Canberra – Australia wanted East Timor to remain an Indonesian province and Foreign Minister Alexander Downer lobbied Jakarta to delay a vote for independence, a report to the UN has found.
East Timor's truth and reconciliation commission has been collecting evidence from thousands of witnesses for the past three years about Indonesia's annexing of the former Portuguese colony in 1975.
Its final report, which shows that up to 183,000 East Timorese died as a result of the occupation, was handed to the United Nations two weeks ago.
The 2,500-page report was published this week on the website of the United States-based International Centre for Transitional Justice.
In it, the commission says that Australia "contributed significantly to denying the people of Timor-Leste their right to self-determination before and during the Indonesian occupation".
In order to maintain a good relationship with Indonesia, Australia violated its obligations under international law and backed the bigger neighbour's push to take over East Timor in 1975, the commission said.
Australia also was influenced by a desire to get the most it could out of maritime boundary negotiations affecting oil and gas reserves.
"The commission finds that Australian policy towards Indonesia and Timor-Leste (in the lead-up to the invasion) was influenced... by an assessment that it would achieve a more favourable outcome to the negotiations on the maritime boundary in the Timor (Sea) if it was dealing with Indonesia, rather than with Portugal or an independent Timor-Leste on the issue."
In addition, Australia gave Indonesia economic and military assistance throughout the 24-year occupation and advocated on its behalf in the international community, the commission said.
But it also made special mention of the more recent role of Mr Downer prior to the vote for independence in 1999. Mr Downer lobbied Indonesia to delay the poll because it was in Australia's interests for it to remain part of the archipelago, the commission said.
"The commission finds that, even when (former president BJ) 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 and that it would be preferable from an Australian point of view if Timor-Leste remained legally part of Indonesia.
"The actions of the government of Australia in supporting Indonesia's attempted forcible integration of Timor-Leste was in violation of its duties, under the general principles of international law, to support and refrain from undermining the legitimate right of the East Timorese people to self-determination and to take positive action to facilitate the realisation of this right," it said.
Mr Downer was travelling in London and could not be contacted for comment. The Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation found that up to 183,000 East Timorese were killed, disappeared, starved or died of illnesses linked to Indonesia's actions.