Silent witness: Australian intelligence and East Timor

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Silent witness:Australian intelligenceand East TimorDesmond BallPublished online: 12 Dec 2010.

To cite this article: Desmond Ball (2001) Silent witness: Australianintelligence and East Timor, The Pacific Review, 14:1, 35-62

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Silent witness: Australian intelligenceand East Timor

Desmond Ball

Abstract The events in East Timor leading up to and immediately followingthe vote for independence from Indonesia in September 1999, and the atten-dant breach in Australian-Indonesian relations, posed the greatest challengeto the Australian intelligence agencies and the national security policy-making organization in more than a quarter of a century. On the whole, theintelligence agencies performed very well, producing timely, accurate andinformative reports, with the important exception being the under-estimationof the scale of the killings and forced deportations in the fortnight after 4 September, 1999. However, there were serious de�ciencies in the nationalsecurity policy-making organization, and elements of the intelligencecommunity succumbed to political pressures when the Government foundsome of the intelligence about Indonesian involvement in planning anddirecting the violence to be unpalatable.

Keywords East Timor; Australian defence and foreign policy; Australianintelligence organizations.

Introduction

The relationship between intelligence and policy is complex and delicate.It can easily become politicized, so demeaning the intelligence processand ultimately risking national security. Intelligence is supposed to beobjective, frank, and unaffected by the views and policy directions of thegovernment it informs. But it must also be relevant to the needs and polit-ical interests of ministers and their senior policy advisers. Of course, theministers have other interests, perspectives and purposes, as well as other

The Paci�c Review, Vol. 14 No. 1 2001: 35–62

Desmond Ball works in the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian NationalUniversity in Canberra, where he holds a personal chair.

Address: Centre for Strategic and Defence Studies, Australian National University, Canberra2001, Australia. E-mail: [email protected]

The Paci�c ReviewISSN 0951–2748 print/ISSN 1470–1332 online © 2001 Taylor & Francis Ltd

http://www.tandf.co.uk/journalsDOI: 10.1080/0951274001001855 2

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sources of advice. The heads of the intelligence agencies in Canberra knowthat they must compete for ministerial attention, and that assessmentswhich are irrelevant or do not support current policies will inevitablymarginalize their organizations. The pressures to tell policy-makers whatthey would like to hear can become irresistible.

The policy-makers in turn often have great dif�culty in utilizing intel-ligence. Sometimes they are unable to exploit their special knowledgebecause of the possibility of exposing their ‘sources and methods’. This isespecially the case with signals intelligence (SIGINT), the effectiveness ofwhich is related directly to the extent that secrecy is maintained. Indeed,in the Second World War, cities, convoys, warships and army divisionswere sacri�ced to protect code-breaking achievements (see Ball andHorner 1998: 2–6). Sometimes policy-makers would prefer not to be toldabout particular intelligence matters, either because they do not wish tocarry the burden of secrecy or because they have already decided upontheir policies and plans, and do not wish to be obstructed by irreconcil-able information. The relationship between policy and intelligence hasbeen especially problematic with regard to Indonesia and its actions inEast Timor, since 1974–75 when Indonesian intelligence of�cers plannedthe annexation of the Portuguese colony. Successive governments havejudged that a politically stable Indonesia is an important Australiannational interest, and that Australian security is enhanced by good rela-tions with Jakarta. Policies towards Indonesia must therefore be made byprime ministers, for whom intelligence is only one of many considerations.For prime ministers, whether Gough Whitlam in 1975 or John Howard in1999, knowledge of Indonesia is less important than the soundness of theirpolitical judgements. Too much intelligence can be an encumbrance.

In 1975, when Indonesia invaded East Timor, the intelligence was quitedifferent to the public pronouncements of the government. The intelli-gence community closely monitored Indonesia’s preparations for the inva-sion, but the government professed ignorance of these. It knew thatIndonesian military forces had covertly invaded East Timor in October –and indeed, had deliberately killed �ve Australian-based journalists atBalibo on 16 October – but of�cially denied any knowledge. A cover-upwas instituted to ensure that the truth about Balibo never surfaced (seeBall and McDonald 2000).

In 1999, when the Indonesian Army sought to prevent East Timor’sindependence, the politicization of the intelligence process by the Howardgovernment was manifold. Its consequences were grievous. Hundreds ofEast Timorese died unnecessarily. The intelligence relationship with theUS was damaged, albeit only temporarily. Despair grew within the intel-ligence community, producing an unprecedented spate of leaks of intelli-gence documents – the assessments of which were often at great variancefrom the government’s stated positions. They revealed that on some keyissues the Australian public was misled by the government.

36 The Paci�c Review

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This article discusses several dimensions of the role played by theAustralian intelligence community in Indonesia/East Timor matters in1999. It describes the various organizations involved, as well as the intel-ligence cooperation and exchange relationships between Canberra andJakarta and Canberra and Washington. It shows that the collection agen-cies provided an extraordinary volume of detailed, essentially real-timeinformation about developments in East Timor, and that the assessmentagencies provided reports which were mostly of high quality in terms ofaccuracy and timeliness. But it also shows that serious problems emergedin the relationship between intelligence and policy, including the propen-sity of policy-makers to ignore unpalatable intelligence, a lapse in profes-sionalism by the intelligence managers, and organizational inadequacies.It concludes with some discussion of the problems and possibilities forusing Australian intelligence material in war crimes tribunals.

The Australian intelligence community

Australia has �ve intelligence agencies which produced intelligenceconcerning Indonesia and East Timor. Two of them are concerned withintelligence analysis and assessments – the Of�ce of National Assessments(ONA), Australia’s premier intelligence agency, which reports directly tothe Prime Minister, and which has some oversight and tasking preroga-tives over the other agencies; and the Defence Intelligence Organization(DIO). Three of them are concerned with intelligence collection andprocessing – the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS), the foreignintelligence collection and liaison service, and organizationally a divisionof the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT); the DefenceSignals Directorate (DSD), responsible for the interception of foreignradio and electronic signals, and decryption of foreign codes and ciphers;and the Australian Imagery Organization (AIO), the newest agency,responsible for the processing and interpretation of photographic anddigital imagery. Four (i.e., ONA, DIO, DSD and the AIO) work togetherin various buildings in the Department of Defence complex at RussellHill in Canberra. Three of them (i.e., ONA, DIO and ASIS) maintaincooperation and exchange relations with Indonesian counterparts.

On the whole, the intelligence community performed very well in termsof providing detailed, accurate, relevant and timely reporting to policy-makers. Even ONA, which was found complacent and laggard aboutIndonesian matters in 1997–98, was at least from April 1999 producingaccurate reports about developments in East Timor, with grimmer prog-nostications than the Prime Minister wanted (see Lyons 1999: 28). Itsreporting during the next six months was considered by the PrimeMinister’s of�ce and the Department of Foreign Affairs to have beenexcellent (Milne 1999). The working relationships between the variousagencies was generally harmonious, although there were some differences

Desmond Ball: Silent witness 37

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which re�ected Departmental lines, and some personal acrimony in partsof the ONA–DIO relationship. There was a lapse in professionalismaround April–May – which evidently involved DIO rather than ONA,where it had not been uncommon.

The Of�ce of National Assessments (ONA)

ONA has a small staff of only twenty-eight analysts, who provide thePrime Minister and other Ministers and designated of�cials with bothcurrent intelligence reports and in-depth assessments. The analysts, whoare mainly on secondment from DFAT, are located in the Defence complexat Russell Hill, but they must satisfy the demands of the Prime Ministerand his advisers.

