Jose Ramos-Horta – I have been fighting for the independence of my country since the early 1970s. I lost three brothers and a sister, as well as countless friends and relatives, to the violence visited upon my people during 25 years of brutal Indonesian occupation.

About a third of the population of East Timor was killed during this period, in one of the worst genocides of the 20th century. Our nation was then laid to waste after the long-awaited exercise of our right to self-determination in 1999.

A statement of claim by US energy company Oceanic Exploration , for more than $US30 billion in damages contains allegations that members of the government of East Timor accepted bribes in relation to oil developments in the Timor Sea.

The case is a frustrating distraction from our task of nation building, to say nothing of ironic, given the recent grant without our consent of petroleum licences in the Timor Sea.

East Timor is one of the poorest nations in the world. Life expectancy is one of the world's lowest at 49 years; infant mortality is one of the highest at 12 per cent; illiteracy is 70 per cent.

Even now, after independence, we are still fighting to establish our land and maritime borders.

That said, in the two years since our independence, we have accomplished much and we are benefiting from access to the community of nations after a generation of enforced seclusion.

Since May 2002, we have been building the administration of our country on the principles of democracy, transparency and integrity.

We are nurturing not only a civil service, but also a civil society. We have been struggling to fill a legal vacuum with legislation.

Industry and development have been growing. We have been educating professionals, and 700 of the 900 schools burned down in 1999 have been rebuilt.

Our people are not starving. Our nation is peaceful and secure.

Recently, I travelled to our border with Indonesia. I was heartened to meet people in the villages and to see that they no longer live in fear. The peacekeeping forces still visually provide assurance of security.

I saw an endless landscape of green. Our rice harvest looks as if it will be a bountiful one. It is, I thought, finally East Timor's time to prosper.

But now my country faces a distraction from its all-consuming effort of nation building. The $US30 billion lawsuit filed in a US court concerns our biggest oil and gas development, the Bayu-Undan field, which lies in the East Timor-Australia joint-development area of the Timor Sea.

The defendants include ConocoPhillips (the operator of the Bayu-Undan project), the Designated Authority (the regulatory authority for the joint-development area) and Indonesia's state petroleum company. It is claimed they engaged in racketeering and conspiracy, among other things.

In the course of setting out this claim, allegations and insinuations are made against our Prime Minister, Mari Alkatiri , as well as against his family and other members of the East Timor government.

Alkatiri and his family are said to have accepted bribes totalling $US2.5 million from ConocoPhillips to ensure the latter's investment in the Timor Sea most notably through ratification of the Timor Sea Treaty, the international legal underpinning for petroleum developments in the Timor Sea.

Members of parliament are alleged to have been bribed with tens of thousands of dollars by the Australian government to the same end.

The claim by Oceanic Exploration and its Petrotimor subsidiary is grounded in an exploration concession in the Timor Sea. The concession was granted to Petrotimor in 1974 by the Portuguese colonial administration of what was then known as Portuguese Timor.

It was granted unilaterally and Australia forcefully disputed it as a violation of international law.

The Portuguese left East Timor very shortly thereafter, in 1975. We were subsequently torn by civil war and then, after Indonesian's genocidal invasion on December 7, 1975, by 25 years of brutal occupation.

Petrotimor did not seek to enforce its concession during East Timor's years of Indonesian occupation, or to challenge that occupation in any manner. Indeed, nothing was heard from Petrotimor or Oceanic Exploration until August 21, 2001, when they filed a claim in an Australian court.

They sought compensation for what they alleged was expropriation: the production-sharing contract with Phillips Petroleum in respect of an area of the Timor Sea encompassing the Bayu-Undan petroleum fields. The claim was against Phillips, as well as against Australia and the regulatory body for the Timor Sea created by the Timor Gap Treaty.

The impugned contract with Phillips had been signed in 1991, 10 years prior to the claim in an Australian court.

Months after filing this suit, Petrotimor and Oceanic Exploration returned to East Timor seeking, from our interim administration, recognition and extension of their unilaterally granted colonial concession.

At the time of this return to East Timor, we were finalising international, fiscal and contractual arrangements that would permit the Bayu-Undan development in the Timor Sea to move forward. Indeed, East Timor celebrated the start of the liquids phase of production from this field with ConocoPhillips. Bayu-Undan will provide crucial revenues in our early years of independence.

Very much unlike ConocoPhillips, Oceanic Exploration has not conducted petroleum activities in almost a decade. It claims interests in the North Aegean Sea and the East China Sea , in addition to the Timor Sea all areas subject to long-standing international maritime boundary disputes.

The statement of claim filed by Petrotimor and Oceanic is a vexatious distraction at this difficult and crucial time of East Timor's national reconstruction not least because of the spurious allegations against our Prime Minister, his family and members of our national parliament.

Petrotimor and Oceanic Exploration demand compensation three times the amount of what they allege is their "actual damage" $US10.5 billion.

In its latest financial statements, Oceanic Exploration cited $US1.9 billion as the upward estimate of revenues it might have gained from its 1974 wager in the Timor Sea.

I cannot fathom the immorality that motivated the Petrotimor-Oceanic Exploration action.

I hope the community of nations will forgive East Timor its bitterness, as it watches this cautionary tale of unilateral concession granting unfold to its potential devastation.

On February 23, 2004 , East Timor learned of Australia's unlawful grant of an exploration licence in the Greater Sunrise area of the Timor Sea.

This area was agreed by treaty with Australia in March 2003 to be one where East Timor and Australia had made maritime claims and had not yet delimited their maritime boundaries. It is the second such licence to be issued unilaterally since Australia and East Timor signed this treaty.

I can only hope that the recent claim by Petrotimor and Oceanic Exploration will bring home the importance of the security created by maritime boundaries.

[Jose Ramos-Horta Is East Timor's Minister For Foreign Affairs.]