Dr SOUTHCOTT (8:19 PM) —Few countries in the world follow events in East Timor as closely as we do in Australia. To some extent, the Australian troops who served in Timor, in World War II and were then aided by the Timorese have sharpened this interest. The events of 1975, when Indo nesia invaded East Timor, and the deaths of five Australian journalists at Balibo, have been much agonised over since.

This year I have had the opportunity to visit the Australian peace monitoring group in Bougainville, to observe the Indonesian elections in Kupang in West Timor and, most recently, to visit Australia's northern defence bases in the Northern Territory and Queensland which are providing military and logistic support to the International Force in East Timor. Each of those experiences is relevant to East Timor and INTERFET and has helped inform my response to this motion.

The Labor Party are seeking to make this motion a political debate. We need to focus on what the government has done to end the violence in East Timor. In 1996, Defence Minister Ian McLachlan first began to promote a greater role for the Australian Defence Force in the region. He moved away from a sole focus on the defence of Australia. In December 1998, the Prime Minister wrote to President Habibie suggesting the notion of a period of autonomy for East Timor followed by an act of self-determination. This would have been similar to the Matignon Accord of New Caledonia, which has maintained peace there since 1988. In March this year, Defence Minister John Moore had the foresight to put a second brigade on 28 days readiness. These decisions prepared us for the rapid response we were able to effect after the ballot.

1999 has seen increased intimidation and violence in East Timor initiated by the militias. The 21 April agreement between the pro-integrationist and pro-independence forces has had no impact. General Wiranto's urging to the military not to take sides has had no impact. Calls to have peacekeeping forces on the ground prior to the 30 August ballot are only a simplistic solution to what is a complex problem. Without the agreement of Indonesia, how could those forces have entered Indonesia? Without agreement from Indonesia, the only sanction available was invasion or intervention under chapter VII of the United Nations charter. So the ALP calls for peacekeeping were impractical when (1) there was no truce or peace to keep and (2) there was no agreement from the host country.

In talks with the Australian Prime Minister in Bali on 27 April, it was made clear by President Habibie that Indonesia would not accept peacekeeping troops in East Timor. Before the signing of the agreement on 5 May by Portugal, Indonesia and the United Nations, Indonesia made it clear that it would not accept an external force which would have direct responsibility for security in Indonesia. The ALP argues that they either would have had peacekeepers in East Timor or would have postponed the ballot. Give me a break. Both required intervening in the affairs of Indonesia. I ask Labor members to name one time when they were able to influence Indonesian domestic policy, when they are actually able to influence Indonesia in its domestic affairs.

The violence which was instigated by the militia after 20 August horrified most Australians and has led to great suffering and dislocation in East Timor. West Timor has been swamped by refugees. My office received a lot of emails, phone calls and mail on this issue. Most wanted Australia to do something about the violence in East Timor. While the hindsight of the opposition is useful, the government has acted quickly to lead an international force and obtain a United Nations Security Council resolution and Indonesia's agreement to allow a peacekeeping force. To have INTERFET in Dili three weeks after the 30 August ballot is a demonstration of how fast the government acted once the atrocities were committed in East Timor. Compare this with 1994 when the Security Council advised that 35,000 troops were needed to defer attacks on safe areas in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Member states sent 7,500 troops and they took a year to provide them. In Rwanda, with evidence of genocide, the United Nations decided that 5,500 peacekeepers were urgently needed. It took six months for member states to provide the troops. The work of the Prime Minister at APEC and the Minister for Foreign Affairs in New York was influential in creating the momentum which saw Indonesia agree to a peacekeeping force and in getting Security Council resolution 1264 to allow for it in international law.

Today the Leader of the Opposition gave a speech which was close to an hour in length. He talked a little about his record as Minister for Defence and what he would have done if he were still Minister for Defence. We need to examine his record in responding to regional calls for help. During the coup in Fiji in 1987, what did he do? During the coup in Fiji in 1988, what did he do? When Prime Minister Lini of Vanuatu requested Australian assistance to maintain law and order in Vanuatu, what did he do? What did he do about Bougainville? The secessionist war in Bougainville began in 1988. When we came into government in 1996 it was still going. It was under the coalition government that we actually saw peace in Bougainville. When the Leader of the Opposition was Minister for Defence, Australia could not even evacuate Australian citizens. The great defence minister of the Labor Party was unable to assist in low level regional conflicts.

The end of the Cold War and the successful use of chapter VII enforcement by a US-led international force in the Gulf War led to a widespread optimism that the collective security ideal of the United Nations would be realised this decade. There were 15 peacekeeping operations from 1990 to 1993 compared with 17 for the previous 45 years. Up till 1991 the Gulf War, the Korean War and the Congo were the only examples of chapter VII authorised international forces, and Security Council resolution 1264 is a chapter VII authorised resolution. However, they were inter-state conflicts. Since 1991 the United Nations has had to confront the difficulties of state collapse and intra-state conflict. The failure of peacekeeping missions in Rwanda, Bosnia and Somalia has dampened the initial optimism of the early nineties, and we should learn these lessons. The veto of the permanent members of the Security Council prevented the Security Council from acting as it was intended during the Cold War. From 1945 to 1990, the veto was used 193 times. Since 1990, the veto has been used only on six substantive issues. Since 1991 we have seen chapter VII enforcements in Bosnia and Somalia in 1992, Rwanda and Haiti in 1994, Zaire in 1996 and Albania 1997.

INTERFET and the Australian government will need to be aware of the dangers of mission creep. The former Canadian Ambassador to the United Nations, David Malone, described mission creep in this way in an article in Security Dialogue, 1997:

Piecemeal addition of enforcement duties to Peacekeeping operations ill-equipped for them was a major source of difficulties in Bosnia and the proximate cause of the United Nations' inability to continue functioning in Somalia after 1993.

Improvising can distort original mandates. For example, the creation of safe areas in Bosnia could not be backed up by the United Nations and undermined the UN's credibility in that operation.

INTERFET must also have faultless command and control arrangements. This has been a serious weak point in United Nations peacekeeping operations in the past. In the 10 years since the end of the Cold War, the United Nations and nations like Australia have learned the lessons of the failures of Somalia, Rwanda and Bosnia. Peacekeeping needs to have several important components: (1) a peace to keep or peace enforcement powers; (2) a clear mandate and a clear objective; and (3) an exit strategy which should not be widely advertised. The Security Council resolution authorises INTERFET under chapter VII of the UN Charter to take all necessary measures to fulfil their mandate. This avoids the problems of Bosnia where lightly armed truce monitors from Croatia were transferred to a completely different arena in Bosnia.

It is also important that INTERFET has a clear objective. The resolution authorises INTERFET to restore peace and security, to protect and support UNAMET and to facilitate humanitarian assistance where possible. It is important that INTERFET and its United Nations successor have a clearly defined exit strategy. The exit strategy should be event linked rather than date linked and should not be widely advertised, otherwise this would encourage violent groups to wait until the international force leaves.

In peacekeeping what seems to work is coalitions of the willing—international but not UN forces—backed up by Security Council resolutions. It succeeded in Haiti, it had some success in Bosnia with the NATO strikes which led to the Dayton accords, and it was useful in Albania. In Somalia it worked until the international force was replaced by a UN force with faulty command and control and a lack of cohesion.

In July the member for Wannon and I met with Major General Peter Cosgrove. I have a lot of faith in his appointment as Commander of INTERFET. I wish INTERFET well. I wish the soldiers serving with INTERFET well. I wish the people of East Timor well.