All of ONA’s six heads since its establishment in 1978 have been seniorof�cers of DFAT, although they have varied greatly in terms of diplomaticbackgrounds, intellectual qualities, and management abilities. Two wereformer Ambassadors to Indonesia – the founding Director-General, BobFurlonger (1978–81), and Philip Flood (1995–96), who then becameSecretary of DFAT (1996–98).

The politicization of ONA began with the circumstances of Furlonger’sdismissal by Prime Minister Fraser in 1981. Its assessments became verycoloured by the views at the very top of successive Australian govern-ments about the critical importance of the US alliance and the need tosupport US global strategic policies during the Cold War, even as theSoviet Union crumbled.

The ONA had become very involved in liaison arrangements withIndonesia’s BAKIN (Badan Koordinase Intelijen Negara, or StateIntelligence Coordinating Agency). It had taken over this relationshipfrom the Joint Intelligence Organization (the DIO’s predecessor) in 1978,but it had been considerably enhanced during the 1990s. It was regardedby ONA as a valuable connection, which needed to be protected even (orespecially) when the public relationship between Indonesia and Australia�oundered.

ONA receives material for its assessments from all relevant Australiangovernment departments and agencies. Most of its material comes from DFAT, including copies of both the cable traf�c to Canberra fromAustralian missions abroad and reports by DFAT desk of�cers. As thepremier agency, it not only receives raw material and analyses from the other intelligence agencies, but also directs the collection and/or analytical tasks of the other agencies. DIO reports become inputs intoONA assessments, although the quality of the DIO analysis has often been superior.

The improvement in ONA’s performance around April 1999 was duein large part to the appointment of Kim Jones as Director-General inDecember 1998. He had previously been a Deputy Secretary in DFAT,


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where he was responsible for oversight of ASIS and the defence, regionalsecurity and intelligence sections of the department, and where he was noted for his conceptual ability. In early 1999, Jones appointed to head ONA’s Strategic Analysis Branch a DFAT colleague who was the most knowledgeable person on regional security matters in the government.

The Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS)

The headquarters of ASIS is located in the DFAT building near ParliamentHouse, where about 100 staff support about forty of�cers serving abroad.The Service prepares intelligence reports (so-called ‘CX’ material) basedon the reports of its overseas of�cers, and distributes this material to relevant ministers as well as the other intelligence agencies.

ASIS maintains stations in Australian embassies in about eighteen coun-tries in East, Southeast and South Asia. The Jakarta station is the largest.ASIS initiated liaison with BAKIN in 1971, and an ASIS Liaison Of�cerwas accredited to BAKIN in 1977.

The Director of ASIS is Allan Taylor, who was appointed on 1 March1998. He had previously headed the International Division of theDepartment of Prime Minister and Cabinet, and was Ambassador toIndonesia from 1993 to 1996. He was consulted frequently by both thePrime Minister and the Foreign Minister as the East Timor crisis unfolded,and was appointed to head the Prime Minister’s Task Force set up in mid-October 1999.

The Defence Intelligence Organization (DIO)

DIO provides intelligence analyses and assessments to the AustralianDefence Force (ADF), the civilian policy planners, and the Minister forDefence. During crises, it also provides briefs for the Prime Minister. Itis located in Building L in the Russell Hill complex in Canberra. ItsDirector in 1998–99 was Major-General Bill Crews, its civilian Deputy wasDoug Kean, and it had a staff of about 300 (about 175 military and 125civilian). Kean had previously served in ONA for more than a decade,including several years as head of its Strategic Analysis Branch.

The organization produces a range of current intelligence reports andlonger-term assessments, including the Current Intelligence Brief (CIB)and the Defence Intelligence Report (DIR). The CIB, which comprises onlyone or two pages, is produced most frequently – there were 145 issues in1998, and nearly 200 in 1999, of which more than forty were issued inSeptember. The DIR is usually about six pages long, and provides a morein-depth analysis of a particular subject, such as ‘political factions and�gures [in] East Timor’, and ‘the ingredients of con�ict [in] East Timor’.Two or three Reports are produced each week.


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The Defence Signals Directorate (DSD)

DSD is Australia’s largest, most secret and most valuable intelligenceagency. Its headquarters is in Building M at Russell Hill, and it was headedby Martin Brady until October 1999, when he was appointed to the posi-tion of Chairman of a new Defence Intelligence Board (DIB) created toimprove the oversight and management of the Defence intelligence agen-cies (see Moore 1999).

Since the 1980s, the interception and decryption of Indonesian signalshas been DSD’s highest priority in terms of organizational focus, man-power and budgetary resources. DSD’s largest intercept station is locatedat Shoal Bay, near Darwin, where some 120–150 people worked through1999, listening with earphones to Indonesian radio traf�c, recordingencrypted signals, and monitoring satellite telephone conversations.

The Shoal Bay station (whose capabilities are more comprehensivelyanalysed in Ball 1990: 250–8, and Ball and McDonald 2000: 79–99) hastwo different signals interception systems. One is a large circular antennaarray, code-named Pusher, which is used for interception, monitoring,direction-�nding (DF) and analysis of radio signals in the high frequency(HF) band. This system (whose technical characteristics and performancecapabilities are detailed in International Defence Review (1983); PlesseyRadio Systems (1984a, 1984b); Pretty (1979: 638–9); Hockley (1973:475–85) and Starbuck (1976: 15–18)) intercepted radio communicationsamong ABRI and militia units in East Timor, between ABRI of�cers inthe �eld and the East Timor Command in Dili, between Dili and the HQof the Udayana Regional Military Command or KODAM (Komando-Daerah Militer) IX in Denpasar in Bali, and between Dili and ABRI HQin Jakarta.

The second system, code-named Larkswood, is concerned with the inter-ception of Indonesian satellite communications, and especially thoseinvolving Indonesia’s own Palapa communications satellite system. Itbecame operational in 1979, and during its �rst decade had only two dishantennae, for monitoring the two Palapa satellites then in service (asdiscussed in Ball 1988: Ch. 3). In the late 1980s, according to the thenMinister for Defence, ‘the station [was] modi�ed in response to changingrequirements and this included the installation of several dish antennas’(Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates 1989: 1744). These must havebeen temporary, because at the time of the massacre at the Santa Cruzcemetery in Dili in November 1991, there were still only two dish antennae(see photographs of Shoal Bay in Ball 1992: 32). But many more wereinstalled in the late 1990s, making eleven as at September 1999 (includingtwo small dishes on the roof of the main operations building). Most ofthe new antennae were designed to intercept various sorts of satellitecommunications involving Indonesia, including mobile satellite telephone(satphone) conversations using INMARSAT and other services. By 1998,


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it seemed that ABRI of�cers throughout the archipelago were usingsatphones more than their Army radios to communicate with Jakarta.Some of the new dishes were installed to provide direct relay of the inter-cepted material, as well as ‘�rst echelon’ translations and analyses, to theDSD HQ and the DSD liaison of�ces in the ONA and DIO buildings atRussell Hill.

In addition, small teams of Navy SIGINT personnel from Shoal Bayserved aboard some of the Navy’s frigates and patrol boats, which wereable to operate close to East Timor. These teams intercepted VHF/UHFtransmissions as well as low-power HF signals, such as walkie-talkie and�eld radio communications. DSD was also able to use two P-3C Orionaircraft which had been specially con�gured for SIGINT operations in1995–98 under Project Peacemate (La Franchi 2000; Barker 2000;McPhedran 2000).

