WEST TIMOR REJECTS AUSTRALIA's CLAIM TO PULAU PASIR

The people of West Timor-East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) firmly reject Australia's claim to Pulau Pasir based on the 1974 MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) on the Rights of Traditional Fishermen. Furthermore, its refusal to use the Australia-Indonesia 1996 MoU on Oil Pollution Preparedness and Response to resolve the 2009 Montara Oil Spill in the Timor Sea is unacceptable.

Australia unilaterally and wrongly claims a group of islands located south of the island of Rote, East Nusa Tenggara, which is called Pulau Pasir. In addition Australia has ignored the damage from the 2009 blowout of the Montara oil well in the Timor Sea and its effects on the Timor residents.

The livelihoods of 100,000 people of NTT have been sacrificed because Australia has refused compensation for spill damage; in addition, many people have gotten sick and died after this spill.

The Chairman of West Timor Care, Ferdi Tanoni said that Australia does not have any rights over the Ashmore Reef, because Australia is unable to produce any official document on ownership of the island which is required by international law.

 "However, the legal facts show the opposite, that the islands actually belong to Indonesian traditional fishermen since the 17th century,". Related to this matter, Tanoni stated that the people of NTT do not want to have a war with Australia, but we need honesty and we need to carry out our traditional use of the Timor Sea, that is to make a life in the sea as we always have in NTT.

"I am holding a meeting with various parties to prepare everything so that they are ready to enter the Pulau Pasir group of 50 traditional Timor sea fishing boats every day to support their families," said Tanoni, the former Australian Embassy immigration agent in Kupang, on Monday, September 14.

Tanoni explained, Pulau Pasir can be reached within six hours from Rote Island by motor boat. This place is a shelter for traditional Indonesian fishermen to rest after looking for fish and other marine biota around the Pulau Pasir, or as Australia calls it “Ashmore Reef”.

"However, the legal facts show the opposite, that the island has actually belonged to Indonesian traditional fishermen since the 17th century,".

Tanoni explained:"The Pulau Pasir cluster is more precisely the territory of traditional Indonesian fishermen who have been using it for 500 years ago, long before Australia proclaimed the Inauguration of the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901 as a sovereign state," he said.

Very funny, Australia referred to the 1974 MoU, then annexed and claimed the "Pulau Pasir Cluster then called Ashmore Reef" as part of its territory and made it a nature reserve unilaterally.

Tanoni reminded Australia that by referring to the 1974 MoU, Australia then claimed the "Pulau Pasir Cluster called Ashmore Reef" as part of its territory unilaterally. It was completely wrong under international law and what Australia was doing was illiegal and unethical.

To Indonesia, the same thing, I hold invalid the RI-Australia agreement that was signed by Alexander Downer and Ali Alatas in 1997. It has never been ratified and it is no longer possible to ratify it. The Indonesian people must and need to live here. .

Ironically, Australia highly values the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) to drive China out of the South China Sea, but refuses to give in to Indonesia and render back the Pulau Pasir Cluster to the Indonesian people in the Timor Sea, and pay compensation to us, added Tanoni.

Weak Memorandum Of Understanding

The chairman of the West Timor Care Foundation (YPTB) added that Australia holds an MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) on the Rights of Traditional Fishermen which was signed in 1974 by a low-level official from the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a low-level official from the Australian Department of Agriculture.

"This is invalid and does not have any legal force. This is not an agreement, so the MoU must be declared null and void and cannot be enforced by Canberra and Jakarta," said Tanoni. .

Australia, he said, realized that the 1974 MoU was very weak, so in 1997 Australia persuaded Indonesia to enter into another agreement called the Exclusive Economic Zone and Certain Seabed Boundaries in the region and include the Pulau Pasir cluster in it. He emphasized that although the Pulau Pasir cluster has become part of the agreement, as a consequence of changes in geopolitical conditions in the Timor Sea, the agreement must be "null and void".

The author of the book “The Timor Sea Scandal, A Canberra-Jakarta Economic Political Barter” explained that when the 1997 agreement was negotiated and signed, East Timor was still part of the Republic of Indonesia. However, in 2000 there was a geopolitical changes in the region with the establishment of East Timor as an independent state under the name Timor Leste.

Australia actually used the illegal 1974 MoU to stop and burn thousands of boats belonging to traditional Indonesian fishermen in the Timor Sea just only to grab oil and gas belonging to the people of West Timor, NTT.

Tanoni, the recipient of the 2013 Civil Justice Award from the Australian Lawyers Alliance (ALA) also feels strange about Australia's refusal to use the legal and official 1996 MoU on Preparedness and Response for Oil Pollution at Sea to resolve the 2009 Montara Oil Spill in the Timor Sea. Even though Australia and Jakarta changed the 1996 MoU in 2019.

"The Montara disaster has destroyed the livelihoods of more than 100,000 poor people who live on the coast in the islands of East Nusa Tenggara," he said.

 "The 1997 agreement has not been ratified, and Article 11 of the agreement states that the Agreement will come into effect when the ratification charter is exchanged," he said.

According to him,by facts the EEZ agreement was a continuation of the Australian Fishing Zone which was also claimed unilaterally (illegally) to approach Rote Island in the southern part of Indonesia which was later changed to the Australian EEZ.

He said that as a result of the invalidity of the 1997 agreement, the Indonesian people in West Timor, NTT, were forcibly impoverished by Canberra and Jakarta, among others in the inhuman form of burning thousands of traditional Indonesian fishing boats and annexing dozens of gas and oil fields that belonged to the people of  West Timor NTT, said Ferdi Tanoni.

Kupang-West Timor,September 14,2020.

Kindly Regards

Ferdi Tanoni