Louise Williams – A key Australian intelligence source in East Timor warned more than a year ahead of September's carnage that Indonesian-backed militia units would fight a bloody "scorched earth" battle if independence was won, but his confidential reports were dismissed as "alarmist and irrelevant".
Lansell Taudevin, who headed Australia's aid project in East Timor until April this year, provided detailed information to the Australian Embassy in Jakarta and to Canberra about the formation of local militia units by the Indonesian military from as early as mid-1997.
By mid-1998, when Australian policy still supported Indonesian rule in the disputed territory, Mr Taudevin sent a memo to the embassy in Jakarta describing a secret meeting between Indonesian military commanders and their East Timorese supporters. At that meeting a 25,000-strong armed militia force to "confront" independence groups was discussed, and an existing force of 10,000 pro-Indonesian militia fighters, armed with M-16 assault rifles, was claimed.
"This memo caused understandable disquiet, particularly with its confirmation of links between the Indonesian military and the emerging militia. I sent it to my Jakarta superiors," Mr Taudevin writes in his new book, East Timor, Too Little Too Late. "They dismissed it as irrelevant and alarmist."
It was not until April this year, after Australia's policy switch, that the Foreign Minister, Mr Downer, publicly acknowledged that the Indonesian military was behind militia atrocities in East Timor.
The claims came as the Prime Minister, Mr Howard, announced he would visit East Timor on Sunday to meet some of the 4,900 Australian troops serving with the Australian-led multinational military force.
The Government also announced yesterday that it would donate an extra $60 million for the territory's humanitarian and reconstruction needs this financial year, making it the largest contribution Australia has ever made to a humanitarian crisis abroad.
Mr Howard told Parliament he would meet the commander of the Interfet force, Major-General Peter Cosgrove, and other members of the Australian contingent.
He is expected to spend about five hours on the ground, visiting Dili and some outlying areas. The Opposition Leader, Mr Beazley, will visit East Timor later next week.
Mr Taudevin, who spent 16 years in Indonesia and speaks fluent Bahasa Indonesia, was posted to Dili in 1996, where he was told his job as head of the local aid project would include providing information "from time to time" to his superiors at the Australian Embassy in Jakarta. He did not work directly for Ausaid, the Australian aid agency, but for a management agency. The water project his company ran operated in 150 East Timorese villages, with dozens of local staff members, giving him a significant local information network.
"I was told I would be going into an area that was sensitive, that from time to time there would be a requirement for me to report to Ausaid on what I saw happening there. It was stressed that this was very much for my safety and the safety of the team. I was told to keep it objective and verifiable," he said.
"This related to reporting on anything untoward involving the [Indonesian] military and the way military actions affected the people." As Australia's most senior aid worker in East Timor, Mr Taudevin describes himself as Canberra's "man in Dili". Australia had no East Timor-based diplomatic staff between 1971 and the reopening of the consulate in mid-1999.
"None of this was in writing, but I have copies of e-mails from Jakarta [the Embassy] and Canberra referring to my reports, in one case highly complimentary, in most cases the opposite." His book is based on his reports to Jakarta over a three-year period.
In an entry dated June 18, 1998, Mr Taudevin writes: "I spoke to Ausaid at length. I outlined the seriousness of the situation. I advised that I felt the situation here in East Timor would deteriorate in the coming months ... my information evoked no interest or response."
In April 1999, Mr Taudevin was accused by the Indonesian military of spying and ordered out of East Timor.
In Canberra, a spokesman for Mr Downer described him as an "utter fruit loop" who had to be recalled from Dili because he was endangering the relationship between Indonesia and Australia.
In September this year, after the overwhelming vote in favour of independence at the United Nations sponsored ballot, pro-Indonesian militia forces rampaged across East Timor, killing an unknown number, destroying most of the territory's infrastructure and forcing hundreds of thousands from their homes, in the realisation of their "scorched earth" plans.