DSD monitored the stage-managed withdrawal of Indonesian troopsfrom East Timor in July–August 1998. This was a much-publicized exer-cise, in which Indonesian authorities released a variety of inaccurate andcon�icting numbers, claiming inter alia that there had been 3,000 newtroops brought in through the course of normal troop rotation, and a netdecrease of 1,000 in the total number, leaving some 6,000 still in thecountry. In fact, leaked ABRI documents showed that there were 17,941troops in East Timor in late August 1998 (as compared to 15,912 inNovember 1997). The remaining troops included a Kopassus company anda Kopassus intelligence and headquarters unit, although Indonesianauthorities had said that all Special Forces would depart (see Greenlees1998). On the day of the withdrawal, DSD intercepted ‘a number of radiotransmissions’ from the Indonesian ships, which revealed ‘how the landingcraft had just gone around the island and dropped the troops off again’(see Four Corners 2000, where a ‘senior intelligence and policy of�cial inCanberra’ is cited). DSD reported the subterfuge, but the Australiangovernment publicly welcomed the withdrawal.

The Australian Imagery Organization (AIO)

The Australian Imagery Organization (AIO) mainly serves the DIO, andis housed on the sixth �oor of Building L, where it replaced DIO’s ownImagery Branch. It also provides imagery to other intelligence agenciesin Canberra, as well as (unclassi�ed) geographic information to othergovernment departments. Images of East Timor, from broad-swath terrainfeatures down to pictures of vehicles and individuals, were obtained fromthe AIO’s three principal sources – �rst, highly classi�ed, high resolution(6–8-centimetre) images provided to Australia by the US NationalReconnaissance Of�ce (NRO) and produced by its KH-11 (Kennan) andAdvanced KH-11 imaging satellites; second, lower resolution (1–10metres) imagery obtained commercially from SPOT and other companies;


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and, third, imagery collected by the RAAF’s RF-111 reconnaissanceaircraft (including infra-red imagery).

Management and coordination

The organizational machinery for management and coordination ofAustralian national security policy had been improved under the Howardgovernment, but it was still defective at the outset of the East Timor crisis.Informal and ad hoc arrangements became much more important. Themachinery remained unsatisfactory until at least mid-October 1999, whenthe Prime Minister’s Task Force was formed.

At the apex of the formal structure is the National Security Committeeof Cabinet (NSCC), chaired by the Prime Minister and including the Minister for Defence, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, theTreasurer, and the Attorney General. It is supported by the SecretariesCommittee on National Security (SCONS), which is chaired by theSecretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, and consistsof the Secretaries of the Departments of Defence, Foreign Affairs, andthe Treasury, the Chief of the Defence Force (CDF), and the DirectorGeneral of ONA. The NSCC met about once a month until September,when it met several times a week. However, it lacked the bureaucraticinfrastructure to maintain effective oversight or coordination.

Throughout the East Timor crisis, Australian policy was determined bythe Prime Minister, who discussed policy matters almost daily withTreasurer Peter Costello and Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, andfrequently with Defence Minister John Moore. Prime Minister Howarddemonstrated a remarkable ability to stay attuned to public opinion, withits latent fears about Indonesia and, when Australian peacekeepers weredeployed, the popular support that coalesces for Australians serving inpotentially dangerous conditions overseas.

In formulating policy, Howard consulted mainly with two of his closestof�cials. The �rst was Michael Thawley, his Senior Adviser (International),a career DFAT of�cer who had moved to ONA in 1983, headed theCurrent Intelligence Branch of ONA in 1986–89, and had been FirstAssistant Secretary of the International Division of the Department ofPrime Minister and Cabinet (PM&C) from 1993 until April 1996 whenhe moved to the Prime Minister’s of�ce. The second was MichaelL’Estrange, the Secretary to the Cabinet and head of the Cabinet PolicyUnit, and intellectually the most capable of all the government’s senioradvisers.

The Prime Minister and his key ministers and advisers were supportedby a four-man ad hoc group called the Strategic Policy Coordination Group(SPCG), which since the early 1990s has been the most in�uential groupin the national security bureaucracy in Canberra. In 1999, its memberswere Hugh White, Deputy Secretary (Strategy and Intelligence) in the


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Department of Defence; Air Vice Marshal Doug Riding, Vice Chief ofthe Defence Force (VCDF); John Dauth, Deputy Secretary in DFAT; and Peter Varghese, another DFAT of�cer who had succeeded AllanTaylor as First Assistant Secretary of the International Division of theDepartment of PM&C. It was the most in�uential body until the PrimeMinister’s Task Force was organized.

DFAT established an East Timor Task Force in February 1999 tomonitor events and consider policy options. It grew to nine members inOctober, all from within the Department, including of�cers from theIndonesia Section, and reported to Deputy Secretary Dauth. From Marchto September, the Department of Defence had a small informal teamwhich reported to Hugh White. Two groups were established in the �rstweek of September – a Defence Policy Coordination Task Force, headedby the Director of Regional Engagement Policy and Programmes in theDepartment; and the Coalition Management Team, headed by Major-General Mike Keating, which designed the structure of the Australiancontribution to INTERFET (the International Force in East Timor). Thesetwo groups reported to White, who had become Acting Secretary at the beginning of September, and Admiral Chris Barrie, the Chief of theDefence Force (CDF).

The Prime Minister’s Task Force, of�cially called the East Timor PolicyGroup, was formed in mid-October, to coordinate all the policy dimen-sions of Australia’s involvement in East Timor. Chaired by Allan Taylor,it reported directly to the Secretary of the Department of Prime Ministerand Cabinet, Max Moore-Wilton, and thence to the Prime Minister andthe NSCC. Its members came from several key departments, includingForeign Affairs, Finance, the Attorney-General, and Defence (both civilianand ADF) (see Wright and Daley 1999).

Watching ABRI plan murder

By the end of 1998, most analysts in the Australian intelligence commu-nity had concluded that ABRI had armed various pro-integrationist militiagroups and was planning to use them against East Timorese who supportedmoves towards independence. As DIO reported in a Current IntelligenceBrief on 6 January 1999:

ABRI’s decision to arm local militias has drawn its �rst blood. As long as ABRI continues to contract-out some of its securityresponsibilities, more clashes are likely. The killing of two pro-referendum supporters on 3 January in Manutasi, a village in theAinaro regency, is the �rst major clash between pro-referendum(essentially separatist) and ‘pro-autonomy’ (essentially integra-tionist) groups since ABRI began to arm local civil defence units(WANRA) last year. . . .


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ABRI has developed a defensive operational posture that aims toreduce the pro�le of regular units and turn some of the armed activityover to WANRA militia.� ABRI has identi�ed 440 villages where the population is suf�-

ciently integrationist to permit WANRA units to be armed.� ABRI recognises that using force against pro-referendum groups

will continue to attract international criticism.� So using force against the referendum movement looks likely to

continue to be sub-contracted to WANRA.

Another DIO Current Intelligence Brief, issued on 4 March, gave moredetails of the links between ABRI of�cers and militia leaders, and advisedthat ‘further violence is certain’. Headed ‘Indonesia/East Timor: ABRIBacking Violence’, it is quoted here in full:

ABRI personnel in East Timor are condoning the activities of pro-Indonesian militants who have threatened Australian lives. Furtherviolence is certain and Dili will be a focus.� ABRI in East Timor are clearly protecting, and in some instances

operating with, militants who have threatened Australian lives.� ABRI soldiers have been identi�ed as involved in a Besi Merah

Putih (militant pro-Indonesian group) attack on a home in Suailast week.

