Rights group denounces Australia over Timor oil

[dArKeR]

AP , DILI, EAST TIMOR
Saturday, Jun 05, 2004,Page 5

A US-based rights group denounced Australia yesterday, saying Canberra should be "ashamed" for allegedly robbing East Timor of much-needed oil and gas revenues from the disputed seabed between the two nations.

Australia has been accused of pressuring East Timor into signing a temporary agreement that favors Canberra when it comes to divvying up oil fields in the Timor Sea.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard is visiting Washington this week.

East Timor leaders, desperate for any oil revenue, say they signed the deal believing it soon would be superceded once the two countries agree on their disputed maritime border. They now accuse Australia of dragging out the border negotiations.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2004/06/05/2003173826

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1. Related links

Oxfam questions Aust, East Timor oil deal

The Federal Government says it is not threatening East Timor's survival as a new state by taking a greater share of oil and gas reserves in the Timor Sea.

Oxfam has released a report warning that while Australia earns more than $1 million a day in revenue from the disputed area, the young nation is struggling with 41 per cent of people living below the poverty line.

Oxfam says East Timor needs a greater share of the reserves to pay for essential infrastructure and projects, but the Australian Government says the agreement in place is extremely generous.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1111969.htm


E. Timor oil claim could hit $8.4bn
AUSTRALIA could face a compensation claim from East Timor for up to $US6 billion ($8.4 billion) because Australia did not halt production in the disputed oil fields of the Timor Sea.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer was warned of East Timor's potential claim more than four years ago.

But Mr Downer refused to order a halt to production in the Laminaria/Corallina fields in the Timor Sea, 500km north west of Darwin.

Mr Downer confirmed at the weekend he had a meeting in his Adelaide electorate office around March 2000 with Mari Alkatiri, now East Timor's Prime Minister, and Peter Galbraith, then minister for the Timor Sea in the United Nations Temporary Administration in East Timor. Mr Galbraith, a former US diplomat and now a member of a Washington-based international relations think tank, leads the East Timor team negotiating a maritime boundary with Australia.
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http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,9700196%5E643,00.html


East Timor Minister attacks Australia's oil fields policy

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Under a maritime boundary agreement signed with Indonesia in 1972, Australia has rights to oil and gas reserves at the boundary of the continental shelf, which Dr Ramos-Horta said extends up to 50km from the East Timor coast.

He said the agreement was "extremely disadvantageous" for Indonesia (and East Timor) and had enabled reserves, believed to be worth $1 million a day, to be "vacuum cleaned" by Australia.

The East Timorese perceive oil and gas as their tickets to economic stability.

"We have demanded respect for international law and practice which establishes an equal distance between two coastal states. If we follow the equal distance principal all the existing oil and gas fields would all be 100 per cent East Timorese," Dr Ramos Horta said.
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http://www.thecourier.com.au/detail.asp?class=news&subclass=local&category=general%20news&story_id=311318&y=2004&m=6

Seems Howard and Bush are both oily thieves.