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Revista Kritiku kona ba Akordu Unitizasaun Internasional (AUI) Asina husi Timor-Leste ho Australia iha Loron 6 de Marsu 2003.

9/5/2017

Revista Kritiku kona ba Akordu Unitizasaun Internasional (AUI) Asina husi Timor-Leste ho Australia iha Loron 6 de Marsu 2003.

Autor, Tomas Freitas

Iha loron 1 de Septembro 2017 iha Copenhagen, Dinamarka, Tribunal Permanente Arbitrasaun fo sai Nota da Impressa hodi update resultadu Konsiliasaun entre Timor-Leste ho Australia. Bazeia ba noticia parte rua kongratula ba sira nian atinzementu. Mesmo ne, interpretasaun ba statementu husi Chefe Negosiador Timor-Leste nian Maun Bot Xanana Gusmao no Ministra Estranzeiro Australia nian Julie Bishop, husik hela perguntas barak atu responde. Haktuir deklarasaun Maun Bot Xanana Gusmao:

“Hau fo obrigadu ba komisaun nebe resolve ho sira nian kunyesementu hodi halibur parte rua hamutuk, liu husi tempo naruk ho prosesu nebe susar, apoiu ami hodi atinzi ami nian mehi ba soverania total no finaliza ami nian Fronteira Maritima ho Australia. Buat ne konkordansia historiku ida, nebe marka hela etapa dahuluk husi era foun amizade entre Timor-Leste ho Australia” (Permanent Court Arbitration, 2017,pp1).

Deklarasaun mak kuaze hanesan mos hato’o husi Julie Bishop: “loron Ida ne mak loron nebe importante (Landmark day) ba iha relasaun entre Timor-Leste ho Australia. Konkordansia ida ne apoiu interese nasional husi parte nasaun rua nian, haforsa liu tan relasaun nebe kesi metin entre governu rua no ami nian povu. Hau fo obrigadu ba Komisaun nian papel hodi lori parte rua ba hamutuk” (Permanent Court Arbitration, 2017, Pp2).

Deklarasaun rua ne iha ida-idak nian alsersu; mai ita examina statementu rua ne. Husi parte Timor-Leste nian maun bot Xanana Gusmao fiar katak Timor-Leste ne sei atinzi ninian mehi ba “soverania total” nebe bele interpreta katak Timor-Leste sei hetan linha mediana ho linha laterais, ou ho liafuan seluk dehan Timor-Leste ho Australia sei totalmente marka sira nian linha fronteiras maritima. Iha soring seluk, Julie Bishop fiar katak konkordansia ne apoiu nasaun rua nian interese nasional. Saida mak sai hanesan interese nasional ba Australia?

Bazeia ba Interese Nasional Australia nian dokumentu ida nebe publika iha loron 14 de Maio 2003, hateten katak Australia iha razaun fundamento walu (8) hodi implementa Akordu Unitizasaun Internasional (AUI). Razaun forte ida mak hakerek iha “Aneksu E husi Tratadu Tasi Timor, katak Kampo Greater Sunrise sei hafahe (Unitised) ba area 20.1% tama iha Area Konjunta Dezenvolvemento Petroleum (JPDA), no area 79.9% entrega ba Australia. Hanesan mos ho provizaun fahe rendementu nebe mak iha tratadu Tasi Timor katak area 20.1% husi kampo Greater Sunrise atribui bai ha JPDA nian laran, no 90% rendementu husi rekursu naturais refere tama ba Timor-Leste, no 10% fo ba Australia” (Journal of the Senate, 2003), dokumentu kumpletu bele aksesu iha La’o Hamutuk nian website (Government of Australia, 2007).

Hanesan mensiona iha leten, Tratadu Tasi Timor 2002 hamosu aneksu E no Akordu Unitizasaun Internasional (AUI) spesifikamente hakerek detailho iha Aneksu E. dokumentu ne asina iha loron 6 de Marsu 2003 husi eis Ministro Estranzeiro Australia nian Alexander Downer no mos eis Ministra Estado da Konsellu Ministros Sra. Dra. Ana Pesoa. Akordu ne validu iha loron 23 de Fevreiru 2007 hafoin ratifika husi Parlemento Nasional Timor-Leste nian, nebe asina husi Eis-Presidente do Parlamento Nasional Dr. Francisco Guterres Lu Olo, nebe agora hanesan Presidente da Republika. Dokumentu ne esklarese detailho area 20.1% ho 79.9% nebe hafahe Kampo Sunrise ho Troubador entre nasaun rua, no buat ne esplika iha artigu 7 iha kraik:

ARTIGU 7
Liafuan ‘Apportionment’ bele interpreta = (distribuisaun)

Distribuisaun Unidade Petroleum

Produsaun Petroleum husi Posu (Reservoirs) tenke distribui entre JPDA ho Australia bazeia ba rasio 20.1% ba JPDA no 79.9% ba Australia.

Bazeia ba artigu numero 4: Rasio 79.9% laos deit inklui reservoirs ninian luan, no mos rendementu husi kampo refere maibe mos inklui kontrola rekursu naturais ho lei no regulamento Australia nian, (IUA, 2003, Pp 4). Mesmo Australia uza razaun ne, Timor-Leste bele koko explora Artigu numero 8 hodi kontra hasoru artigu numero 7 nebe hakerek iha Akordu Unitizasaun Internasional nian laran nudar posibilidade ida hodi halo mudansa bai ha distribuisaun kampo Greater Sunrise,

ARTIGU 8
Artigu numero 8, Paragraf 1. deskreve posibilidade hodi halo re-distribuisaun (Reapportionment) ba iha Unidade Petroleum iha kampo Greater Sunrise. No area 20.1% ho 79.9% bele iha mudansa sekuandu:

“Alinea (a). Parte Australia ka Timor-Leste hatama proposta ba kompania Operador nebe mak bele redetermina rasio distribuisaun (Apportionment ratio).

Alinea (b). Australia ho Timor-Leste konkorda hamutuk hodi minimiza numeros rasio distribuisaun nebe evalua tiha ona.

Alinea (c). Kualker redeterminasaun husi rasio distribuisaun sei labele akontese iha tinan lima (5) nian laran, maibe iha eksepsaun katak redeterminasaun sei bele akontese iha fulan sanulu resin rua (12) nian laran wainhira produsaun husi kampo minarai komesa tiha ona.

Alinea (d.) Kompania Operador so utiliza deit software nebe mak komersiamente publiku bele aksesu atu hodi redetermina Rasio Distribuisaun. So uza dadus nebe governu rua iha atu sai hanesan data (date) ka evidensia, no kompania Operador sei utiliza hanesan proposta hodi halo redeterminasaun, no dadus sira hotu nebe analiza tiha ona hodi redetermina rasio distribuisaun sei entrega fila fali ba governua rua hamutuk ho sira nian proposta. Kompania Operador tenke uza razaun sira hotu nebe forte atu hodi kumpleta redeterminasaun ho durasaun tempu loron atus ida rua nulu (120) nian laran.

Alinea (e). Kualker mudansa mak akontese iha rasio distribuisaun nebe hamosu husi proposta redeterminasaun bazeia ba subparagraph (a) sei iha afektu wainhira konkorda husi Autoridade Regulatorio ou, sekuandu refere ba determinasaun peritus nian, no sekuandu peritus halo desizaun final.

Alinea (f). Kualker mudansa mak akontese iha Rasio Distribuisaun (Apportionment Ratio) tenke iha Retrospective, no tenke iha ajustamentu ba recivus no gastus sira hotu.

Paragraf (2) Se karik paragrah 1, Australia ka Timor-Leste hatama proposta hodi hare fila fali (review) Rasio Distribusaun. Hanesan ninian kontinuasaun husi review, Rasio Distribuisaun parese sei iha alterasaun husi konkordansia entre Australia ho Timor-Leste.” (IUA, 2003, Pp5).

Alinea A deklara katak Kualker Australia ka Timor-Leste bele hatama proposta ba Kompania Operador, iha kazu ne Kompania Woodside mak sai hanesan Operador hodi halo redeterminasaun bai ha Rasio Distribuisaun. Maibe hanesan ita hotu hatene katak, Timor-Leste ladun iha relasaun diak ho kompania Woodside relasiona ho debate kona ba kestaun Pipeline, nebe’e Timor-Leste hakarak kadoras ne bele dada mai iha Futuru Plantasaun LNG nian iha Be Asu, duke aseita proposta husi Woodside nian uza deit mekanismu (Floating LNG) Plantasaun LNG nebe namlele deit iha tasi leten. Perguntas mak ne, Bele ka Australia mak hatama proposta hodi halo alterasaun ba Rasio Distribuisaun?

Iha posibiliadade atu hodi aplika Alinea B, sekuandu parte husi nasaun rua hakarak teb-tebes atu aumenta sira nian kuantidade produsaun, signifika Alinea ida ne seidauk bele aplika wainhira faze produsaun seidauk komesa. Hakerek-Nain hanoin katak; Sei la atu rasional ba parte rua atu konkorda halo mudansa sekuandu fo benefisiu deit bai ha parte ida.

Maibe iha dunik lojiku (make sense) husi Alinea C, katak Kompania Operador persija tempu tinan lima atu hodi examina proposta dokumentu sira hotu molok re-determina Rasio Distribuisaun.
Kompania Operador so deit uza Software nebe komersialmente public bele aksesu atu hodi examina no redetermina Rasio. Maibe iha kestaun ne, parte ida iha liu vantazem hodi aksesu software teknolozia kompara ho parte seluk.