� A soldier and a local government of�cial �red on independencesupporters in Guico village.

� Xanana Gusmao has received reports that ABRI’s CombinedIntelligence Unit has been inciting violence in Dili and westernEast Timor.

� ABRI could apprehend or easily control pro-Indonesian mili-tants but has chosen not to.

� Senior of�cers in KODAM IX (the Bali-based Military AreaCommand responsible for East Timor) have built up personalnetworks in integrationist politics over the years.� ABRI’s East Timor commander, Colonel Suratman, has spent

much of his recent career in East Timor. And KODAM IXChief of Staff Mahadin Simbolan has a background inKOPASSUS operations in East Timor and a close relationshipwith militant leader Cancio da Carvalho.

� We don’t know if these activities are the result of local initiative,or are being directed from Jakarta.� Wiranto’s views on ABRI’s involvement with militants are not

known, but no vigorous action to reign in ABRI have beennoted, implying that he is at least turning a blind eye.

� The Combined Intelligence Unit is operationally responsible to KOPASSUS. And although supported by Suratman’s EastTimor command, he does not control their activities.


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� Unless Jakarta takes �rm action, ABRI elements will continue tosupport intimidation and violence or at least won’t prevent it.

� ABRI may be less than committed to protecting Australians inthe territory.

This was unwelcome intelligence for the government. It contradictedseveral of its key policy themes: that the violence was unorganized; thatany ABRI involvement was limited to ‘rogue elements’; that neitherGeneral Wiranto nor any other senior ABRI commander was involved;and that Canberra’s special relationship with Jakarta, manifested in themyriad of defence and intelligence cooperation arrangements, wouldensure that the Indonesian authorities remained both frank and respon-sive in their dealings with Canberra over East Timor. The governmentresponse was to deny the contradictory intelligence or to point to ambi-guities and vagueness in the reporting. The Foreign Minister chose toignore the intelligence. As he stated on 7 March:

If it is happening at all, it certainly isn’t of�cial IndonesianGovernment policy; it certainly isn’t something that’s being condonedby General Wiranto, the head of the armed forces, but there maybe some rogue elements within the armed forces who are providingarms of one kind or another to pro-integrationists who have been�ghting the cause for Indonesia.

When I raised it [arming the militia] with Ali Alatas the other day[i.e., 23 February], he said that it certainly wasn’t happening, thatthey weren’t arming paramilitaries; there was some arming of theinformal police support group who are civilians in East Timor butthat applies in all of the provinces of Indonesia. There is nothingdifferent or unusual about that, so I mean, I do accept the IndonesianGovernment’s word for it, that it’s not of�cial Indonesian policy.

(Cited in Lyons 1999: 28; and also Four Corners 2000)

The Foreign Minister was not in a good position. It would have beenundiplomatic, if not provocative, to have contradicted Alatas or othersenior Indonesian of�cials at a time when maintenance of cordial commu-nications was considered imperative. Moreover, because of the sensitivityof the sources and methods involved, he would have been unable toproduce the damning intelligence anyway.

The period from March to June 1999 was a very dif�cult time for theintelligence community. As the pace of political developments acceleratedin both Jakarta and East Timor, and the possibility of Australian involve-ment became considerable, the intelligence workload became muchheavier. ASIS, and more especially DSD, ‘dramatically boosted’ their activ-ities in March (Daley 1999a). The two P-3C Orion (Peacemate) SIGINTaircraft began regular collection �ights around Timor (La Franchi 2000;


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Barker 2000; McPhedran 2000). The US provided new computer equip-ment for intelligence processing and dissemination, but it also deployedadditional technical intelligence collection capabilities to the region whichgreatly increased the data �ow. Extra effort was put into producing morefrequent reports of the fast-moving events.

However, the assessments were not well received by the governmentduring these months. The Prime Minister’s of�ce and the senior bureau-crats from the Departments of Defence and Foreign Affairs did not want to know about ABRI’s involvement in militia violence. The PrimeMinister’s key advisers believed that the violence could be contained, thatAustralia’s close defence relationship with Indonesia would be a soberingin�uence on Indonesian behaviour in East Timor, and that any necessaryexternal assistance should come from Australia rather than the UnitedNations. In February, when some US of�cials had suggested that a peace-keeping force might be needed, Australian of�cials were dismissive. Forexample, Peter Varghese, from the Department of Prime Minister andCabinet, argued in Washington on 23 February that: ‘An early offer of apeacekeeping operation would remove any incentive for the East Timoreseand the Indonesians to sort out their differences.’ Intelligence assessmentswhich linked the Indonesian military to the violence, or which indicatedthat sorting out their differences might involve intolerable levels ofviolence, were not welcome.

By April, the pressure was showing. At the beginning of the month,when Besi Merah Putih militants massacred about sixty pro-independencesupporters at a church in Liquica, DIO analysts had no doubt about thecomplicity of ABRI. As DIO reported on 8 April:

ABRI’s exact role in the incident is unclear. But it is known thatABRI had �red tear gas into the church and apparently did notintervene when the pro-independence activists were attacked.BRIMOB [Indonesian Police] were allegedly standing behind theattackers at the church and �ring into the air. There seems to be nophysical evidence that they �red at the church.

But ABRI is culpable whether it actively took part in the violence,or simply let it occur.

At the end of the month, however, DIO reports included less detail aboutparticular militia atrocities, were fairly sanguine about the prospects forlarge-scale violence, and presented a more benign assessment of the roleof the Indonesian military (by now called TNI). Indeed, a �ve-pageDefence Intelligence Report on ‘The Ingredients of Con�ict [in] EastTimor’, distributed on 30 April, argued that:

TNI paradoxically provides a moderating in�uence on both sides bydecreasing the likelihood of widespread and serious con�ict. Its pres-


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ence serves to restrict [pro-independence militia] operations and ithas some control, when it chooses to exercise it, over the pro-Indonesia militant groups.

It acknowledged that TNI had formed, armed and retained control overthe pro-Indonesian militias such as WANRA, Besi Merah Putih, Aitarakand Mahidi, and that there were ‘distinct limits on the ability of the militant groups to operate without support, of�cial or otherwise, fromIndonesia’.

But by April–May the evidence about the Indonesian Army’s plans forviolent retribution, the chain of command within TNI concerning EastTimor, and TNI’s of�cial sponsorship of the pro-Indonesian militias wasincontrovertible. Both DSD and ASIS had identi�ed the senior Indonesianmilitary of�cers involved, and reported that the chain reached up toGeneral Wiranto, the Commander in Chief of the TNI, and that imple-mentation of the plan was the responsibility of the TNI’s SGI (SatuanTugas Intelijen, or Combined Intelligence Task Force), directed byKopassus (the Indonesian Special Forces Command). DSD had provideddetails of speci�c links between particular TNI of�cers and militia leaders.

Covert operations were undertaken in East Timor by special elementsof the Australian Defence Force to provide unique intelligence. Membersof the SAS and Navy’s Clearance Diving Team (CDT) began operatingclandestinely in East Timor in April. Deployed by submarine and extractedby helicopter, the SAS conducted reconnaissance of Indonesian Armyactivities in the hinterland and movements of military traf�c across theWest Timor frontier, while the CDT scoured Dili harbour and nearbyanchorages. Sensor systems were left on the island, sending interceptedsignals and other recordings to DSD in Canberra for processing andanalysis (Hunter 1999).

