Hamish Mcdonald – Australian diplomatic cables released yesterday covering Indonesia's takeover of East Timor in 1974-76 show officials caught in a web of deceit and moral compromise that led to a foreign policy disaster. Revelations in hundreds of pages of until now secret documents include:
Foreign Affairs officials "sanitised" the official record of talks on East Timor in 1975 between the then prime minister, Mr Gough Whitlam, and Indonesia's president Soeharto.
Australia was told of Indonesia's planned invasion of East Timor three days before the attack on Balibo that killed five Australian-based newsmen;
The night of Indonesia's invasion, Australia's Ambassador in Jakarta, Mr Richard Woolcott, had "a long and very frank discussion" with the Indonesian general in charge of the operation, Benny Murdani.
One of the most damning revelations is the evidence that Australia's official diplomatic records on East Timor were sanitised.
In April 1975 a senior Foreign Affairs official, Lance Joseph, sought to explain to the Australian Embassy in Jakarta why Canberra's official record did not reflect accurately talks just held in Townsville between Mr Whitlam and Soeharto, following complaints from the Indonesians.
What Indonesia had been shown, the official wrote, was the sanitised version of the record. "For presentational purposes it was felt important in the sanitised version to highlight Australia's commitment to [East Timor's] self-determination in a way which is not reflected in the exhaustive record."
The documents' release by the Foreign Affairs historical unit chronicles one of the most intense periods of Australian diplomacy and reignites the debate over East Timor, with former senior diplomats and politicians moving yesterday to defend their reputations.
The released documents show Canberra doing what the then ambassador Woolcott called "having its cake and eating it" – backing Indonesia's aim of incorporating Portuguese Timor, yet supporting the right of the territory to self-determination.
Mr Woolcott told the Herald Australia had warned against the use of force, and rejected the notion of being "compromised" by being told too much by the Indonesians.
"Could you imagine the criticism that would have fallen on the government and the embassy if the embassy had not been well informed about Indonesia's intentions in 1974 and 1975?" he said, referring to recent events in Fiji and the Solomon Islands.
The former prime minister Mr Malcolm Fraser, who succeeded Mr Whitlam, said yesterday that he was not told of intelligence reports about Indonesia's plans to invade East Timor when he became Australia's caretaker leader in 1975. "I didn't know the Australian government had that information," he told AAP. "The Department of Foreign Affairs did not brief me to that effect when I became prime minister or caretaker prime minister."
The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Downer, supported the act of "transparency" in opening the records six years ahead of the normal 30-year rule, and refused to pass judgment on the Whitlam government, knowing that the documents are damning enough.
The Opposition foreign affairs spokesman, Mr Laurie Brereton, said the release "bears the taint of political partisanship" as it did not extend to 1979, showing the Fraser government's knowledge of atrocities after the invasion, and its decisions to recognise Indonesian sovereignty.
Significant intelligence assessments on the invasion remain classified. However, Mr Downer said they would not tell a different story.
On the killing of the newsmen, Mr Downer said this was covered by a full selection of documents. They showed "Foreign Affairs had no information beforehand of any intention to kill the journalists, although it did have prior knowledge of the planned invasion".