Timor-Leste parese iha oportunidade uza Artigu numero 8 hodi kontra Artigu numero 7. Artigu numero 8 bele mos sei favorese Timor-Leste, maibe parte rua sei persija nafatin halo amandamentu ba Artigu numero 2, hanesan tuir mai iha kraik:

ARTIGU 2
Sei la Perjudika (Without prejudice)

Paragraf (1) Sei laiha buat ida mak tama iha Akordu ne, Sei laiha lei seluk mak aplika wainhira Akordu ne implementa tiha ona, ou hanesan konsikuensia husi Akordu ne, sei laiha lei seluk mak aplika iha Area Unidade sira nebe deside tiha ona husi Akordu ne:

Alinea (a) Bele interpreta perjudika ou afekta pozisaun kualker Australia ou Timor-Leste nian mak hanesan direitu hodi reklama sira nian kestaun Fronteira Maritima; no

Alinea (b) bele mos bazeia ba sira nian argumentus (basis for asserting), suporta, nega, ou limita pozisaun kualker Australia ou Timor-Leste mak iha relasaun ho reklamasaun ba Fronteira Maritima, (IUA, 2003, Pp3).

Artigu numero 2 klaru sei la fo dalan ba Timor-Leste ho Australia atu hodi reclama sira nian direitu ba Fronteira Maritima. Sekuandu parte rua hakarak altera Artigu ne, sira tenke halo tuir Artigu 26 nebe koalia kona ba oinsa maneija disputa (Settlement of Disputes), hanesan tuir mai ne:

ARTIGU 26
Maneija Disputa

Paragraf (1) Kualker disputa kona ba interpretasaun ou aplikasaun husi Akordu ne tenke ser iha posibilidade hodi halo konsultasaun ou negosiasaun.

Paragraf (2) relasiona ho paragraf (3), sekuandu disputa sei labele resolve ho maneira mak spesifikamente hateten tiha ona iha paragraf (1) ou kualker prosedur mak konkorda tiha ona, kazu mak disputa bele hatama husi kualker governu rua, bai ha Tribunal Arbitrazen, nebe mak eskreve tiha ona iha aneksu IV husi Akordu Unitizasaun Internasional ne.

Paragraf (3) sekuandu iha kazu disputa mai husi proposta mak relasiona ho redeterminsaun Rasio Distribuisaun husi Artigu numero 8, paragraph (1) ou relasiona ho oinsa sukat (Concerning the measurement) nebe artikula iha Artigu numero 24, husi kuantidade gas no likuidu, Timor-Leste ho Australia tenke aponta peritus ida hodi determina kestaun refere. Governu rua iha tempo loron nen nulu (60) atu hodi notifika ba malun kona ba kestaun disputa, no koko atu iha konkordansia kona ba apontamentu peritus refere. Sekuandu, durante period ne mak la hetan konkordansia, governu rua tenke halo tuir procedural mak spesifika tiha ona iha Aneksu V. Peritus nebe aponta tiha ona tenke halao ninian servisu bazeia ba termus mak iha Aneksu V. Peritus nian desizaun mak final ona, no iha ninian (binding) ou iha lian Indonesia dehan (Ikatan Hukum), ka ita bele dehan iha ninian (Pezo Legal) ba iha Governu rua no mos bai ha Sunrise Joint Ventures, Desizaun husi peritus ne mos bele rezerva hela ba iha eventu ruma mak failha ka bai ha erru ruma mak mosu. (IUA, 2003, Pp13).

Sekuandu, kualker parte rua hakarak aplika saida mak iha paragraph 1, bele ka parte rua iha tempu mak sufisiente atu hodi halo konsultasaun no negosiasaun, wainhira konsidera hela deit fulan ida atu hodi hetan konkordansia final? No sekuandu disputa la konsege resolve bazeia ba dalan mak spesifika tiha ona iha paragraph 1, hakarak ka parte rua hahu’u fila fali rejistu kazu foun iha Tribunal Arbitrazen? Hare’e ba tempu no rekursu mak parte rua gasta tiha ona iha prosesu konsiliasaun nebe mak lao dadaun ne, bele kalae parte rua iha vontade atu halo dala ida tan? No sekuandu iha disputa mak relasiona ho kuantidade gas no likuidu, parte rua sei aponta peritus ida atu hodi deside bazeia ba regulamentu no procedural ma iha Aneksu V; Hare’e ba esperensia, iha inisiu husi prosesu konsiliasaun, Ministra Estranzeiro Australia nian Julie Bishop kestiona kapabilidade komisaun nian wainhira atu implementa servisu komisaun nian hodi resolve kazu ne. Sekarik kestaun hanesan mak mosu tan fali, Australia bele respeita kalae peritus ne?

Konkluzaun

Atiklu ne analiza tiha ona detailhamente kualker posibilidade ba Timor-Leste hodi konfronta Akordu Unitizasaun Internasional (AUI), nebe mak dezenha hodi fo benefisiu deit ba parte ida, iha kazu ne mak Australia. Hakerek-Nain fiar katak parte rua parese sei hetan desizaun final liu husi dalan ignora reklamasaun ba direitu Fronteira Maritima no sei adere nafatin ba iha distribuisaun (Apportionment) original mak iha Aneksu E. Bele mos parte nasaun rua hetan konkordansia atu hodi komesa explorasaun liu husi meius adopta fila fali ‘Solusaun Kreativa’ nebe fahe profits 50:50 porsentu. Iha kazu ne parte rua Timor-Leste ho Australia hakarak teb-tebes (desperately) atu komesa dezenvolvementu Kampo Greater Sunrise ho razaun Timor-Leste nian minarai husi Kampo Bayu Undan komesa maran dadaun ona, no Australia nian fasilidade plantasaun LNG iha Wickham Point-Darwin mos sei bele abandona iha tinan hirak mai ne tamba laiha supply gas.

Referensia

Government of Australia., 2003. ‘Australian National Interest’, available at http://www.laohamutuk.org/Oil/Boundary/2002/IUAnia.pdf

International Unitisation Agreement., 2003. Available at http://www.laohamutuk.org/Oil/Boundary/IUA.pdf

Permanent Court of Arbitration, 2017., ‘Conciliation between the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste and the Commonwealth of Australia’, Press Release, No 9, 31st of September 2017. Available at https://pcacases.com/web/sendAttach/2230

The Parliament Of The Commonwealth Of Australia., 2003. ‘Australian National Interest’, Journal of The Senate. No 76. 14 May 2003. Available at http://www.aph.gov.au/binaries/senate/work/journals/2003/jnlp_076.pdf

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The Critical Review of International Unitisation Agreement (IUA) Signed by Timor-Leste and Australia on 6 of March 2003

9/5/2017

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A Critical Review of International Unitisation Agreement (IUA) Signed by Timor-Leste and Australia on 6 of March 2003

by Tomas Freitas

On 1 September 2017 in Copenhagen, Denmark, the Permanent Court of Arbitration called a press conference to update the results of the conciliation between Timor-Leste and Australia. According to the announcement both parties are to be congratulated on their achievements. However, an interpretation of the statements from the Timor-Leste chief negotiator Xanana Gusmao and Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, leave more questions to be answered. As per Xanana Gusmao:

“I thank the commission for its resolve and skill in bringing the parties together, through a long and at times difficult process, to helps us achieve our dream of full sovereignty and to finally settle our maritime boundaries with Australia. This is an historic agreement and marks the beginning of a new era in Timor-Leste’s friendship with Australia” (Permanent Court Arbitration, 2017,pp1)

A similar declaration was spoken by Julie Bishop: “This is a landmark day in the relationship between Timor-Leste and Australia. This agreement, which supports the national interest of both our nations, further strengthens the long-standing and deep ties between our Governments and our people. I thank the commission for its role in bringing both parties together” (Permanent Court Arbitration, 2017, pp2).

Both declarations seem to have their own foundation; let’s examine these statements. On the Timor-Leste side Xanana Gusmao is very confident that the country will achieve the dream of “full sovereignty” which can be interpreted that Timor will have a median line and lateral lines, or in other words that Timor-Leste and Australia will fully draw the lines for their maritime borders. On the other hand, Julie Bishop believes that the agreement has supported both of the national interests. What is the meaning of national interest for Australia?

According to the Australian National Interest document which was tabled on 14 May 2003, Australia has eight fundamental reasons for implementing the International Unitisation Agreement (IUA). One of the essential reasons is that “under Annex E of the Timor Sea Treaty, the Greater Sunrise field is to be unitised on the basis that 20.1% of the fields are located within the JPDA, the remaining 79.9% being attributed to Australia. In line with the general revenue-sharing provisions of that treaty, of the 20.1% of the Greater Sunrise field attributed to the JPDA, 90% of the Petroleum Resources and therefore revenue goes to East Timor, with 10% going to Australia”. (Journal of the Senate, 2003) full document can be read on the Lao Hamutuk website, (Government of Australia, 2003).