ASIS also received a windfall in April. One of the most important militialeaders in East Timor, Tomas Goncalves, defected to Macau and had fourmeetings with an ASIS of�cer from the Hong Kong station. Goncalveshad been the Commander of the Apodeti forces which had served withIndonesian forces during the covert invasion of East Timor in October–November 1975, and, indeed, he had been present during the killing ofthe journalists in Balibo. By the beginning of 1999 he had established apro-Indonesian militia group in his town of Emera, and was being consid-ered by ABRI to head the pro-integrationist movement in East Timor asa whole.

Goncalves told his ASIS interlocutor about ABRI plans to wipe outthe pro-independence movement, and gave him the names of the ABRIcommanders involved in the planning. Goncalves (interviewed on FourCorners 2000) had ‘his �rst high level meeting’ about the training andarming of the militias in late 1998, when he met Major-General AdamDamiri (Commander of the Udayana Regional Military Command),


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Colonel Tono Suratman (the TNI commander in Dili and a Kopassusof�cer), and Lieutenant-Colonel Yayat Sudrajat (the head of the SGI andalso a Kopassus of�cer), at the TNI headquarters in Dili. They discussedthe rumoured referendum in East Timor, and the Indonesian of�cersdisclosed their secret plans for using the SGI to arm the militias (seeWilkinson 2000a). On 16 February, Lt.-Col. Sudrajat held a meeting inDili attended by all the militia leaders from East Timor’s twelve regions,at which he described his plan for the post-ballot period and ‘demandedindependence leaders and their families be wiped out’ (see O’Donnell1999). On 24 March, Sudrajat delivered ‘three pick up trucks loaded withweapons’ for Goncalves to distribute to his group in Emera (Wilkinson2000a).

On 26 March, Goncalves went to a meeting in Dili organized by theGovernor of Timor, Abilio Osorio Soares, who told him to:

[Prepare] to liquidate all the senior pro-independence people – andtheir parents, sons, daughters and grandchildren. If they soughtshelter in the churches, . . . kill them all, even the priests and nuns.

(Wilkinson 2000a; interview on Four Corners 2000)

Goncalves was shaken by this meeting, but nevertheless agreed. Then, inearly April, he and other pro-autonomy leaders were summoned toJakarta, and advised by Major-General Kiki Syanakhi that the TNI wouldsupport their militia groups ‘with guns and money’ (Wilkinson 2000a).Goncalves defected from Indonesia on 18 April. He says that the level ofviolence being contemplated was more than he could bear (interview onFour Corners 2000).

DFAT also received information from Australian aid workers andmembers of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working in EastTimor. The most active and conscientious of these was Lansell Taudevin,who was in charge of Australia’s largest foreign aid project in East Timorfrom May 1996 to April 1999. He had lived in Indonesia for the previousthirteen years, and speaks �uent Indonesian. He wrote regular reportsabout matters affecting community aid in East Timor, which were sent toboth the Australian Embassy in Jakarta and DFAT in Canberra, and whichby 1998 featured ‘the escalation of violence that threatened our project,its staff, and the people of East Timor’ (Taudevin 1999: 5). Taudevin’sreports, which proved to be remarkably accurate, provided details of thearming and training of the militia, their organizational and leadershipstructures, meetings between militia leaders and ABRI of�cers, theinvolvement of ABRI personnel in various atrocities, and their prepara-tions for post-ballot violence (Taudevin 1999: 178). However, his warn-ings were dismissed by DFAT of�cials as ‘alarmist’; he was told he was‘too close to the East Timorese’ and ‘[ignorant of] the importance ofprotecting the special relationship between Indonesia and Australia’


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(Taudevin 1999: 7, 197). However, some of the information reported by Taudevin in early 1999 appears to have been used by the DIO in itsreports (Taudevin 1999: 249–50).

The ASIS and DFAT reports were con�rmed by DSD intercepts. DSDhad found by early 1999 that many of the militia leaders communicatedby mobile telephones and that Indonesian commanders mainly usedsatphones for communication between Jakarta, Bali and Dili. By May,DSD had intercepted ‘dozens of hours’ of telephone conversationsbetween militia leaders and ABRI commanders, including Colonel TonoSuratman. Some of the intercepts were quite incriminating, such as onedescribed in The Age in late May:

Sources cited the recent phone call from a militia leader to one ofthe most senior ABRI commanders where the commander advisedthe militia leader to ‘stop coming’ into his of�ce in East Timor toavoid scrutiny. He advised him instead to deal directly with a senior�gure in the Army’s regional intelligence division in Dili.

‘On analysis the phone conversations put forward strong evidencethat the militias are being actively supported and directed by ABRIto disrupt the ballot’, a source said. ‘There is no doubt that they [themilitia] are feeding out of the same trough’.

(Daley 1999b)

By May–June the government was persuaded about both the complicityof the TNI and the likelihood that a peacekeeping force would be required.It now moved to both try and persuade the TNI to stop its sponsorshipof militia violence and to consider organization of a UN peacekeepingforce under Australian leadership.

Air Vice Marshal Doug Riding, the VCDF, was given the tough assign-ment in military diplomacy. On 21 June, in Jakarta, he met with a groupof senior TNI of�cers, led by Lt.-Gen. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, theABRI chief of Territorial Affairs. He had with him ‘a pile’ of intelligencereports, sanitized to protect ‘sources and methods’, evincing complicity byTNI, particularly Kopassus, in ‘the establishing, fostering, funding, trainingand coordination of the militia’. The evidence showed that the links tothe militia went ‘all the way to the top’ of TNI, although Riding did notname Wiranto. The Indonesians at the meeting ‘resented the allegations’(Lyons 1999: 25).

The organization of UNAMET, the UN Mission in East Timor, to whichAustralia contributed some �fty Australian Federal Police (AFP) of�cers,demanded intelligence support. UNAMET was tasked with oversight ofthe preparations for and conduct of the proposed referendum. The AFPof�cers inevitably came across useful information about TNI and the mili-tias. An AFP intelligence of�cer, Wayne Sievers, collected material froma variety of sources, including East Timorese serving with TNI and


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Indonesia’s security services. It described ‘secret meetings, plans forviolence, funding arrangements, arming, and the provision of TNI intelli-gence of�cers to monitor and control militias’ (Wright 1999b). Accordingto Sievers:

On the morning the result of the vote was announced, we knew whatwas going to happen, when it was going to happen, and how it wouldhappen. It was like waiting for the sky to fall in on you.

(Cited in Wright 1999b)

Sievers gave his material to of�cials in the Consulate in Dili, but he doesnot believe that they were very interested (see interview on Four Corners2000).

The Prime Minister and his advisers had undoubtedly realized by nowthat the TNI intended to instigate widespread violence in the event of apro-independence vote, but they now supported an early ballot ratherthan deferring it until some peacekeeping force was organized. Indeed,the enormity of the likely bloodshed would energize international supportfor an Australian-led peacekeeping operation (Oakes 1999; Kevin 2000).

