The Australian government was more forthright. "There is no binding legal obligation not to recognize the acquisition of territory that was acquired by force," Foreign Minister Gareth Evans explained, adding that "The world is a pretty unfair place, littered with examples of acquisition by force..." (in the same breath, following the US-UK lead, he banned all official contacts with the PLO with proper indignation because of its "consistently defending and associating itself with Iraq's invasion of Kuwait"). Prime Minister Hawke declared that "big countries cannot invade small neighbors and get away with it" (referring to Iraq and Kuwait), proclaiming that in the "new order" established by the virtuous Anglo-Americans, "would-be aggressors will think twice before invading smaller neighbours." The weak will "feel more secure because they know that they will not stand alone if they are threatened," now that, at last, "all nations should know that the rule of law must prevail over the rule of force in international relations."

Australia has a special relation to Timor; tens of thousands of Timorese were killed during World War II protecting a few Australian guerrillas fighting in Timor to deter an impending Japanese invasion of Australia. Australia has been the most outspoken defender of the Indonesian invasion. One reason, known early on, is the rich natural gas and oil reserves in the Timor Gap, "a cold, hard, sobering reality that must be addressed," Foreign Minister Bill Hayden explained frankly in April 1984. In December 1989, Evans signed a treaty with the Indonesian conquerors dividing up Timor's wealth; through 1990, Australia received $Aus. 31 million from sales of permits to oil companies for exploration. Evans's remarks, quoted above, were made in explanation of Australia's rejection of a protest against the treaty brought to the World Court by Portugal, generally regarded as the responsible authority.²⁷

While British political figures and intellectuals lectured with due gravity on the values of their traditional culture, now at last to be imposed by the righteous in the "new world order" (referring to Iraq-Kuwait), British Aerospace entered into new arrangements to sell Indonesia jet fighters and enter into co-production arrangements, "what could turn out to be one of the largest arms packages any company has sold to an Asian country," the Far Eastern Economic Review reported. Britain had become "one of Indonesia's major arms suppliers, selling �290 million worth of equipment in the 1986-1990 period alone," Oxford historian Peter Carey writes.²⁸

The public has been protected from such undesirable facts, kept in the shadows along with a Fall 1990 Indonesian military offensive in Timor under the cover of the Gulf crisis, and the Western-backed Indonesian operations that may wipe out a million tribal people in West Papua, with thousands of victims of chemical weapons among the dead according to human rights activists and the few observers. Solemn discourse on international law, the crime of aggression, and our perhaps too-fervent idealism can therefore proceed, untroubled. The attention of the civilized West is to be focused, laser-like, on the crimes of official enemies, not on those it could readily mitigate or bring to an end.²⁹

The Timor-Kuwait embarrassment, such as it was, quickly subsided; reasonably, since it is only one of a host of similar examples that demonstrate the utter cynicism of the posturing during the Gulf War. But problems arose again in November 1991, when Indonesia made a foolish error, carrying out a massacre in the capital city of Dili in front of TV cameras and severely beating two US reporters, Alan Nairn and Amy Goodman. That is bad form, and requires the conventional remedy: an inquiry to whitewash the atrocity, a tap on the wrist for the authorities, mild punishment of subordinates, and applause from the rich men's club over this impressive proof that our moderate client is making still further progress. The script, familiar to the point of boredom, was followed routinely. Meanwhile Timorese were harshly punished and the atmosphere of terror deepened.

Business proceeded as usual. A few weeks after the Dili massacre, the Indonesia-Australia joint authority signed six contracts for oil exploration in the Timor Gap, with four more in January. Eleven contracts with 55 companies were reported by mid-1992, including Australian, British, Japanese, Dutch, and US. The naive might ask what the reaction would have been had 55 western companies joined with Iraq in exploiting Kuwaiti oil, though the analogy is imprecise, since Suharto's atrocities in Timor were a hundred times as great. Britain stepped up its arms sales, announcing plans in January to sell Indonesia a naval vessel. As Indonesian courts sentenced Timorese "subversives" to 15-year terms for having allegedly instigated the Dili massacre, British Aerospace and Rolls-Royce negotiated a multi-million pound deal for 40 Hawk fighter-trainers, adding to the 15 already in service, some used in crushing the Timorese. Meanwhile Indonesia was targeted for a new sales campaign by British firms because of its prospects for aerospace industries. As the slight tremor subsided, others followed suit.³⁰

The "Gleam of Light in Asia" in 1965-1966 and the glow it has left until today illuminate the traditional attitudes towards human rights and democracy, the reasons for them, and the critical role of the educated classes. They reveal with equal brilliance the reach of the pragmatic criterion that effectively dismisses any human values in the culture of respectability.

²⁷ Daily Hansard SENATE (Australia), 1 November, 1989, 2707. Indonesia News Service, Nov. 1, 1990. Green left mideast.gulf.346, electronic communication, Feb. 18, 1991. Monthly Record, Parliament (Australia), March 1991. Reuters, Canberra, Feb. 24; Communiqué, International Court of Justice, Feb. 22, 1991. PEHR, I, 163-6. Taylor, Indonesia's Forgotten War, 171.

²⁸ FEER, 25 July, 1991. Carey, letter, Guardian Weekly, July 12, 1992.

²⁹ ABC (Australia) radio, "Background briefing; East Timor," Feb. 17, 1991; Osborne, Indonesia's Secret Wars; Monbiot, Poisoned Arrows; Anti-Slavery Society, West Papua.

³⁰ Age (Australia), Jan. 11, Feb. 18; IPS, Kupang, Jan. 20; Australian, July 6; Carey, op. cit.; The Engineer, March 26, 1992. See also TAPOL Bulletin, Aug. 1992.