As mentioned above, the Timor Sea Treaty 2002 generated the Annex E and the International Unitisation Agreement (IUA) specifies in detail about Annex E. The document was signed on 6 of March 2003 by the former minister of Foreign Affairs Alexander Downer and the former Minister of the Council of Ministers Ana Pesoa. The agreement entered into force on 23 February 2007 after the Timor-Leste National Parliament ratified it on 21 February 2007 and it was signed by the former Speaker of the Parliament Francisco Guterres Lu Olo, currently President of Timor-Leste. The files detail the 79.9/20.1 split of the Sunrise and Troubadour fields between the two countries, which is clearly explained in Article 7 below:

ARTICLE 7
Apportionment of Unit Petroleum
Production of Petroleum from the Unit Reservoirs shall be apportioned between the JPDA and Australia according to the Apportionment Ratio 20.1:79.9, with 20.1% apportioned to the JPDA and 79.9% apportioned to Australia.

The ratio of 79.9% not only includes the size of reservoirs and the revenue from the fields but also controls the natural resources with all Australian laws and regulations as stated in the Article number 4, which concerns Application of Laws (IUA, 2003, pp 4). However, Timor-Leste could try to explore Article number 8 to challenge Article number 7 of the IUA, as one of the possibilities to change the apportionment of the Greater Sunrise fields.

ARTICLE 8
Article number 8 describes the possibilities of Reapportionment of Units of Petroleum in the Greater Sunrise fields. The ratios of 20.1% and 79.9% could change if:

“(a) Either Australia or Timor-Leste may request the Unit Operator to undertake a redetermination of the Apportionment Ratio.

(b) Australia and Timor-Leste shall have regard to the desirability of minimising the number of reviews of the Apportionment Ratio.

(c) Any redetermination of the Apportionment Ratio shall not occur within five (5) years of any prior redetermination, except that a redetermination may occur within twelve (12) months of the commencement of production from the Unit Reservoirs.

(d) The Unit Operator shall use only commercially available software in a redetermination of the Apportionment Ratio. Only data that is available to both Governments as at the date the redetermination is requested shall be utilised by the Unit Operator and all data and analyses pursuant to the Unit Operator’s proposal for the redetermined Apportionment Ratio shall be provided to both Governments with the proposal. The Unit Operator shall use all reasonable endeavours to complete the redetermination within 120 days.

(e) Any change to the Apportionment Ratio arising from a redetermination requested under subparagraph (a) has effect when it is agreed by the Regulatory Authorities or, if referred to an expert for determination, when the expert makes a final decision.

(f) Any change to the Apportionment Ratio shall be retrospective and past receipts and expenditures shall be adjusted.

(2) Notwithstanding paragraph 1, either Australia or Timor-Leste may request a review of the Apportionment Ratio. Following such a review, the Apportionment Ratio may be altered by agreement between Australia and Timor-Leste.” (IUA, 2003, pp5)

Point A states that either Australia or Timor-Leste may request the Unit Operator, in this case Woodside, to undertake a redetermination of the Apportionment Ratio. However, Timor-Leste does not have a good relationship with Woodside because of the debate about the pipeline, which Timor-Leste wants to be located at the future Bee-Asu LNG rather than the floating LNG proposed by the Unit Operator. The question is will Australia comply with a request to change the apportionment ratios?

It is possible to apply point B, if both parties desperately want to increase their production, which means that this point cannot be undertake while production has not yet started. It doesn’t make sense for both parties to agree to changes which would benefit just one party.

But It does make sense for point C, that the Unit Operator needs five years to examine all the requests and proposals before re-determining the apportionment ratios.

The Unit Operator shall use only commercially available software for examining and redetermination of the ratios. However, one party has more advanced technology software than the other party.

Timor-Leste may have a chance to counter Article number 7 by using Article number 8. Although it may be favourable for Timor-Leste to apply article number 8, still both parties would have to amend another Article which is Article number 2, as stated below:

ARTICLE 2
Without prejudice
(1) Nothing contained in this Agreement, no acts taking place while this Agreement is in force or as a consequence of this Agreement and no law operating in the Unit Area by virtue of this Agreement

(a) shall be interpreted as prejudicing or affecting the position of either Australia or Timor-Leste with regard to their respective maritime boundaries or rights or claims thereto; and

(b) may be relied on as a basis for asserting, supporting, denying or limiting the position of either Australia or Timor-Leste with regard to their respective maritime boundaries or rights or claims thereto, (IUA, 2003, pp 3).

Article number 2 clearly does not allow Timor-Leste and Australia to claim their maritime boundary rights. If either party wishes to alter an article, they must follow Article 26 which about Settlement of Disputes, as outlined below:

ARTICLE 26
Settlement of Disputes
(1) Any disputes about the interpretation or application of this Agreement shall be, as far as possible, settled by consultation or negotiation.

(2) Subject to paragraph (3), if a dispute cannot be resolved in the manner specified in paragraph (1) or by any other agreed procedure, the dispute shall be submitted, at the request of either Government, to an Arbitral Tribunal set out in Annex IV.

(3) If a dispute arises concerning a proposal for a redetermined Apportionment Ratio pursuant to Article 8(1) or concerning the measurement, pursuant to Article 24, of quantities of gas and liquids, an expert shall be appointed by Australia and Timor-Leste to determine the matter in question. The two Governments shall, within 60 days of notification by either of them of such a dispute, try to reach agreement on the appointment of such an expert. If, within this period, no agreement has been reached, the procedures specified in Annex V shall be followed. The expert appointed shall act in accordance with the terms of Annex V. The expert’s decision shall be final and binding on both Governments and on the Sunrise Joint Venturers, save in the event of fraud or manifest error. (IUA, 2003, pp 13)

If either party wishes to apply point number one, will they have enough time for consultation and negotiation considering there is only one month left to reach a final agreement? And if the dispute cannot be resolved as specified in point number 1, will both parties start again by registering a new case at the arbitration tribunal? Considering resources and timing, would they be willing to do this again? And if the dispute is in relation to the quantities of gas and liquids, both parties must appoint an expert to act in accordance with the rules and procedures of Annex V; however, at the beginning of this conciliation process, the Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop questioned the capability of the commission to exercise their mandate to pursue this case. If it comes to it, will Australia respect the experts?

Conclusion

This paper has analysed in detail any possibilities for Timor-Leste to challenge the IUA; however, the IUA has been designed to benefit one party, which in this case is Australia. The writer believes that both parties may reach a final agreement by ignoring the claims for a maritime boundary and sticking to the original apportionment of ANNEX E. it could also be that both countries just agree to commence exploration by re-adopting the “creative solution” which is a 50:50 share of profits. in this case both Timor-Leste and Australia desperately want to commence the development of Greater Sunrise because Timor-Leste has almost exhausted revenue from Bayu-Undan and Australia’s Wickham Point LNG storage facility might be abandoned in coming years without a supply of gas.

References

Government of Australia., 2003. ‘Australian National Interest’, available at http://www.laohamutuk.org/Oil/Boundary/2002/IUAnia.pdf

International Unitisation Agreement., 2003. Available at http://www.laohamutuk.org/Oil/Boundary/IUA.pdf

Permanent Court of Arbitration, 2017., ‘Conciliation between the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste and the Commonwealth of Australia’, Press Release, No 9, 31st of September 2017. Available at https://pcacases.com/web/sendAttach/2230

The Parliament Of The Commonwealth Of Australia., 2003. ‘Australian National Interest’, Journal of The Senate. No 76. 14 May 2003. Available at http://www.aph.gov.au/binaries/senate/work/journals/2003/jnlp_076.pdf

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Comparative Study of Social Audit Program between Timor-Leste and India

7/31/2017

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Comparative Study of Social Audit Program between Timor-Leste and India
By Tomas Freitas

Introduction
The Social Audit concept according to Gahlot Sushmita (2013) was introduced by Theodore Kerps in the 1940s, when he called on companies to acknowledge responsibility towards citizens. The term of Social was proposed by Howard R Bowen in 1953, in his article on “Social Responsibilities of a businessman”, or in other words making business more accountable to the community. Nevertheless, the phenomenon of responsibility has shifted from company to state or from corporation to government. These days most companies are responsible to their shareholders and government is accountable to their tax payers, meaning their own citizens or communities.

The Social Audit is a mechanism to hold government accountable, and has been considered a very effective instrument for the participation of communities and people from rural and urban areas. The tools of Community Score Cards (CSRs) and Citizens Report Cards (CRCs) have provided very detailed information regarding the guarantee of good quality of public services from the levels of input, output, outcome and impact (The World Bank, 2007). In addition to the Social Audit, there are some other mechanisms which have been compiled with the state system, such as with regard to the rules of parliament for the monitoring of budget expenditure; the responsibility of the ombudsman to investigate corruption cases, the task of the inspector general for auditing mismanagement inside the civil service, and also including some other watchdog organisations that monitor government systems. The question is, if these systems are already in place, why then do we still need a Social Audit process?

This paper will analysis the concepts of social audits in India under Andhra Pradesh government and in Timor-Leste under Dr. Rui Maria de Araujo government, as well as will assess the implementations of the program in both countries.

Background
Historically, the evolution of Social Audit in India was pioneered by a local NGO, namely Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) in Rajasthan. In Hindi the social audits is called “Jan
Sunwaias” or “People’s Hearings”, which is basically a public hearing attended by two sides, the service providers and the communities who have benefited from that particular government program. The process is simple - obtaining the information about approved budget documents, and then gathering elected representatives, local government officials and the community which is supposed to benefit from the program. At the meeting the facilitator reads aloud the list of projects or program and the concerned beneficiaries are asked whether they have actually received the proposed benefit from the program (Singh & Vutukuru, 2009).