The Canberra–Washington intelligence relationship

The intelligence relationship between Canberra and Washington is at thecore of the Australia–US alliance, and is thus regarded by security plan-ners and policy-makers in Canberra as Australia’s most important strategicasset. It is governed by a plethora of secret agreements and workingarrangements, at the centre of which is the UKUSA agreement of 1947–48concerning SIGINT cooperation and exchange activities (see Richelsonand Ball 1985: 135–73; Ball and Horner 1998: 177–202). It providesAustralia with an enormous amount of intelligence about developmentsin Australia’s region of strategic interest as well as in other regions aroundthe world, which greatly supplements intelligence about Southeast Asiaand the Southwest Paci�c produced by the Australian agencies (and mostlygiven to Washington, Ottawa and London as the Australian contributionto the exchange process). Some US technical intelligence capabilities arecritical to the maintenance by Australia of ‘the knowledge edge’, identi-�ed by defence planners in 1997 as the highest priority in Australiandefence planning (Department of Defence 1997: 56–7). In terms ofnational security, the intelligence relationship should be continually culti-vated and regularly reassessed, but never politicized.

The US moved to provide Australia with additional intelligence collec-tion and processing capabilities in April, as soon as some Australianinvolvement in East Timor became a possibility. According to USBrigadier-General John Castellaw, who was later attached to INTERFET,‘We have intelligence capabilities, technical elements, that are unique and


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that add an element that is hard to obtain’, and which were made avail-able to Australia at ‘the beginning’ of the East Timor crisis (cited inWilkinson 2000a). The US Ambassador to Australia, Genta HawkinsHolmes (2000), has also said that the US provided ‘unique intelligencecapabilities’.

The US Navy deployed its E-P3 ARIES (Airborne ReconnaissanceIntegrated Electronics System) SIGINT aircraft to the area. These aircraft(detailed in Richelson 1999: 194–5) �ew for up to twelve hours each sortie,intercepting communications, and sending the processed intercepts backto Australia (Wilkinson 2000a). Using their cable-tapping capabilities (seeSontag and Drew 1998), the US Navy also secretly tapped underwatercable links carrying ABRI communications from US warships with intel-ligence capabilities anchored offshore (Hunter 1999).

At different times during the year, the US agreed to the realignment ofone of its geostationary SIGINT satellites, controlled from Pine Gap in central Australia, to provide coverage of signals from the VHF up to thesuper-high frequency (SHF) band (i.e., from walkie-talkies to satphones).

On several occasions from April to November, US Air Force transportaircraft delivered tonnes of computer hardware, software and other elec-tronic equipment to Canberra for installation in DSD, AIO and DIO toupgrade their processing, integration and dissemination capabilities (seeWright 1999a, 2000).

However, there were serious policy differences between Canberra andWashington which led to great pressure on the Australian intelligencecommunity, and which contributed to the lapse in professionalism evident in DIO reports in April–May and to personal tragedy in June.The principal difference during this period, as evinced in the discussionsbetween Dr Ashton Calvert, Secretary of the Department of ForeignAffairs and Trade, and Stanley Roth, the State Department’s AssistantSecretary for East Asian Affairs, in Washington in February, concernedthe need for an international peacekeeping operation. Dr Calvert arguedthat it was unnecessary. He said, according to the DFAT transcript of themeeting, that ‘Australia had not sensed any broad international appetitefor a large scale UN intervention, though Canberra would be prepared,if necessary, to send military personnel; but not into a bloodbath.’ He saidthat ‘to avert the need for recourse to peacekeeping, what we wereproposing was to be active in the �rst instance . . . Australia’s preferredapproach was designed to avoid a military option by the use of adeptdiplomacy’.

Roth, on the other hand, was less sanguine about the prospects fordiplomacy and more interested in considering ‘the peacekeeping option’.According to the transcript:

Roth emphasised the fact that not enough had been done by theIndonesians to reverse the declining security situation.


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[Roth believed] that a full-scale peacekeeping operation would bean unavoidable aspect of the transition [to autonomy as well as inde-pendence]. Without it East Timor was likely to collapse.

For that reason, Roth did not consider Australia’s proposal . . . tobe the optimum approach. In Roth’s view, it was more important . . . to build a UN-based constituency for pushing the peacekeepingoption. Roth suggested that Australia’s position of keeping peace-keeping at arm’s length was essentially defeatist.

Roth commented he now was convinced that provocateurs wereresponsible for at least some instability in Indonesia. . . . It was timeto pressure Wiranto into taking a harder line against rogue elements,particularly in light of reports from within ABRI that Wiranto wasbeing too soft. Roth said he had contemplated sending messagesdirectly to the suspected sources of these problems (former Kopassuschief and Soeharto son-in-law Prabowo by way of example), encour-aging them to desist, but had decided it was better to go to thecentre. Accordingly, Secretary [Madeleine] Albright would raise itwith Wiranto during her forthcoming visit.

Dr Calvert . . . was relieved . . . and suggested the message be castin a manner which acknowledged the positive tendencies whichWiranto had shown, such as his alignment with constitutional processand the non-partisan posture he was taking towards the elections.

In March, Roth asked Ambassador John McCarthy in Jakarta on severaloccasions, including in a face-to-face meeting, for material describing linksbetween ABRI and the pro-Indonesian militias, but was told that it couldnot be provided because of the ‘need to protect Australian intelligencesources on the ground in Indonesia’ (Wilkinson 1999). Roth later madethe same request to the Australian Ambassador in Washington, AndrewPeacock, but was again rebuffed (Wilkinson 1999).

The American attempts to obtain more detailed intelligence aboutIndonesia’s activities in East Timor were evidently a contributing factor inthe suicide of Merv Jenkins, the DIO Liaison Of�cer stationed in theAustralian Embassy in Washington, DC, in mid-June. They caught Jenkinsin the middle of a bureaucratic turf �ght between ONA and DIO over theirworking relations with the CIA. When it was established in 1978, ONAtook over from DIO the principal liaison responsibility with the CIA, leav-ing DIO in charge of relations with the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)in the Pentagon. Under a recent secret agreement between Washington,London, Ottawa and Canberra, the Australian intelligence communityaccepted greater responsibility for intelligence collection and assessmentsconcerning various countries in Southeast Asia and the Southwest Paci�c,including Indonesia. In this context the CIA was now seeking a closer working relationship with DIO and was pressing DIO for more materialon areas which Australia was now supposed to be looking after.


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ONA, however, opposed a direct CIA–DIO connection, insisting thattheir relationship be through its rubric, and the relations between Jenkinsand the ONA liaison of�cer in Washington became strained. The DIOmanagement wished to pursue the CIA relationship, and Jenkins was toldto provide the US agencies with more information, including raw intelli-gence material about East Timor, some of which was designated forAustralian Eyes Only (AUSTEO). In mid-May, he was noticed doing thisby other staff in the Embassy, who reported him to Canberra. Then, on20 May, he received an e-mail message from Laurie Wiseman, the DIOSecurity Of�cer in Canberra, advising him not to desist but to be morecareful:

I have been asked by Doug Kean [to contact you].Issues are becoming extremely sensitive . . . as there are Foreign

policy implications. It is imperative that extra care is taken with thepassing of material to the US and Canada.

In his last e-mail message, to Doug Kean at DIO, on 11 June, Jenkins saidthat:

The pressure on me to pass on information has been intense and isbuilding. I am experiencing a range of emotions from frustration toanger to remorse.

Three weeks after Jenkins’s death, Canberra moved to both allay suspi-cions in Washington about Australian withholding of intelligence, andensure that Washington had no illusions about the involvement of the TNIin militia violence in East Timor. On 9 July, the Head of the DefenceSection at the Embassy in Washington was directed ‘as a matter of priority’to brief the Pentagon ‘frankly on TNI–militia links’. The directive said:

We would be grateful if Head of Defence Section could as a matterof priority approach key Pentagon interlocutors to pursue Pentagonperceptions of TNI’s role in East Timor.

