Potential Australian/New Zealand/East Timor/Indonesia conflict (was Red Dawn Remake

[Legbreaker]

As far as I'm aware, the US barely had any involvement at all in East Timor. Most of the work was done by Australians with some small support from a few other nations.
The UN basically washed it's hands of the situation, at least in the first few months.

Of course with the intial invasion by Indonesia occuring back in the 70's, and the Australian government of the day sitting on their hands in fear of a confrontation, it was about time we did something good for the East Timorese.

[headquarters]

But will you give back the oilfields that the Indonesians grabbed from the East Timorese and subsequently sold to Australia ....

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

As far as I'm aware, the US barely had any involvement at all in East Timor. Most of the work was done by Australians with some small support from a few other nations.
The UN basically washed it's hands of the situation, at least in the first few months.

Of course with the intial invasion by Indonesia occuring back in the 70's, and the Australian government of the day sitting on their hands in fear of a confrontation, it was about time we did something good for the East Timorese.

[Targan]

Originally Posted by headquarters

But will you give back the oilfields that the Indonesians grabbed from the East Timorese and subsequently sold to Australia ....

There are differing opinions on this point. Once East Timor gained independence large undersea areas with oil and gas reserves that should probably have belonged to the new East Timorese nation ended up either under Australian control or are jointly controlled by Australia and East Timor. Some might see it as Australia taking advantage of East Timor but then again with Australian help and joint control East Timor is likely to see those gas and oilfields developed much faster and also East Timor will be in a stronger position to get a decent income out of it (my point being that without Australia's help it would be easy for petro-chemical companies to drive a hard bargain and basically rip East Timor off).

I'm not sure how to feel about it yet. Part of me thinks that without Australian and New Zealand help East Timor would still be a province of Indonesia. And Australia is still providing heaps of support (financial, security, logistical) to East Timor. I haven't been to East Timor myself so I don't know how people on the ground there feel about the situation.

[headquarters]

I wasnt slamming the Aussie/Kiwi Union -really .
You guys seem to be the good guys pretty much all the time.

So it was sort of a cheeky comment to Legbreaker just to rattle the cage .


I will behave .

But this discussion should spawn another topic - Indonesia/Australia/Kiwiland relations and situation in T2k .

Someone started saying something about possible Indonesian invasion in the future - but wouldnt an active policy of destabilizing Indonesia and a cut of from western military aid/products really throw sand in an Indonesian war effort ? I mean they already have a dozen insurgencies to handle and difficult terrain to control.

Also -given Australias vast landmass- couldnt you Aussies fight a delaying action and give them the crocodile infected swamps and deserts for long enough to mobilize and train a million bludgers ,produce enough kookaburra slouch hats and give `em a blue that they wouldnt ever forget ?I reckon this to be a fair dinkum analyzis.

Any invasion force would have to come to the south coast to get to any of the strategically important areas wouldnt they ?A hundred thousand cursing bushies with slouch hats would have to be battled firstly in Western Australia or in the jungles up north ?

Originally Posted by Targan

There are differing opinions on this point. Once East Timor gained independence large undersea areas with oil and gas reserves that should probably have belonged to the new East Timorese nation ended up either under Australian control or are jointly controlled by Australia and East Timor. Some might see it as Australia taking advantage of East Timor but then again with Australian help and joint control East Timor is likely to see those gas and oilfields developed much faster and also East Timor will be in a stronger position to get a decent income out of it (my point being that without Australia's help it would be easy for petro-chemical companies to drive a hard bargain and basically rip East Timor off).

I'm not sure how to feel about it yet. Part of me thinks that without Australian and New Zealand help East Timor would still be a province of Indonesia. And Australia is still providing heaps of support (financial, security, logistical) to East Timor. I haven't been to East Timor myself so I don't know how people on the ground there feel about the situation.