From: Rob Wesley-Smith <rwesley@ozemail.com.au>
Date: 19 December 2006 1:24:50 PM
Subject: affet: "re Sen Ellison to teach Rule of Law to ETimor - excuse me!"
Australians for a Free East Timor PR Mon 18th Dec 06
Rob Wesley-Smith 0419 807175 61 8 89832113
"re Senator Ellison to teach Rule of Law to ETimor - excuse me!"
Just heard Sen Ellison, Aust's socalled justice minister, offering to teach those pesky E.Timorese about the rule of law.
"Presumably he is excluding International Law in which Australia has a totally dismal record in relation to East Timor", Mr Wesley-Smith said today..
"First, Australia at the very least sanctioned the fullscale invasion of East Timor on 7th Dec 1975. In fact it did not protest the first invasion on 16th Oct 1975 during which 5 news men were murdered in Balibo, and many believe this was the direct green light to the full scale invasion shortly after. Australia has never reneged on any parts of the inglorious past, nor apologised to the newsmen families or the East Timorese, etc
"Secondly, Australia withdrew in March 2002 from aspects of the UN International Law of the Sea to avoid East Timor realising its just claims to its own seabed as delineated by UNCLOS rules. This cost East Timor over US$2 bn in royalties at a time when it needed it most just after the immense destruction of 1999.
"It is currently in an impasse over the Greater Sunrise project where Australia is insisting on 50% of the Royalties from an area wholly or at least 80% within East Timor seabed by UNCLOS rules, as well as expecting all the downstream taxation and industrialisation benefits.
"I suggest Senator Ellison gets Australia's own house in order before talking rule of law to East Timorese", Mr Wesley-Smith concluded.
Rob Wesley-Smith
0419 807175
spokesperson for affet
2 comments:
Who is this Rob Wesley Smith? What is this AFFET? Is it even an organization? Or is it a one man show with Smith as its member, its spokesperson, its chair, its treasurer, its secretary, and what have you. So Smith issues his own press statement quoting himself, fancy that huh.
Dear all,
Don't just bombard goodwill people who want to help East Timor.
There was no need to use such historical premises.
what we need to see is the consequences of teaching itself. Is it good or bad for East Timorese?
Adeus
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