Sonny Inbaraj, Darwin – Australia's national broadcaster and a magazine have come under investigation by the country's spy agency for airing and publishing a series of highly-embarrassing stories based on alleged intelligence leaks on East Timor.
The Age newspaper last week reported the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) was probing the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and The Bulletin magazine for running in-depth stories in November on what they claimed were leaked classified documents from the Defence Intelligence Organisation (DIO).
It would be a no-holds barred probe, headed by the Defence Department assistant secretary Jason Brown, which could result in criminal charges against those who leaked any information as well as those who received it, the paper said.
Attorney-General Daryl Williams, whose approval is needed by ASIO for phone-tappings, would not comment on the probe. When questioned by the ABC, he replied: "On matters of national security, the practice of successive governments has been not to comment."
But he promised that any investigation would be conducted according to the law. "Let me say that anything that ASIO does will be done in accordance with the legislation under which ASIO is set up," he said.
The allegedly leaked DIO documents indicate that the Howard government was well-informed about how the Indonesian armed forces were fomenting militia violence in the run-up to the August 30 independence ballot.
An orgy of killing and destruction, where thousands have been feared killed, broke out after the announcement of the UN-sponsored ballot results on Sept 4. In that vote, an overwhelming majority of East Timorese opted to break away from Indonesia.
The documents also undermine the view that it was "rogue elements" in the Indonesian army, TNI, that caused the violence that led to an intervention by Australian-led multinational forces.
On the eve of the August 30 ballot, DIO advised Prime Minister John Howard that East Timor will experience violence and intimidation for much of the rest of the year. "TNI will continue to fester violence against its perceived enemies [the pro-independence activists]," said the DIO memorandum.
The memorandum also advised that the militia violence was orchestrated along strict guidelines "from TNI, that it had a clear purpose and that if the vote was for independence, TNI would have less control over its militant surrogates."
"It was absolutely clear that the government knew from very early this year what was happening in East Timor and who was responsible for it," said opposition Labor foreign shadow minister Laurie Brereton.
But Howard, appearing on ABC's 7:30 Report on November 23, before The Bulletin reproduced the alleged leaked documents in its weekly issue the next day, said Australia could have done nothing more than it did to pressure Indonesia to rein in militia violence.
"Australia ahead of any other nation put pressure on the Indonesian government to accept a peacekeeping operation," he told ABC television.
"The Indonesian army failed in its duty at the very, very least and potentially much worse. But there is no way on earth the Indonesian government was going to allow peace enforcers to go into East Timor until after the ballot," added Howard. "Every effort was made. Short of an invasion, how else could you have got people there."
On September 20, the 7,500 Australian-led International Forces for East Timor (Interfet) were deployed to East Timor from the northern Australian city of Darwin 5,000 km away, following a UN Security Council resolution to intervene in the territory. What irks Canberra is how the DIO documents highlight the credibility gap in recent testimonials of Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) officials representing Foreign Minister Alexander Downer in Senate inquiry hearings into Australia's East Timor policy.
On August 13, DFAT Deputy Secretary John Dauth told the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee that he could not confirm reports of TNI troops in East Timor training militias.
"I am really not able to say, not because I am hiding anything but because we do not have definitive information on that ... I simply do not know whether it is true," he had said.
On November 23, at the same time when Howard was in damage-control, Downer strenuously rejected suggestions put forth by the ABC that he had publicly played down TNI's role in the violence. He also argued that the documents were only part of the advice given to his government.
But what could prove very embarrassing to Jakarta-Canberra ties, already under severe strain because of East Timor, are details in the DIO documents claiming that former Indonesian military chief General Wiranto had orchestrated the militia violence in the territory to back his own political ambitions.
The Bulletin quoting the alleged leaked documents portrayed Wiranto, now the coordinating minister for political and security affairs in the new Indonesian Cabinet, as "an intensely ambitious and ruthless military commander" who viewed events in East Timor as providing a stepping stone to his ultimate aim of ruling Indonesia.
The documents warned of Wiranto's "resurgence over the next five years", saying that this would likely be met with violence. "Despite some talk of reform within senior ranks, there is very little evidence to suggest the military is serious about confining itself to the barracks," wrote The Bulletin's Asia editor Michael Maher.
Added Maher: "On the contrary with secessionist sentiments running high in Aceh and elsewhere in the archipelago, TNI's view of itself as the only institution capable of keeping the country together is sure to be enforced."
In the meantime, according to sources in the ABC, legal counsel will be sought if ASIO hinders the broadcaster's editorial staff in carrying out their journalistic duties.