March 22, 2016
By Lindsay Murdoch
Bangkok - More than 10,000 Timorese (click here) besieged the Australian embassy in Dili on Tuesday to protest Australia's refusal to negotiate with East Timor on a permanent sea boundary in the oil- and gas-rich Timor Sea.
By Lindsay Murdoch
Bangkok - More than 10,000 Timorese (click here) besieged the Australian embassy in Dili on Tuesday to protest Australia's refusal to negotiate with East Timor on a permanent sea boundary in the oil- and gas-rich Timor Sea.
East Timor's former president and prime minister, Xanana Gusmao, called on Timorese to rope in 10 other people to attend the protest, one of the largest in the waterfront capital since the country voted to break away from Indonesia in 1999.
In a speech on the eve of the protest Mr Xanana, a hero of East Timor's independence revolution, said Timorese must "stand firm and raise one voice" to demand that Canberra negotiates with East Timor.
East Timor claims it has lost some US$5 billion (nearly $6.6 billion) in royalties and tax revenue in the Timor Sea since independence, enough to fund its entire budget for three years.
The fledgling half-island nation asserts the vast majority of oil and gas reserves in the Timor Sea – worth about US$40 billion in royalties and tax alone – would lie in its territory if sea borders reflected the norms of the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea, a contention Australia rejects....