In Timor-Leste, in order to implement the Social Audit program as per its mission, Prime Minister of Timor-Leste, DR Rui Maria de Araújo and the director of FONGTIL, Arsenio Pereira da Silva have signed a Memorandum of Understanding between the VI Constitutional Government and FONGTIL on 25 May 2015. The MoU referred to the agreement of a partnership for the implementation of a social audit program in Timor-Leste. According to Article 6 of the MoU, the Government and FONGTIL agreed to give particular attention to conducting a social audit in the priority sectors of Agriculture, Education, Basic Infrastructure and Health. The MoU also does not limit the possibility of civil society organisations to assign social audits in other sectors as long as it is based on the objectives and principles of the MoU, which has been described under Section 5 of the MoU.

In India, under Andhra Pradesh government, they have program is called The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) which is established under department of rural development. The Scheme aims to enhance livelihood security in rural areas especially for unskilled labor, this package ensures 100 days of employment at the minimum salary rate of rural households (Sushmita, 2013). Based on this arrangement, features for rural employment should include (i) water conservation (ii) afforestation and three plantations (iii) irrigation canals including micro and minor irrigation works (iv) provision of irrigation facility which belongs to land owned by castes and tribes (v) renovation of traditional water storage including desilting of tanks (vi) Land cultivation (vii) flood control (viii) rural roads including footpaths; and (ix) any other work which may be noticed by central government in consultation with state government (Ministry of Law and Justice, 2005).

Demographics
According to the World Bank Group database in 2015 India had a total population of 1.3 billion, and of that number 270 million are poor, which means 1 person in every 5 Indians are poor, while 80% of the poor live in rural areas. Indian demographics are challenging and elements of corruption undermine the idea of social welfare, with citizens complaining of delays in or not receiving payments at all, no record of databases, and corrupt officials with bribes. According to the Transparency International Index of 2017 India’s Corruption Perceptions Index in 2016 ranked 79 of 176 and for the Bribe Payers Index in 2011 India was 19 of 28.

Timor-Leste with 1.2 million populations, and each population living under 50 cents US Dollar per/day, and according to portal Transparency International, Timor-Leste Corruption Perceptions Index of 2016 rank 101 out of 176 countries, according to last Human Development report, Timor-Leste ranked 128 out of 187 countries, and almost 50 percent of the population was estimated living in poverty and 70 percent of total labor force are considerable in danger (World bank, 2013), Timor-Leste also considered as the third-worst score on the 2014 Global Hunger Index, which already on stage “extremely alarming” (International Food Policy Research Institute 2014). According to the World Bank’s Worldwide Governance Indicators, in 2014 Timor-Leste ranked 21.5 out of 100 with respect to control of corruption. Timor-Leste also have weakness in rule of law were has scoring the country 10 out of 100 on both indicators, but on the other hand voice of accountability appeared relatively strong and receiving 51.7 out of 100 (World Bank 2014).

The Legal Frameworks
The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) has been granted by a decree-law produced by the Indian ministry of Law and Justice, which is known as The National Rural Development Guarantee Act, No. 42/2005. Sections 17.2 and 17.3 clearly define the competence of Social Audits in conducting regular monitoring for all the projects under the scheme (Ministry of Law & Justice, 2005). The India government believes that the social audits will enable the rural communities to monitor and analysis the quality, durability and usefulness of the scheme, as well as mobilizing the awareness and enforcement on their rights.
In Timor-Leste to implement the social audit initiative, the Prime Minister has established the Social Audit Unit under Prime Minister Office. The Unit legally has been granted under the organic law of the Prime Minister’s Office which is in Section 6 of Diploma Ministerial No. 28/2015. According to the organic law, the Social Audit Unit has the following competencies such as; #coordinating with other government departments to collect all the information necessary for the completion of social audit activities, functioning as a single information entry point, #Undertaking information verification activities before sending respective ministries or non-governmental organizations, #Conducting coordination, within internal Government, with the relevant ministries in the context of social audit, as well as, #Coordinating communication with relevant external bodies, including with non-governmental organizations through the National Social Audit Network, in accordance with the rules in force, and, #Disseminating the social audit initiatives, in coordination with relevant partners.

Implementing Institutions
In India, the Social Audits program is implemented by an independent body called Society for Social Audit, Accountability and Transparency (SSAAT). This institution has been created independently by the Department of Rural Development, under the government of Andhra Pradesh (Department of Rural Development, 2009). Some researchers have concluded that there are some reasons behind the successful implementation of the Social Audit program inside the MGNREGS, and those reasons are includes (i) The SSAAT has been setting up as independent society and backed by very strong rules (ii) It has an independent budget (iii) Complete autonomy from government control, and its own ability to select a non-government person as a director (Sushmita, 2013, and The Guardian, 2012).

Structure and coordination of Society for Social Audit, Accountability and Transparency

At the top level the social audit process is coordinated by the director of SSAAT, and it has joint directors which is composed of several key directors from its projects; then under the Joint Directors, it has seven members of State Team Monitors which are from each states; these team monitors are publicly recruited based on minimum post-graduate qualifications, minimum five to ten year’s experience as a social audit activist/social work area or three years experiences in the area of state resources (Ministry of Rural Development, 2009).

The role of the resource person includes coordinating and facilitating the social audit process in the allotted district, identification and provision of training to Village Social Auditors (VSA), and providing support to the VSA’s during the social audit process. Resource persons are based in up to 700 districts in 70 states. The resource person is initially drawn from civil society organisations and unions, and to become a candidate she/he must be an undergraduate, have a minimum age and have a minimum of two years work experience in social audit, or as a district resource person (DRP). To be a candidate for a DRP it is also necessary to have some minimum qualifications and demographics (Ministry of Rural Development, 2009).

In Timor-Leste the Social Audit initiative implementing by the Social Audit Unit, which is established under the Prime Minister Office and the unit has around ten staff which some of them civil servants and some are the political appointed. The unit have some target to be achieve such as, the unit has to: “# guarantee that citizens can obtain adequate, accurate and timely information, regarding the practices of transparency, efficiency, efficacy, and public participation, as a means for the public to be able to measure the performance of services, # provide assistance to civil servants to further improve their work and to improve the quality of public services, # facilitate civil society organisations, in their areas of interest, with the aim of assisting the government and its beneficiaries, # not seek to blame civil servants, but rather to evaluate the performance of institutions in terms of social, environmental and community objectives, # provide an assessment of the non-financial impacts through systematic and regular monitoring, based on the opinions of partners”. This is based on the MoU, Section 2, signed by the Prime Minister and the director of FONGTIL.

For the mission to succeed, under Section 10 of the MoU, the government has to commit to several responsibilities including: (a) responsible for the provision and guarantee of Policy Support, for implementation of the Social Audit activities through the whole country of Timor-Leste. (b) Responsible for the guarantee of Access to Information such as legislations, project documents, access to interviews and strategic and annual action plan documents. (c) Provision of all Technical Support for social audit activities. (d) Guarantee of financial support for capacity building activities for members of FONGTIL and other organisations. (e) Obligation to integrate Social Audit Recommendations into government development policies in accordance with the government annual budget plan.


General Structure of Social Audit Unit

The structure above represented the whole system of how the mechanism of Social Audit should be implementing. The whole structure above created based on the Memorandum of Understanding signed on 25 May 2015, between Prime Minister of Timor-Leste, DR Rui Maria de Araújo and the director of FONGTIL, Arsenio Pereira da Silva.

Each of lines coordination has specific links between specific actors such as; #line coordination between community or ordinary citizens and the Prime Minister, #Line coordination between community/ordinary citizens and the Social Audit Unit, #Line coordination between community, ReNAS and Social Audit Unit, and #Line coordination between ReNAS, Social Audit Unit and the Focal Points. Please see the paragraphs below which explain each of the line.

Line coordination between community/ordinary citizens and the Prime-Minister
The structure above has defined lines connection of the Prime Minister Office with the society. The illustration above has described that the Prime Minister many times has receive direct complaints in written and oral from community and other entities such as civil society group, or individual ordinary citizens. Those entities normally are not satisfied with service delivery performance done by the government. And the mechanism of the complaints normally through sending a written letter directly to the Prime Minister Office and receiving by the chief of staff. And oral complaints usually happening while the Prime Minister visiting community in the municipality and sucos.

Line coordination between community/ordinary citizens and the Social Audit Unit
This lines connection have shown that, the community or ordinary citizens can complaint through written or oral directly to the SAU. The links also described that after receiving complaint the SAU has to verify fact and evidence refer to the complaint before make it decision about the case. The same mechanism also applied for complaint that has sent directly to the Prime Minister Office, which is the despacho that comes from the Prime-Minister through the chief of staff, has to be verify by the Social Audit Unit before addresses the problem or case.

Line coordination between community, ReNAS and Social Audit Unit
Based on the Memorandum of Understanding between the FONGTIL and the Government, the FONGTIL will provide capacity building to community in order to conduct a social audit program and activity. Through the link the community will get skills and hopefully will canalize their audits back to ReNAS and the FONGTI will following-up to Social Audit Unit, and the unit will try find solution for it.

Line coordination between ReNAS, Social Audit Unit and the Focal Points
If there is any case that has been found by civil society through audits activities, ReNAS will following-up with Social Audit Unit and the Unit will contacting the relevance ministries via focal points to address the issues. Vise-versa if the focal point would like to provide any official documents, it would necessary to go through the Unit for registering before handling-out the documents.
The assembly above have shown that the Social Audit Unit has play the key role in order to link the whole structure from the top level of Prime Minister Office down to community as ultimate beneficiary of the public service delivery. The Social Audit Unit has to facilitate communication between four priorities ministerial lines as mentioned above and the civil society groups, the Unit also has to make sure the case that has been upload by community through ReNAS has to be addresses by the government. The Unit also has to make sure all the cases have to be verified before reporting to the Prime Minister.

