Jess Melvin
Prime Minister John Howard's refusal to sign the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in South-East Asia (TAC) at the 10th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit — held in Vientiane, Laos, on November 29-30 — flows from the Australian government's desire to play the role of Washington's "deputy sheriff" in South-East Asia.
This conclusion is widely held in the region. Thus the December 1 Manila Times observed that Howard is trying to "project himself as a useful and reliable flunky for Washington". Even newly elected Indonesian President Susilio Bambang Yudhoyono, one of Howard's closest allies within ASEAN, had to publicly distance himself from Howard over the TAC non-aggression pact.
Howard was the first Australian prime minister to attend an ASEAN summit since 1977 and many people, both in South-East Asia and Australia, were shocked by his refusal to sign the TAC.
The 1976 TAC does not contain anything controversial. Indeed, it is expressly bound to the principles encapsulated in the United Nations' charter, which Australia is a signatory to. It calls on signatory countries to "refrain from the threat or use of force... [and to settle] disputes among themselves through friendly negotiations".
So why did Howard refuse to sign it? Foreign minister Alexander Downer told ABC Radio National's November 25 Midday News and Business program that it was "because of the alliance relationship Australia has with the United States, and also because the treaty provides for an ASEAN formulation which is non-interference in internal affairs, which has been interpreted by successful Australian governments as making it impossible for any Australian government, for example, to criticise Burma on human rights issues".
Yet Howard did not criticise the abuse of human rights by the military regime in Burma even once during the ASEAN summit.
Clearly, Howard refused to sign the TAC because of Australia's military alliance with the US, which the Howard government has interpreted as committing Australia to render military assistance to Washington's wars of aggression — "pre-emptive strikes" — against "rogue states" — states, like Iraq, that refuse to open their economies up to US corporate exploitation.
In line with this policy, during the federal campaign, Howard repeatedly declared that his government reserves the right to carry out "pre-emptive" military attacks against "terrorist threats" in South-East Asia. "Pre-emptive" action against a claimed "terrorist threat" was, of course, the excuse used by Washington, London and Canberra for their invasion of Iraq.
In the face of broad criticism of these statements, since winning the October 9 election, however, Howard has publicly denied his government has any doctrine of "pre-emption". Thus, he told the ABC television's November 31 Lateline program: "Well there's never been a [pre-emptive] doctrine... you know that as well as I do."
But Howard is kidding no-one. In a demonstration that Canberra has such a doctrine and is seeking to acquire the equipment to implement it, the government plans to purchase 100 Joint Strike Fighter jets to replace the aging F-111 bombers and F/A-18s fighter-bombers. According to a report in the October 30-31 Australian, the JSFs will be able to launch long-range cruise missiles. It also plans to provide the JSFs with air-refuelling capability, so that they can strike targets as far north of Australia as Thailand — a range four times greater than is currently available to the RAAF.
The November 17 Sydney Morning Herald reported that the Howard government plans to purchase a fleet of US-supplied Global Hawk unpiloted aerial vehicles that can be used for intelligence gathering purposes in the region.
Australia's spy agencies already monitor phone, fax and email traffic carried by commercial satellites from an area extending from the mid-Indian to the mid-Pacific Ocean; as well as Indonesian mobile phone, ship and aircraft communications. This was how the Whitlam government knew in 1975 that the Indonesia military regime of General Suharto was planning to invade East Timor.
In a July 15 white paper, Transnational Terrorism: The Threat to Australia, the Howard government pledged $100 million to create Australian Federal Police "flying squads" to "fight terrorism" in the region. According to the paper, one of these squads is already in operation in Indonesia, and another will be based in the Philippines.
The government has also pledged an additional $5 million to the Philippines and $80 million to Indonesia to help train their security forces in "counter-terrorism capacity". This is reminiscent of Australian training of the infamous Indonesian Kopassus troops during Suharto's brutal reign.
Already, this year in Aceh, Thailand and the Philippines hundreds of people have been killed by the local police and military, possibly trained by Australia.
The Howard government should be condemned for refusing to sign the TAC — not because the TAC could stop non-state terrorism, but because Howard's alternative is an act of terrorism itself.
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, December 15, 2004.
Visit the