Australia East Timor dispute over maritime boundaries

Added: 06/16/2006

Australia is mighty, rich, developed and healthy country and East Timor is poor, almost illiterate, and tiny. What these two can argue about or share between? It turns out there is much. Billions dollars reserves of gas and oil beneath the Timor Sea make Australia feel ill at ease. It is hard to give back resources that should belong to East Timor, when they have been so successfully and profitably used for many years.

Although East Timor became independent in 2002 after four hundred and fifty years of colonization and twenty five years of military occupation, it is still a poor country unable to feed its citizens. The Indonesian military occupation has devastated the country and has taken away thousands of human lives. Murder, raping, torture and beating in East Timor were common affairs during the years of the occupation, while many locals died from hunger and disease.

Today, East Timor has much to build and reconstruct in the country, increase the levels of literacy and education, and resolve health and financial problems of the citizenship. The country relies much on the influx of tourism into the country and for this purpose, several tourist facilities have been built and reconstructed during the last few years and staff has been trained to provide efficient hospitality services.

However, much of the nation's health and wealth depends on natural resources, particularly on the essential resources of gas and oil lying beneath the Timor Sea and Australia. Australia is superior, wealthier and a more powerful country than East Timor; however, it refuses to negotiate a permanent maritime boundary in the Timor Sea and continues to use rich resources of oil and gas.

Australia East Timor permanent maritime boundary would prevent Australia from using some fifty nine percent of the oil and gas reserves that should legally belong to East Timor. That is the reason why Australia East Timor dispute over maritime boundaries continues up to now, and, perhaps, will not be settled down in the nearest future since Australia just do not want to lose its unfair incomes.

On the other hand, Australia East Timor maritime boundary will allow East Timor to receive huge resources that are capable of stabilizing the economic situation in East Timor and solving most social problems. However, Australia, defending its own position in this dispute, claims that the problem of East Timor is not a shortage of money or lack of resources but low capacity to use money effectively.

In reality, since 1999, Australia has received over a billion dollars from petroleum fields located much closer to Timor than to Australia, whereas East Timor was left with nothing. And this happens when 126 of every 1,000 children born in East Timor die before they are five; three out of four children are born without health care personnel, and when life expectancy is 49 years.

There is no need to dwell on birth and life expectancy rates in Australia, because everyone knows they are much and much higher and Australia can easily go without this gas and oil. However, Australia considers that recent talks on Australia East Timor maritime boundary have become more fruitful than many previous ones.

At the latest negotiations of Australia and East Timor, official representatives focused on the project of a "resource sharing agreement" between the countries. However, this agreement will not establish a permanent boundary; it will only provide the legal framework for gas and oil projects. Factually, the agreement aims to postpone negotiations over permanent maritime boundary for "better times".

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