The vision and mission above has states clearly that the goodwill of Social Audit program has to be executing together between government and civil society. Please have a look the table below, which described some of similarities about the implementation of Social Audit program between Timor-Leste and India.

Similarities between India and Timor-Leste
There are similarities between the social audit process in India and in Timor-Leste.

Both India and Timor-Leste both have a legal framework for social audits, as well as a special unit or institution to conduct the audit; they each work collaboratively with civil society groups, but have chosen different sectors to focus on; for example India just focuses on rural development for its social audit processes while Timor-Leste focuses on four specific sectors including education, health, basic infrastructure and agriculture. They have both used the same tools for conducting the social audit program i.e. the Community Score Card and Citizens Report Card.

The Civil Society in Timor-Leste
There are only few numbers of civil society groups are focus on this issue, and they have doing the social audit works since 2005 before the Prime Minister announced the idea. Those few NGOs are includes; Luta Hamutuk, Mata Dalan Institute, Luta Ba Futuru, Knua Haberan Komunidade, Fundasaun Ba Los, Hasatil and others, and most of them has focus on basic infrastructure delivery such as; roads, bridges, clinics, schools, clean water supply and electricity. So what is making different after the Social Audit Unit has been established? Well, before the VI constitutional government officially announced the engagement with the civil society groups in 2015, those NGOs as mentioned above, some of them already have good relationship with some line-ministerial, and they have access to some of important documents likes Bill of Quantity. Those NGOs have working together with the local media in many issues has published the works that has been done by the NGOs, for instances trough press conference and editorials, with the media the NGOs have successfully advocate their issues into public, and many of complains has been addressed by the governments. The difference with the Social Audit Unit, some of the NGOs has complaints that the Unit doesn’t have competence and power to ensure the relevance ministers to obey the social audit rules. Other complaints are says, that the Unit has hold up many cases and taking so long to response it.
The NGOs in Timor-Leste also needs some financial support in order to largely scale the programs in the whole territory, because at the moment they only doing few projects from in different municipalities.
The implementing bodies in India are conducting by staff of Society for Social Audits, Accountability and Transparency (SSAAT) which lead by an independent director with NGOs background, and plus others seven directors and 700 hundreds districts resources person that from civil society background as well. Now in Timor-Leste it’s around 30-50 people from 3-5 NGOs that working in the social audits program, if NGOs in Timor-Leste can get some funding and recruits more people up to 700 people like in India, believe or not, we can see the progress.

Challenges
Even though legally guarantee under the ministerial diploma, but still the unit itself has some limitation in order to guarantee some delivery documents because some of line-ministerial do not really cooperated with this initiative. The documents in this situation, means document that has been requested by some NGOs, for example such as Bill of Quantity (BOQ) documents from some projects that owned by some relevance ministries. Some other challenges are includes, some ministers hasn’t yet appoint their own social audit focal points, even though the Prime Minister already asked them to do so. In Timor-Leste the social audit will works if there is a good will come from the minister itself. In spite, some NGOs that has been doing the jobs for number of years, but still many of still needs some training in order to conduct the social audit programs, and those training should be includes of how to identify the tools and how to use it, for examples; Community Score card, Citizens report cards, development check, and others tools that using for collecting data’s and evidences.

Conclusion
This paper has identified some similarities between India and Timor-Leste in order to run the social audit program. And those similarities are includes; legal framework, implementing institutions, and both institutions established under government institution, they have worked closely with civil society groups, and have their own focus sectors and programs, and both institutions also have used some similarities tools for conducting data collection of social audit project. And those institutions that implementing the social audit programs both also have institutional structures, as well as received some funding from their own government.

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Department of Rural Development.,2009. ‘Society for Social Audit, Accountability and Transparency’, retrieved on 23 of August 2016, available at http://www.socialaudit.ap.gov.in/SocialAudit/wages/AboutUs_New.jsp
Eavani, F., Nazari, K., & Emami, M., 2012. ‘Social Audit: From Theory to Practice’, Journal of Applied Sciences Research, Vol 8, No.2, pp 1174-1179. Retrieved 20 of August from; http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/80229605/social-audit-from-theory-practice
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Ministry of Law & Justice., 2005. ‘The National Rural Development Guarantee Act, No. 42/2005’, retrieved on 20 of August 2016. Available at http://nrega.nic.in/rajaswa.pdf
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Social Audit Unit., 2015. ‘Establishment for Unidade Auditoria Social’. Briefing paper.
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Refleksaun husi Comandante Fidel Castro: Presu husi Lia Los

12/7/2016

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Refleksaun husi Comandante Fidel Castro
Presu husi lia los
Author; Fidel Castro
Tradutor; Tomas Freitas

Iha buat ida mak obriga hau hodi hakerek faktus kona ba eventu seriu balun nebe sei akontese iha tempo mai dadaun ne.

Iha ita nian tempo, ita nudar ema, susar atu gasta tempu tinan sanulu ou sanulu resin lima par hodi enfrenta risku mak lolos, risku nebe mak ema barak lakohi rekunyese. Mesmo nia atu Obama fali ou ema seluk, nia sei la fo tempo atu rekunyese. Hau hateten ida ne husi perspektiva realistiku, so uniku lia-los sei fo ita kontente no dada i’is esperansa nian. Ita tenke enfrenta tempo wainhira ita kolia kona ba kunyesementu. Ita laiha direitu para manipula ema seluk ou manipula ita nian a’an.

Mayoria opiniaun publiku iha kunyesementu naton kona ba risku nebe mai dadaun ne.
Buat ne la simples katak rudal misiles ne aponta hela ba akampomentu militar balun iha Syria neba. Maybe ninian faktus mak ne Corazem husi nasaun ida ne nian, nebe alokadu iha centru muslumano biliaun ida resin, nebe luta ho esperito nebe Proverbial mak kunyesidu ho ‘resiste to mate hodi defende sira nian nasaun’.

Ema hotu hatene katak Bashar Al-Assad la’os politik nain. Nia estuda medicina, graduadu iha 1988 no especialista iha Ophthalmology. Nia foti pozisaun politiku ne depois de nian aman Hafez Al-Assad, mate iha tinan 2000 no depois insidente grave ida akontese ba ninian maun, molok nia simu kargu ne.

Membro hotu kedas husi NATO nian, nebe mak halo koaligasaun sein kondisaun (tanpa syarat) ho Estadus Unidos, inklui mos nasaun riku mina nebe halo aliadu ho imperiu sira iha mediu-oriente neba hodi kontinua fornese kombustivel, produtu nebe mak sira fiar sei kontinua akumula durante tinan biliaun ida resin. Maibe, energia nebe produs husi partikel hydrogenetiku nebe hodi halo nuclear, sei mohu iha tinan 60 nulu nian laran, tanba, Konsekuensia husi akumulasaun efeitu gas carbo-dioxida (gas berracun) nebe’e sei kontinua aumenta ho rytmu ida nebe lao makas los, depois de investementu bot husi teknolojia ho ekipamentus.

Buat seluk tan, sei serteza katak wainhira tama iha 2040, iha tinan 27 mai ne, servisu barak iha futuru mai, ijemplu hanesan polisia nian servisu sei ezekuta husi robot sira. Ita bot sira bele imajina tok oinsa ita deskuti ho robot ida, makina komputador nebe bele halo kalkulasaun barak iha minutu ida nian laran. Ne mak faktus ida ita la imajina iha tempo uluk liu ba.

Iha oras balun liu ba, iha loron Segunda, 26 de Agostu, iha relatoriu lubun mak publika husi husi ajensia noticia klasiku balun, nebe kunyesidu hanesan servisu sophistikadu no hetan selu husi Estadus Unidos, komesa desimina informasaun balun mak mai husi Edward Snowden, nebe hateten Snowden tenke hela iha Rusia tanba Cuba agora hetan pressaun husi Estadus Unidos.

Hau la hatene sekarik iha ema ida iha fatin seluk, mak fo hatene ba Edward Snowden kona ba informasaun klasifikadu hirak ne, tanba ne laos hau nian servisu. Maibe hau le’e no hare’e noticias, livros nebe publika iha mundo. Hau admira korazem no statementu nebe justu hateten husi Edward Snowden, tuir hau nian opiniaun nia selu tusan ona ba mundo, desde nia esklarese buat ladiak kona ba implementasaun politika dihonestidade ou bosok ten, nebe mai husi emperiu mak forca tebes, emperiu nebe sempre hateten lia bosok hodi manipula mundo tomak.

Maibe, hau sei la konkorda ho se-se deit, mesmo que ida ne ninian qualifikasaun servisu, atu koalia e nome Cuba.

Folin husi lia-los. Se mak deklara? Journal ida iha Russian “Kommersant”. Journal ne halo defamasaun saida? Bazeia ba ajensia noticia Reuters, journal Kommersant halo quotasaun bazeia ba fontes balun mak mai husi State Department Estadus Unidos America nian. “razaun mak, iha minutu ikus, Autoridade Cubano officialmente hetan autorizasaun hodi hapara Edward Snowden molok nia sae aviaun Aeroflot”.

