author: Paul Cleary

  • INTERNATIONAL

    Britain and Norway's model solution for the Timor Sea

    • Paul Cleary
    • 01 September 2016
    2 Comments

    As Australia and East Timor met overnight at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, the Britain-Norway settlement of the 1960s provides an instructive case study of how to resolve the dispute over oil and gas fields in the Timor Sea. Norway had feared its big neighbour would exploit a deep trench near its coastline and push the boundary beyond halfway. Instead, the Norwegian negotiators were stunned when Britain offered the median line as the starting point for negotiations.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Guerilla diggers' East Timor debt

    • Paul Cleary
    • 25 August 2010
    3 Comments

    Hundreds of Timorese men and boys served alongide Australian fighters in an amazing guerilla campaign throughout 1942 that tied up several thousand Japanese troops while the battle for New Guinea was underway. Australia has made at best half-hearted efforts to acknowledge this debt.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Timor Diggers' guerilla war

    • Paul Cleary
    • 24 August 2010
    3 Comments

    Kevin Rudd's failure to embrace the Timor legend with more imagination and substance was a missed opportunity to connect with Labor's Second World War legacy. Wartime Prime Minister John Curtin saw the guerilla war in Timor as a unique and significant part of turning back the Japanese tide.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    How Balibo distorts history

    • Paul Cleary
    • 20 August 2009
    10 Comments

    The first feature length film about Indonesia's invasion of East Timor and the deaths of six Australian journalists fails to inform the audience of the diplomatic dirty tricks, and Australian and American complicity.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    East Timor's digger friend

    • Paul Cleary
    • 09 March 2009
    9 Comments

    When East Timor was struggling to get a fair deal in negotiations over Timor Sea oil, Kenneally rallied his mates to fight. Appearing on national television, he told Prime Minister Howard: 'I'd rather you did not come to my ANZAC Day parade.'

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  • AUSTRALIA

    East Timor's continued uphill battle to secure a future

    • Paul Cleary
    • 11 July 2007
    3 Comments

    A potentially unstable coalition government with few detailed policies and weak administrative ability is now certain to emerge following the fragmented result in the recent election. But grounds for hope remain.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Ramos-Horta landslide best possible outcome

    • Paul Cleary
    • 18 May 2007

    The vote in East Timor's presidential election has unified the nation, and given democracy a second change, after the fractious violence of 2006. It underscores the depth of the antipathy towards the Fretilin government after it badly managed the country’s post-independence development and sparked renewed violence last year.

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  • CONTRIBUTORS

    Paul Cleary

    • Paul Cleary
    • 17 May 2007

    Paul Cleary worked for East Timor Prime Minister Alkatiri as a consultant on a World Bank-funded project from 2003 to 2005. His book on the Timor Sea oil dispute will be published in June by Allen&Unwin.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Election a test for East Timor's fragile democracy

    • Paul Cleary
    • 16 April 2007
    1 Comment

    Claims of irregularities in last week's presidential election speak volumes about the state of East Timor’s democracy. The elections are also a crucial test for building democracy in post-conflict countries.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Long road back for Ramos Horta

    • Paul Cleary
    • 27 February 2007

    In 2006, the East Timorese government’s inept handling of a dispute in the army involving soldiers from the western region of East Timor put the young nation on the brink of civil war. Now Jose Ramos Horta has been installed as Prime Minister, but will it make a difference?

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Background to blocked East Timor leadership challenge

    • Paul Cleary
    • 27 February 2007

    As the Prime Minister of East Timor, Mari Alkatiri, prepared a strategy that successfully blocked Friday's leadership vote, hanging on the wall of a conference room in his office is a satellite photo of Dili on fire...

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  • AUSTRALIA

    East Timor Catholic Church caught in the crossfire

    • Paul Cleary
    • 24 July 2006

    The Catholic Church has been actively involved in the crisis in East Timor from the very beginning. It has been both a safe haven for the people affected by it, and a political player.

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