Paul Kelly is the doyen of Australian journalism and has been in the profession longer than most of us have been alive. One must take a deep breath before criticising him. But John Howard and Alexander Downer must have seen him coming before they enlisted him in this preposterous fairytale in today’s Oz about how they deliberately set out to free East Timor.
According to Paul, ’The Howard government decided in early 1999 to work for East Timor’s independence’. Indeed, Downer told him in late January: ‘I think there is now a very good chance East Timor will be independent by the end of this year, and we intend to go along with this.’
The piece of information left out of Paul’s story is that (as everyone knows) it was in late 1998 that the Howard letter was sent to Indonesian President Habibi, proposing a referendum on independence a decade on. It was after Habibi read it that events spun out of control.
But for Paul the story begins in early 1999 with the Australian government developing an agenda for Timorese independence. Nonsense: it was Jakarta in late January 1999 who announced it was considering giving Timor independence (possibly without a referendum). Australia reacted to this. Everyone knew that Timorese would vote for independence, and this was surely the context in which Downer related those words to Paul, rather than confiding of some secret agenda.
Giving the former government a fair shake in the history books is one thing, but buying into a concoction such as this necessitates serious departure from reality.
Downer himself has tried this one on, which is understandable, and ‘The Howard Years’ went along for the ride. But Paul is supposed to be more hard-headed.
A Paul Kelly book is usually a must-read, but let’s hope this one doesn’t contain too many such flights of fancy.
One and a half stars (and those only for brazen audacity).
[Update: this extract does include more detail, more or less contradicting the crazier implication of above-referenced piece, but still somehow equating Australian government attempts to ensure the referendum went as peacefully as possible with being 'willing backers of an Independent East Timor'.]
[Up-update: Paul Daley in the Age reports from planet earth.]
[A foray out of usual zone; doesn't happen often.]
Glad you posted this. I also note it was a funny way to support the movement by sending unarmed police to East Timor and the whole thing didn’t get under control until the American Richard Holbrooke went to Jakarta and threatened them with all sorts of pain.. The failure of Howard and Downer to inform the US of what was happening. hye seemed surprised about what happened and as we shld recall took no part in invasion force. The Australians story was just Howard fantasy and Kelly shld be ashamed. I thought the story they buried about Rudd’s popularity was more interesting.
And Bill Matthew in the letters pages is allowed to continue the lie that Whitlam was the PM on the invasion day of 7 December 1975 when he was in fact sacked on 11 November by John Kerr with Fraser’s conivance and it was Fraser as PM who gave Jakarta the nod and wink after Kissinger and Ford visited on 6 December. It’s all caught on film and is in the records.
It was Fraser and Peacock who formalised the arrangement in 1976 but still Whitlam gets the blame.
The ABC had an interview with Paul Kelly on breakfast AM. He said that Keating and Howard were similar because they were both conviction politicians. We know what you think of that claim in relation to Howard – but it would be interesting to see if you ever think that this label is deserved.
Yes, I heard that. I think it was actually Fran who said it, but her words probably came from Paul.
I would say that Keating was certainly more of a ‘I’m going to do what (I think) is right and bugger the short-term political consequences’ sort of politician, but overall it is a phony label as all/most of them try to push the envelope as far as they can without losing office.
Jury not empanelled (let alone out) on Rudd.
Marilyn,
The die was cast long before Whitlam was sacked and Fraser took over. Whitlam only wanted “obeisance” paid to self-determination. The Indonesian ‘Operasi Komodo’ plan of destabilisation was already under way in 1974-75, which resulted in the coup by UDT, which was told by Jakarta that it had to wrest power from Fretilin.
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