Bazeia ba noticia husi journal ne, Snowden toba kalan rua iha Konsuladu Russia iha Hong-Kong wainhira nia deklara ninian intensaun atu semo ba America Latina liu husi Russia.

Sekarik hau hakarak, hau bele koalia kona ba asuntu ne, tamba hau hatene didiak asuntu ne ninian lalaok.

Ohin hau asiste imajem intersante ida Presidente Republika Bolivarian Venezuela nian, Nicolas Maduro, durante ninian vizita iha Ro’o Ahi funu Naval Russia nian nebe halo destakasaun vizita iha Venezuela, depois de vizita tiha Havana ho Nicaragua.

Hau mos admira hare liu husi imajem visual, wainhira presidente Venezuela ba vizita Ro’o-Ahi funu ne. iha imajem ne hatudu movemento radars, kapabilidade monitoriza, abilidade aktividade operasional mak avansadu liu iha Ro’o-Ahi naval ne.

Apar de ida ne, hau mos levanta tiha ona atu halo investigasaun ida husi statement journal ambisiozu “Kommersant”.

Iha kualker tempu, ne hanesan uniku preserve media ida mak halo servisu extreme direita nian mak kontra-revolusionario, nebe mak kontente tebes hare’e oinsa governu konservativu husi London haruka sira nian bombardeio ba bomba baze-aeroportu iha Cyprus, kontente mos hare’e wainhira sira atu lansa sira nian bomba nebe atu hatun forsa patriota sira iha Syria, journal ne mos kontente publika, ema rihun ba rihun nebe’e hetan oho husi author sira nebe halo golpe foer iha Egyptu, nudar rai ida nebe hanesan mos fuan husi mundo arabi nian.

Ida ne mos kontra historia (Backdrop) katak naval ho aero signifika emperiu sira atu prepara lansa sira nian genocida hasoru povu Arabi.

Buat hirak ne malorek los katak Estadus Unidos sei no sempre koko fo presaun ba cuba, hanesan sira halo bain-bain tiha ona iha Nasoens Unidos ou iha instituisaun publiko no privado iha mundo. Ida ne mak identidade ou karakteristik governu husi nasaun ida ne; sei imposible atu hetan expektasaun seluk husi sira. Ida ne mak razaun ita halo resistensia durante tinan 54 nian laran – no ita sei kontinua resisti ba kualker tempu adisional mak sei iha, ita la persija komprimisu wainhira defende ita nian nasaun no konfronta kriminozus bklokeio ekonomia sira nebe mai husi emperiu nebe forte.

Ita nian falansu durante ne mak, ladun konsege estuda barak iha tempu nebe limitadu ne.

Fidel Castro Ruz,
27 Agostu 2013
8:34Pm

Versaun original iha lian Inglesh ho titulu “The Tariffed Truth”
fontes: http://en.cubadebate.cu/reflections-fidel/2013/12/23/tariffed-truth/#respond

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Legendario El Comandante Fidel Castro lori cuba survevivo hasoru blokeia ekonomia

11/28/2016

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Legendario El Comandante Fidel Castro
Lori Cuba Survevivo hasoru blokeia ekonomia
Author Tomas Freitas

Introdusaun

Moris ho naran kumpletu Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz, iha sidade kiik-oan ida naran Biran, povinsia Holguin, Cuba, loron 13 de Agostu 1926. Fidel, iha bin alin nain nen; mane tolu no feto tolu; mane rua seluk mak inklui Ramon, no Raul, no feton nain tolu mak; Angela, Emma no Agustina. Sira nian aman imigrante mak mai husi Spanyol, hela kleur iha Cuba no iha plantasaun bot. nudar ema riku nian oan, tan ne Fidel bele estuda iha eskola privado Jesuita nebe diak, no atende iha kolegio Dolores no kolegiao Belen iha Havana, depois akava tiha kolegio, Fidel kontinua estudu iha fakuldade direito iha Universidade Havana.

Wainhira esstudu iha universidade, Fidel gosta liu joga bola-basket, tebe-bola no bisbol. Alende ne, Fidel mos gosta halimar Catur, iha 1966 Fidel konsege organiza Olimpiade Catur iha Havana, no Fidel konsege halimar catur hasoru pecatur kunyesidu mak hanesan Tigran Petrosian no Bobby Fischer. Hafoin tiha manan revolusaun, Fidel mos promove modalidade seluk mak hanesan, Bola Voley, atletik, Judo, Gulat, Anggar, Boxer no seluk tan.

Haktuir sasin husi Fidel nian alin rasik Ramon Castro, hateten katak sira nian aman fo eskola Fidel iha fakuldade direitu ho intensaun atu aban bain rua, Fidel bele sai advogadu diak ida hodi defende sira nian rai no plantasaun. Maibe realidade hatudu oin seluk, depois remata remata tiha ninian estudu, Fidel aplika lei reforma agraria, nebe’e fahe hotu rai no plantasaun bot ba iha povu no agrikultores nebe mak la iha rai, inklui fahe rasik ninian aman nian plantasaun ba povu kamponeses.

Vida Aktivista

Moris iha vida aktivista, Fidel komunga tiha ona valor justica social, hahu’u kedas husi tinan 1947-1950, Fidel ba nasaun Republika Dominicana hamutuk ho aktivista sira iha neba hodi luta hatun ditadura Rafael Trujillo, maibe iha momentu neba sira la konsege hatun rejime ditadura ne. Fidel mos iha momentu neba ba Bogota, Columbia hamutuk ho aktivista revolusionariu sira hodi halo demonstrasaun hasoru Governu Columbia iha tempo neba.

Iha tinan 1950 wainhira Fidel kontinua fali ninian estuda iha universidade, situasaun politika Cuba hahu’u manas, movementu iha universitario komesa bok a’an tanba la gosta ho rejime ditadura Ramon Grau (1944-1948) nebe kunyesidu koruptu no represivu. Fidel iha tempu neba involve mos iha movementu ne, ninian kolega sira kunyese Fidel hanesan aktivista mak progresivu no revolusionario. Iha tempo neba, Fidel hetan influensa barak husi ideas-ideas herois Cubano Jose Marti, Fidel mos hola parte nudar membru Partidu Ortodoxo ho ideologia Nasionalista-Esquerda. Partido ne popular los, no iha momentu neba iha prediksaun katak partidu Ortodoxo ne sei manan elisaun iha tinan 1953, maibe molok elisaun Flugencio Batista halo golpe (kudeta) uluk no ukun Cuba ho represivu, no ditadura. Wainhira Batista ukun, partidu hotu nia taka, universidade barak nia hapara, media jornalista sira nian fo presaun para labele koalia, maibe demonstrasaun kontinua nafatin, no paple Fidel nian iha tempu neba halo rekrutamentu ba estudante sira para hola parte iha movementu klandestina. Fidel, ho ninian kompanhero sira komesa organizadu inklui mos aprende kona ba oinsa halo gerilya urbana hasoru rezime ditadura Flugencio Batista.

Nudar Gereleiro

Iha loron 26 de Julio 1953, Fidel hamutuk ho ninian kompanheros atus ida lima nulu resin ba halo atakasaun iha akampomentu military ida iha Moncada, fora husi sidade Santiago. Maibe atakasaun ne falha tiha, Fidel ho ninian kolega sira ema kaer, barak mak hetan tiru mate, no tortura, barak mak hatama ba kadeia inklui Fidel mos. Iha Septembro 1953, Fidel ho ninian kolega sira ema lori ba tribunal, no iha neba, iha Fidel nian pledoi hateten katak “Historia mak sei liberta hau” (History will Absolve Me). Iha testamunha jornalista ida hateten katak, momentu neba, Fidel tuku meja maka’as no hateten “Historia mak sei liberta hau” juiz no procurador sira nonok deit e la koalia liafuan ida. Fidel simu kadeia prizaun ba tinan sanulu-resin lima, hamutuk ho nian alin Raul Castro. Fidel ho Raul tama kadeia ladun kleur tanba iha tinan 1955 Fidel ho ninian compatriotas sira simu Amnestia no livre husi governu Batista. Durante iha kadeia laran, Fidel le’e livro barak nebe’e mak hakerek husi Karl Marx, Lenin, Jose Marti, Freud inklui mos Shakespeare. Hafoin sai husi kadeia, Fidel deside ho Raul halao viagem ba Mexico hodi planu fali sira nian revolusaun, wainhira iha Mexico, Fidel hasoru Ernesto “Che” Guevara, nebe mos iha ideas no ideologia komunismo mak hanesan. Che Guevara, konkorda ho Fidel nian planu no hola parte mos iha asaun hirak mai.

Depois se’es a’an tiha ba Mexico, Fidel ho ninian Compatriotas nain 81 halo planu tama fali mai Cuba uza ro’o bero ida naran “Granma”, maibe planu ne falha tanba hetan atakasaun husi Batista nian ema sira wainhira ro’o Granma ne halo destakasaun, entre sira nain walu nulu resin ida ne, so 21 peasoas deit mak konsege moris, nebe inklui Fidel, Raul no Che, sira nain rua nulu resin ida ne, konsege se’es an ba iha foho Sierra Maestra, iha foho ne Fidel hamutuk ho ninian Compatriotas sira halo akampomentu de baze vermelha, no halao gerilya durante tinan tolu resin, no konsege hatun forca Batista nian iha loron 1 de Janeiro 1959, no loron ne mos kunyesidu hanesan loron revolusaun Cuba nian.