It would appear some key Pentagon of�cials are overly generoustowards TNI in their interpretation of TNI’s role in supporting themilitia activity in East Timor.

This is a matter of considerable concern.(Shanahan 1999).

Monitoring the carnage

The Australian intelligence agencies were able to provide the governmentwith a ringside seat at the mass killings and forced deportations that beganwhen the result of the ballot was announced on 4 September – though


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the level of destruction and the scale of the deportations were beyondtheir worst predictions.

Several days before the ballot, DSD began intercepting conversationsbetween ABRI of�cers and the militia leaders which not only referred topreparations for the violence, but also identi�ed speci�c individuals forkilling or capture. For example, the following radio conversation betweena Kopassus of�cer and a militia leader was intercepted on 27 August:

We can’t be the �rst ones to start it. We have to be on stand-by sothat we won’t get a bad mark from Unamet [the UN mission in EastTimor]. But if we’re not the �rst ones and �ght back, then we’re onstand-by. But if they �sh for it, then we will use a hard hand. Thereis no other way out. That’s how it will be.

It is better we wait for the result of the announcement [of theballot]. It is better we wait for the result of the announcement.Whether we win or lose, that’s when we’ll react.

(Usborne 1999)

Militia leaders also discussed their plans for intimidation on voting day,such as the following:

I’m asking all members of Ablai [a militia gang] to be placed in pairs to watch those who are voting, to observe them, organise them,monitor them, and all the happenings of the popular consultations.

(Usborne 1999)

On 1 September, there were conversations between a Kopassus of�cerand militia members over two-way radio, in which the Kopassus of�cerinstructed the latter to kill human rights observers present in East Timorto monitor the ballot:

Kopassus: Those white people . . . should be put in the river.Militia (passing the order to other militiamen): If they want to leave,pull them out, kill them and put them in the river.Kopassus: They need to be stopped. The car needs to be stopped.Militia: It will be done.Kopassus: If they go to Ainaro, they should send people to close theroad there . . . the green Kijang [jeep] with the big tyre in the back.Militia: I’ll wipe them out, all of them. Nobody gets to get out, espe-cially if the white guys want to go. Hold the car, let them walk.Another militia voice: I’ll eat them up.Kopassus: Nobody gets to go out. Hold the car. If they want to goto Dili. Then hold the car. If they want to walk, that’s their busi-ness. Hold the car. No, send it back.Militia voice: I’ll make the stop there.


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Third militia voice: Better to send them up to Dadina [a settlementin the mountains with a militia command post] and we’ll put them in the river of Kara Ulu.

(Usborne 1999; Schultz 1999; Canberra Times 1999)

These particular killings did not eventuate because the targeted ‘whitepeople’ happened to have also monitored this radio conversation (Usborne1999).

The DIO reports around the time of the ballot acknowledged theinevitability of ‘some turmoil’, and noted that the ‘TNI will continue tosupport’ the use of violence by pro-Indonesian militias, and also thatGeneral Wiranto maintained his chain of command down to the TNI of�-cers in East Timor; however, they severely underestimated the extent ofthe violence, and repeated the strange notion that the TNI might serveas a restraining in�uence on the pro-autonomy militia groups. For example,DIO reported on 30 August that:

The violence in East Timor is likely to remain within assessable para-meters for at least the next few weeks. So the form and extent, ifnot the timing, of violence will remain predictable.� Pro-Indonesia militant violence occurs within strict guidelines laid

down by TNI.� And the purposes and functions of violence in the territory are

clear.� We have good and timely indicators of any likely change in TNI

policy on violence.

The report noted that ‘the East Timor warning problem remains at WatchCondition (WATCHCON) 3’, a ‘threatening situation’, but that if themilitia violence grew ‘a higher WATCHCON level may be necessary byOctober’. On 3 September, the day before the result of the referendumwas announced, the DIO reported that:

Some turmoil is inevitable in the post-ballot period and there willbe acts of revenge and payback. The potential for civil strife is consid-erable, particularly as the UN will still be undermanned and withoutexecutive authority in the province. . . .

The militias depend on both Indonesian leadership and assistancewith weapons. The withdrawal of TNI . . . will remove an elementof restraint from the extremist militia members, who will probablyattempt to murder key independence �gures and foreignersperceived to have worked against integration. This will be as muchfor revenge and frustration as for political impact.

GEN Wiranto has been fully aware of TNI activity, but until lateAugust had not acted forcefully to control it. His chain of command


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is intact, with loyal of�cers in operational control. He was person-ally represented by MAJGEN Zacky Anwar (who now appears tohave been withdrawn to Jakarta and replaced by RADM YoostMengko) and MAJGEN Adam Damiri, and he regularly directedthe East Timor military commander. Wiranto did not, however, effec-tively rein in TNI support to the militias, and orders supposedlyissued from Jakarta were not being fully heeded by of�cers in theprovince.

TNI’s actions after the . . . vote are problematic. They could acceptthe result and assist transition: this is only likely if autonomy is theoutcome. TNI’s support for a transition to independence is likely tobe marginal at best. They are more likely to impede progress bydeliberate obfuscation and obstruction. There will probably be actsof destruction and looting of buildings and facilities, most likelycarried out by militias with TNI assistance.

The failure to foresee the magnitude of the killings and deportations thatoccurred in the two weeks following the announcement of the ballot resulton 4 September was the greatest and most critical mistake made by theintelligence community during the course of the year. DSD and ASIS hadreported the existence of an ‘evacuation plan’, Operation WIRAD-HARMA, about a month before the ballot, but they did not ascertain itsfull scope. They thought it was for evacuating pro-Indonesian supportersin the event of a vote for independence. DIO reported on 3 Septemberthat ‘contingency plans, encompassing the evacuation of foreigners as wellas Indonesian citizens, are being developed’. But the evacuation plan hadbeen ‘switched’ to a deportation plan about three weeks before the ballot,and ‘the big sweep’ was being ‘increasingly discussed by even junior of�-cers at least two weeks before’ (Wilkinson 2000b). It should have beendetected by the intelligence agencies. However, Foreign Minister Downerhas acknowledged that:

The evacuation of people in the way they did it surprised me. . . .The level of violence came as a surprise to me. That people weredeported [came] as a surprise to me and obviously at the time wewere talking to the Indonesians constantly about what was going onand their explanation was these people were being moved out fortheir own security.

(Cited in Wilkinson 2000b)

Believing the Indonesians, at this stage in the process, was a fundamentalmisjudgement.

On 9 September, DIO issued a Current Intelligence Brief whichdescribed the TNI’s strategy in East Timor and linked it to GeneralWiranto’s political ambitions in Jakarta. It stated that:


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TNI has pursued a centrally conceived and directed strategythroughout the East Timor crisis. The strategy has been �exible, andperhaps extended as events developed. Its immediate aim was toretain East Timor as part of Indonesia. Its broader and longer-termaim was to strengthen the position of TNI, and Wiranto, in theIndonesian political system.

TNI has not accepted the inevitability of East Timor leavingIndonesia under President Habibie’s Tripartite Agreement withPortugal and the UN.� Instead TNI embarked on a �nely judged and carefully orches-

trated strategy to retain East Timor as part of Indonesia.� All necessary force was to be employed, but with maximum deni-

ability, maintaining public adherence to Indonesian commitmentsunder the agreement while privately subverting the process ofself-determination in East Timor.

