The Age
This should be compulsory reading for anybody seriously interested in Australian politics and diplomacy – or those many Australians who get warm and fuzzy over our relations with East Timor.
Paul Cleary, formerly of The Sydney Morning Herald and Australian Financial Review, and former adviser to the Prime Minister of East Timor on Timor Sea oil and gas negotiations, knows his stuff inside out. In concise, no-nonsense language, he not only documents Australia’s abandonment of East Timor when the Portuguese shot through in 1975 (in response to diplomatic advice that an independent East Timor would become another “Cuba” – on our doorstep) but also the significance of oil in the whole shameful saga.
He takes you behind the scenes during the heated negotiations between the Australian government and the Timorese over the carve up of the billion-dollar oil and gas reserves. The result is a disturbing picture of an unseemly rush for black gold.
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