Revolusaun Cuba

Iha fulan Janeiro 1959, provizoriumente governante Cuba lidera husi ema liberal ida naran Manuel Urrutia Lleo, liu tiha fulan ida, iha loron 16 de Fevereiro 1959, Fidel hetan tomada de pose nudar Primeiro Ministro Cubano. Depois simu tiha tomada de pose, Fidel halao vizita ida ba iha nasaun Estadus Unidos, no iha fulan Maio 1959, Fidel fila fali mai Cuba no halo kedas lei ida kona ba reforma agraria. Politika reforma agraria hetan opozisaun maka’as husi konkistador sira (tuan tanah) nebe iha rai no plantasaun bot iha Cuba. Fidel, nian politika fahe rai ba ema rai laiha, rai primeiro mak nia fahe, ninian aman nian plantasaun, nebe Fidel fahe ba kamponeses sira mak rai laiha.

Fidel nian politika reforma agrarian, hetan opzisaun maka’as husi governu Manuel Urrutia, tan ne iha loron 23 de Julio 1959, Povo barak inklui Camponeses sira ezizi Fidel para sae ba Presidente da Republika hodi troka tiha Manuel Urrutia.

Revolusaun iha Cuba la’os deit mak reforma agraria, maibe mos inklui politika elimina analfabeto, nebe depois de revolusaun, Fidel halao programa kampanye “Se’e mak hatene tenke hanorin, no se mak la hatene tenke aprende”. Fidel konsege mobiliza ema sira iha sidade hodi tun hotu ba baze, area rural. Politika kontra analfebetismo ne halao durante fulan 6 nian laran, no wainhira iha tempu kalan sira uza Petro-Max hodi hanorin lee no hakerek ba sira nian povo tomak iha baze neba. Iha tempo rai-loron sira ajuda Agrikultor, Camponeses sira hodi servisu iha to’os no plantasaun.

Revolusaun seluk mak Fidel ho ninian Camarada Companhero sira implementa mak nasionaliza kompania estranzeiro sira, no mos komesa dezenho politika saude no Edukasaun gratuitu, inklui mos promove seitor agrikultura urbana.

Tentasaun Asasinadu husi CIA

Tanba deit Fidel nian politika revolusionario kontra maka’as ideologia kapitalista, Fidel sai hanesan tarjetu numer 1 husi kualker tentasaun asasinadu nebe organiza husi CIA Estadus Unidos. Durante iha ninian vida moris, iha tentasaun atu oho Fidel hamutuk dala 638, tentasaun hirak ne liu husi; tau veneno iha kaneta (lapizera), tau veneno iha Cerutu mak Fidel gosta fuma, tau veneno iha roupa luku tasi Fidel nian, no buat seluk-seluk tan.

Ajuda liberta nasaun seluk iha Africa

So uniku lider nasaun nian mak orienta ninian forca armada ba funu hodi liberta nasaun seluk mak Fidel Castro. Mais ou menus iha nasaun lubuk ida iha Africa mak hetan apoiu militar direitamente husi Forca Armada Cubano, nasaun hirak ne mak hanesan; Africa do Sul, Algeria, Angola, Congo, Eitophia, Guine-Bissau, Guinea-Equatoria, Libya, Namibia, Sierra-Leonne, Somalia, Zimbabwe, no seluk seluk tan.

Iha tinan 1991, Nelson Mandela, halao vizita ba Cuba, no to’o iha neba, Mandela hato’o obrigado no rekunyese povu Cubano nian apoiu ba Mandela nian grupo nebe’e funu kontra forca rasista Apartheid. Iha tinan 1975, Fidel hato’o orientasaun ba Cuba ninian forca armada ba funu hasoru rejime Apartheid, rejime nebe’e lidera husi Cuito Cuanavale, rejime mak hakarak malae mutin deit mak ukun iha Africa do Sul. Mandela louva tebes ba prinsipio Internasionalism Cuba nian, nebe’e laos koalia deit ho ibun maibe aplika dunik iha pratika.

Bloku Soviet no Blokeia Ekonomia

Cuba konsege survevivo wainhira Soviet rahun, iha period 1986 Revolusaun Cuba tama iha period Rectifikasaun ba Erru no tendensia Negativu hodi resposta ba stagnasi politika no ekonomia Cuba nian. Rectifikasaun no mudansa ba politika no ekonomia Cuba nian ne akontese hanesan konsekuensia ba Soviet nian manajementu ekonomia no Sistema planeamentu iha Cuba desde 1973. Fidel dissolve tiha Sistema ne, hodi troka fali ho Che Guevara nian ideas, hodi redus exportasaun mas-midar ba fali diversifikasaun produsaun domestiko, ou iha termus ekonomia dehan; redus interese kapitalista nian mak hakarak halo exportasaun liu husi hasae produsaun rai laran. Che Guevara nian ideas prefere liu aumenta atendementu iha parte saude, edukasaun no social nian (Welfare provision) duke servisu maka’as exporta uniku produtu ba rai-liur. Durante bloku Soviet rahun, Cuba nian merkadu exporta mos tun husi $6bn iha 1990 to’o $2bn iha 1993, kresimentu ekonomia mos tun ba 35%, investementu internasional most un ba 80% (Brundenius,a 2002). Krizi hirak ne akontese tanba Estadus Unidos forma blokeia ekonomia hasoru Cuba.

Durante period especial ne, birokrasia estadu Cuba nian halo reforma nebe’e pragmatiku hodi introdus estimulasaun ekonomia ba sira nian povu mak hanesan; #Desentraliza Empressa publiku estadu nian (State Owned Enterprises) nebe fornese kompetensia ba autonomia financeiru, #Entrega 75% rai estadu nian transfere ba kooperativa nebe bele halo produsaun ai-han, #Inisia joint venture ho capital estranjeiru sira, #Introdus moeda dollar iha transaksaun merkadu domestiku, #Promove tourismo lokal, no #Fo licensa ba empressa privada nebe ninian skala-kiik (Brundenius,a 2002).

Iha tempo neba Cuba simu kritika barak husi liur nebe’e hateten katak Cuba implementa ekonomia liberal nian, kritika hirak ne dehan katak reforma ne konsidera sei fo impaktu negative ba mekanismu merkadu mak durante ne establese tiha ona. Maibe Cuba konsege kanaliza idea ”ekonomia liberal” ne ba fali Cuba nian modelu dezenvolvementu socialista nian nebe’e promove; produtu organiku (Organic Farming), tekniku rotasaun hodi produs ai-han (Crop rotation techniques), promove Agrikultura Urbana (Organoponicos), utilizasaun fali biskleta ba servisu, introdus enerjia alternative (solar energy) no promove eco-tourismu (Brundenius,a 2002).

Cuba nudar nasaun socialista depois de Soviet nakfera, no Estadus Unidos halo blokeia ba ekonomia ba sira. Iha periodu ne, Cuba tenke buka parseiru foun hodi introdus sira nian modelu diversifikasaun ekonomia. Cuba konsege konvense investementu husi nasaun liur balun mai iha Cuba, dadus hatudu katak, investementu rai-liur iha tinan 1996 to’o 2000 sae husi miliaun $82 to’o miliaun $400 (Brundenius,b 2002). Iha tinan 2000 Cuba konsege establese 400 joint ventures entre investementu rai liur ho estadu Cubano, nebe iha lei investementu klaru hateten katak Shares (saham) estadu Cubano nian tenke liu 51% kompara ho investidor rai-liur nian. Governu Cubano iha regulamentu que forte, mak entrega kompetensia ba governu ho halo mediasaun entre interese investidor estranjeiros ho interese trabalhadores Cubano sira. Governu Cubano iha regulamentu regirozu tebes, inklui regulamento kona ba pagamento nian, kondisaun trabalhadores nian, no mos iha regulamento mak regulariza impaktu produsaun ba iha enviromento. Investor sira husi nasaun liur mak investe sira nian osan iha tempo neba mak hanesan; Spanyol investe (23%), Canada (19%), Italia (9%), Fraanca (4%), Britania & Mexico (3.5% husi kada nasaun), numeros presentajem hirak ne hatudu katak Cuba nian poitika diversifikasaun merkadu suksesu no implementa ho diak (Brundenius,b 2002).

Hodi ultrapasa blokeiu ekonomia durante tinan 50 resin, alende diversifika ekonomia no bolu investidor estranzeiros mai Cuba. Fidel halo kooperasaun ho China nebe’e fo kreditu ba Cuba hodi hadiak Sistema transporte mak efisiensi. Halo mos kooperasaun ho Malaysia nebe’e ajuda iha parte Informasaun Technologia nian, nebe’e fa’an komputador ho folin baratu ba Cuba. Fidel mos liu husi Aliadu Bolivariano (ALBA) hamutuk ho nasaun America latina nain 9, halo kooperasaun iha parte ekonomia nian, mak hanesan; #hari’I Banco Regional ida hosi fo imprestimo ba AlBA nininian membru sira do que ba impresta fali iha Banku Mundial ou FMI, #kria televizaun ALBA nian para fo fo noticia mak independente sobre dezenvolvementu iha nasaun America Latina, #Atu kria no establese America Latina nian osan rasik para halo balansu ba Dollar Americano, no Euro. Alende koperasaun regional, Cuba mos halo kooperasaun bilateral ho Venezeula, liu husi lideransa Presidente Hugo Chaves. Kooperasaun ne mak hanesan barter ho Venezuela, nebe’e Venezuela husu 20.000 doutor Cubano, inklui professor eskola desportu nian, iha parte seluk Venezuela faan mina baratu ba Cuba.