Looming defeat in the ballot in East Timor blended with wider TNIconcerns about their diminishing power in Indonesian reformistsociety and Wiranto’s uncertain prospects for higher of�ce.� TNI strategy since about July has increasingly addressed all these

concerns. An end state has been sought which sees TNI holdingEast Timor, reestablishing political credibility and advancingWiranto to at least the Vice Presidency.

TNI has used East Timor as a vehicle for its broader aspirations,with its strategy judged to contain the following elements:� A coordinated process of revenge, destruction of infrastructure

and records, killing of key pro-independence leaders, and bothshort and longer-term destabilisation of East Timor.

� The violent ballot campaign served an immediate purpose in EastTimor, but also sent increasingly clear messages beyond EastTimor about TNI’s independence as a player and simultaneouslyundermined Habibie, to whom international complaints weremostly made and who looked increasingly ineffective as theviolence continued.

Seeking to overturn the entire self-determination process – by forcingthe process to be aborted.� TNI began developing OP WIRADHARMA – the evacuation of

East Timor – when it realised that the ballot might be lost.� WIRADHARMA was adapted from an evacuation to a depor-

tation, when UNAMET began to buckle.� TNI seized the opportunity to take more dramatic action in East

Timor.� And this is now being done through the deportation of the popu-

lation and their dispersal throughout the archipelago.


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� Even if the ballot outcome could not be frustrated at least a ‘cleansed’, ‘independent’ East Timor would be a mendicantIndonesian client. Creating a domestic political environment inwhich the MPR [the People’s Consultative Assembly in Jakarta]would reject the ballot outcome.� A high level of violence was always likely after the ballot, to

persuade the MPR that a strong enough body of opinion existedto warrant a refusal to endorse the ballot result.

Creating a political environment which undermines PresidentHabibie, and enhances the prospects of Wiranto to gain a seniorposition or in�uence in the new administration.� International and domestic reactions to the carnage in East

Timor probably exceed TNI expectations and TNI has man-oeuvred for Habibie to take the blame.

Wiranto has destabilised Indonesia by reintroducing violentconfrontation and repression as a means of doing business.

On 24 September, four days after Major-General Cosgrove and theINTERFET force arrived in East Timor, the DIO reported that the TNIhad initiated a propaganda campaign intended to ‘discredit the Australiancontribution’ and ultimately cause INTERFET to withdraw from EastTimor. A Current Intelligence Brief noted:

The Indonesian government’s propaganda campaign againstINTERFET is promoting perceptions of INTERFET aggression,brutality and ineffectiveness, with the objective of stirring up resent-ment against INTERFET and Australia. The Australian Commanderof INTERFET, MAJGEN Cosgrove, has already been singled outin an attempt to discredit the Australian contribution . . . TNI maywell manipulate the militias to provoke a violent incident withINTERFET, drawing media attention to serious casualties on either side.

TNI and the militias doubt INTERFET’s staying power drawinganalogies with Somalia [where the killing of UN peacekeepersprompted their withdrawal in 1993].

And TNI sees advantages in continued instability – INTERFETshould not succeed where TNI failed and East Timor should continueto be punished for its vote rejecting Indonesia.

Intelligence and human security

The scale of the killings, relocations and destruction during the sixteendays from 4 to 20 September 1999 and the increasing public awarenessthat it was a premeditated campaign by militia groups armed and directed by the Indonesian military, has prompted various inquiries into


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the human rights abuses and widespread calls for the organization of warcrimes tribunals.

Australia has an enormous amount of intelligence about the carnage –about the planning, sequence of orders, and the TNI and militia units and individuals involved in particular atrocities. The human intelligence(HUMINT) collected by ASIS concerns both the role of variousABRI/TNI commanders in Jakarta and the of�cers involved in directingthe militia groups in East Timor. There is photographic intelligenceshowing details of massacre sites and people involved. DSD has a wealthof information, documenting the violence from the sporadic killings suchas at Manutasi on 3 January 1999 and Liquica on 5 April through to themass killings and disposal of bodies after 4 September. For example, onand around 7 September, DSD intercepted signals pointing to many EastTimorese being either killed on boats or on land and their bodies thendumped at sea. Some intercepts speci�cally indicated that ‘a large numberof East Timorese students were killed at sea’ on 7 September (see Daley1999c; The Age 1999; Chulov 1999).

The DSD and ASIS material implicates dozens of Indonesians and pro-Indonesian Timorese in the atrocities. In addition to General Wiranto, forwhom the killing and destruction was motivated by political ambition,senior ABRI/TNI commanders involved in organizing and directing themilitia groups were Major-General Zacky Anwar Makarim, a Kopassusof�cer who had headed BIA (Badin Intelijen ABRI, the Armed ForcesIntelligence Agency) from November 1997 to January 1999 (Haseman1997; McBeth 1999), and who was appointed in July as General Wiranto’sliaison of�cer with UNAMET to assist with organization of the ballot (FarEastern Economic Review 1999); Major-General Syafrie Syamsuddin, whoprepared the plans for ABRI and militia operations in East Timor atABRI headquarters in Jakarta; and Major-General Adam Damiri, theBali-based head of the Udayana Regional Military Command, whodirected the operational planning. The key ABRI of�cers in East Timoritself were Colonel Tono Suratnam at the Dili headquarters and Lt.-Col.Yayat Sudrajat, the SGI head who personally directed the militia leaders.The then Governor of East Timor, Abilio Osario Soares, and the chief ofpolice, Colonel Timbul Silaen, were also implicated.

In January 2000, Foreign Minister Downer acknowledged that ‘Australiahad already provided classi�ed intelligence material to the UN panel inves-tigating human rights violations in East Timor’. According to the minister(cited in Wilkinson and Cole-Adams 2000), ‘We used the precedent ofwhat the British and Americans did in supplying intelligence material onBosnia’. However, this involved a minuscule proportion of the Australianholdings, and none of the most incriminating material.

Because of the purported sensitivity of the ‘sources and methods’involved, the government has not been prepared to hand over any DSDnor much ASIS material. (Most of the high-resolution imagery, which


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could identify individuals in particular incidents, was given to Australiaby the US, and is not Australia’s to share.)

In the case of DSD, successive governments have considered thatSIGINT material should be protected as much as possible. There shouldbe no acknowledgement of any alleged SIGINT operation; no use shouldbe made of SIGINT material; and no SIGINT material more recent than1945 should be released. It is argued that SIGINT is the most lucrativeform of intelligence; that revelations about SIGINT operations invitecounter-measures (such as the use of different communications systems,or more sophisticated encryption techniques); and hence that absolutesecrecy is essential.

In fact, however, the need to protect sources and methods is neverabsolute, and the injunction against actions which might compromiseSIGINT operations is really not so compelling. Secrecy may be criticalwhere cryptanalytical activities are involved, but the great volume of DSDintercepts during the Timor crisis involved unencrypted radio and satphoneconversations. Yet it is no secret that these can be monitored by anyonewith appropriate receivers.

With regard to radio and satphone conversations, the calculations arenot very complex. Releasing transcripts may induce others to use moresecure communications or be more discreet in the future. On the otherhand, ensuring that evidence concerning gross violations of human rightswill be brought to bear against war criminals not only serves justice butmay also deter future violations.

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Documents

Silent witness: Australian intelligence and East Timor