultimately ended the violence and bloodshed of 1999, and notes that Australia has consequently tended to portray itself as a liberator of East Timor.

But it contrasts this with the actions of Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, who it says in fact tried to stop East Timor from attaining independence.

It says:

"Even when President Habibie was moving towards his decision to offer the East Timorese a choice between remaining part of Indonesia and independence, the Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer made it clear that his Government believed that it should be several years before the east Timorese exercised their right to make that choice."

"The actions of the Government of Australia in supporting Indonesia's attempted forcible integration of East Timor was in violation of its duties under the general principles of international law to support and refrain from undermining the legitimate right of East Timorese people to self determination."

Barker: Mr Downer is travelling overseas and unavailable for comment, but his office today said Australia's position on East Timor was clearly articulated at the time, that the Government supported the act of self-determination, but the timing of the independence vote was something to be negotiated between Dili and Jakarta.

The Opposition's Foreign Spokesman Kevin Rudd says he'll be raising the matter in Federal Parliament.

Kevin Rudd: Alexander Downer over the last five years has always tried to depict himself as the hero of East Timor's independence. It would be remarkable if the same hero of East Timor's independence was found to have argued actively against East Timor's independence in his private diplomatic dealings with the Indonesian Government at the time. That's why when Parliament resumes I will be placing a number of questions to Mr Downer precisely about his communications with Jakarta at that time.