Investe iha seitor Saude

Kunyesido nudar nasaun socialista nebe’e bazeia ba prinsipio soidariadade e humanismo, Fidel konsege lori Povu Cubano miliaun sanulu resin ida hodi ultra-pasa krizi no blokeiu ekonomia nebe Estadus Unidos aplika ba Cuba. Iha parte Saude nian, entre tinan 1990 – 2003, numeros doutor Cubano aumenta 76%, numero dentista aumenta 46%, numeros parteiras aumenta 16% (Caller, 2009), numeros centro nebe tau matan ba ema katuas ho ferik sira aumenta 107%, uma ba ema difisiente sira aumenta ba 47%, numeros labarik kiik mate tun maka’as husi 11.1% iha tinan 1989 to’o 6.4% iha tinan 1999.

Entre tinan 1992 – 1996, Cuba investe osan liu $1bn ba iha industria biotechnology no pharmaceutical, no haruka sira nian scientista sira ba aprende iha centro piskiza e laboratoriu sira mak iha America Latina, Swedia, Spanyol, no Alemanha (Chinweizu, 2009). Resultadu husi treinamentu ne, konsege produs numero Scientista hamutuk 12,000 no establese centru biotechnology laboratoriu 52 iha Cuba (Fawthrop, 2004). Iha tinan 2009, numeros cluster scientista aumenta tan ba 14, nebe’e namkare iha ilha tomak, halo kooperasaun ho 120 centru peskiza no fo servisu ba 30,000 pesoas resin (Revolutionary Communist Group, 2009).

Industria biotechnology ne, konsege asegura Cuba nian sistema saude liu husi produs 160 product no halo produsaun aimoruk rasik ba sira nian populasaun liu miliaun 11 resin. Industria hirak ne, hanesan empressa publiko estadu nian nebe’e responde ba nesisidade povu Cubano nian. Alende fornese aimoruk ba iha rai-laran, Cuba mos produs (inventions) aimoruk oin atus ida resin iha nivel internasional desde tinan 1959. Iha tinan 1996, Cuba exporta produtu pharmacia no hetan osan kuaze miliaun $54 resin. Iha tinan 2009, Cuba nian produtu pharmacia konsege export aba iha nasaun 58 resin no hetan ninian retornu miliaun $500 resin (Yaffe, 2009).

Fidel mos establese Cuba nian programa Mediku Internasionalismo, hahu’u husi wainhira fo apoiu emergensia iha Chile wainhira akontese rai-nakdoko iha tinan 1960, no liu tiha tinan rua nulu resin, brigade mediku mos haruka ba nasaun sanulu resin nen (Kirk & Erisman 2009). Iha fulan Novembro 2008, Cuba iha 17,697 doutor mediku nebe servisu iha 75 nasaun, numero ne la inklui 20,847 Cuba nian professional saude sira. Cuba nian brigade mediku halao servisu nasaun 27, no barak liu mak fora de nasaun America Latina. Cuba mos iha programa uza doutor Cubano durante tinan sanulu nian laran depois sei troka fali ho estundante medicina iha nasaun refere nebe treinadu husi doutor Cubano sira (Caller, 2009).

Comandante Fidel Castro mos hari’i Eskola Medisina America Latina (ELAM) nebe’e inagura iha Novembro 1999, iha estudantes hamutuk rihun rua resin (2,000) husi nasaun 18. Estudantes hirak ne, eskola gratuitu, han no kustu moris mos gratuitu durante eskola no hela iha Cuba. Graduadu Eskola Medisina Amerika Latina ne hahu’u iha tinan 2005 nebe representa estudantes husi nasaun 28 husi America Latina, inklui mos estudantes husi nasaun Estadus Unidos America no mos estudantes rihun ida resin husi Timor-Leste.

Iha 2001, eskola internasional kona ba Edukasaun physical no desportu establese, no iha 2005 konsege halo graduasaun ba estudantes liu 1,200 resin husi nasaun 75 nebe mai husi Africa, Asia no America Latina (Porter, 2012).

Asistensia Edukasional

Cuba laos deit kunyesidu ho programa saude, maibe iha mos programa kampanye ba kontra analfabeto, kampanye hodi hanorin ema lee no hakerek. Durante Fidel nian governancia, Fidel Castro introdus programa kampanye ba literacia, Cuba hahu’u fornese sira nian asistensia ba iha nasaun Angola iha tinan 1978 no 1981. Iha tinan 1987 mais ou menus estudantes Angolanos rihun hat resin (4,000) estuda iha Cuba, no iha tinan 1980, profesores husi Cuba join Cruzada iha Nicaragua, liu husi dezenvolve metodu hanorin simples, Cubano sira konsege dezenvolve programa literacia nebe’e adapta lian mak oin-oin husi nasaun 28. Programa ne implementa iha nasaun 15 iha America Latina nebe’e kordena husi specialist Cubana sira. Programa ne involve ema liu miliaun 3.6 resin husi 23 nasaun (Muhr, 2013:109). Husi Nova Zelandia to’o Nigeria, no husi Guatemala to’o Equatorial Guinea, aprende tiha ona le’e no hakerek uza programa ne. programa ne iha lingua versaun kuaze sanulu resin rua, nebe inklui uza lian Quechua no Aymara ba nasaun Bolivia, uza lian Creole ba nasaun Haiti, uza lian tetum ba Timor-Leste, no uza lian Swahili ba nasaun lubukida iha Africa neba.

Konkluzaun

Artiklu ne, konsege hatudu katak Comandante Fidel Castro, ema ida nebe komunga prinsipio socialism no Comunismo nian, nebe sempre kontra injustica, no kontra rejime ditadura iha nasaun nebe deit, ijemplu liu husi pratika hatudu iha nasaun lubuk ida iha Africa neba, laos koalia slogan deit maibe fo tulun nebe laiha interese. Liu husi Fidel ninian lideransa Cuba konsege ultrapasa krizi ekonomia wainhira hasoru sanksaun blokeia ekonomia, Fidel adopta Che Guevara nian ideas diversifikasaun ekonomia nebe’e prefere liu asegura atendementu baziku iha parte saude no Edukasaun, no kanaliza investementu rai liur ba iha seitor productivo nebe’e lao ho orientasaun ekonomia popular no alternativu. Adeus Comandante Fidel Castro, Faleceu 25 de Novembro 2016.

Referensia

Brundenius, C., 2002. ‘Whither the Cuban Economy after Recovery? The Reform Process, Upgrading Strategies and the Question of Transition’, Journal of Latin American Studies, No. 34:2, pp. 365-95, pp. 374 and 384.

Brundenius, C., 2002 ‘Cuban Economy’, Journal of Latin American Studies, No. 34:2, pp. 383-84.
Caller, H., 2009. ‘Socialism is Healthier’, Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! 208, April-May 2009, availbale at http://www.ratb.org.uk/frfi/208.html

Castro, F., 1989. ‘Fidel Castro Speech, 26 July 1989’, available at http://www.cuba.cu/gobierno/discursos/1989/esp/f260789e.html

Castro, R.,2009. ‘Raul Castro speech to the National Assembly of People’s Power, 1 August 2009, Available at http://www.cuba.cu/gobierno/rauldiscursos/2009/ing/r010809i.html

Che Guevara, E., 1970. ‘Algeria’, in Ernesto Che Guevara: Obras 1957-1967, Vol. 2, Havana, Casa de Las Americas, pp. 574-75.

Che Guevara, E., 2003. ‘Fidel Castro Speech, 8 October 1987’, in Ernesto Che Guevara: el gran debate, Havana, Ocean Press, p. 399.

Chinweizu, C., 2009. ‘Cuban Socialism Shows the Way for Biotech and Pharma’, Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism!,210, AugustSeptember 2009, Available at http://www.ratb.org.uk/frfi/210.html

Díaz, M, E.,2009. ‘Cuba: Economic Restructuring, Recent Trends and Major Challenges’, on Monthly Review website, 19th April 2009, Available at http://monthlyreview.org/mrzine/molina130409.html

Fawthrop, T., 2004. ‘Cuba Ailing? Not Its Biomedical Industry’, The Straits Times, 26 January 2004, Available at http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/cuba-ailing-not-its-biomedical-industry

Kirk, M, J., & Erisman, M, H., 2009. ‘Cuban Medical Internationalism: Origins, Evolution, and Goals, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, p. 93.

Mesa-Lago, C.,2007. ‘The Cuban Economy in 2006-2007: Fidel’s Legacy and Raul’s Policies’, paper presented at the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy annual conference, 2-4 August.

Muhr, T., 2013. ‘Counter-Globalization and Socialism in the 21st Century: The Bolivarian Alliance for People of Our America’, Routledge, New York.

Porter, C., 2012. ‘Cuba-trained doctors making difference around the world’, the Star, available at https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2012/06/02/cubatrained_doctors_making_difference_around_the_world.html

Revolutionary Communist Group., 2009. ‘50 Years of Cuban Socialist Achievements of the Cuban Revolution’, Available at https://www.scribd.com/document/49208741/50-years-of-Cuban-Socialism-achievements-of-the-Cuban-revolution

Yaffe, H., 2009. ‘Journal of Iberian and Latin American Research’ (JILAR), vol. 15:2, December 2009, pp 145-162. Available at http://ratbnews.blogspot.com/p/cuban-development-inspiration-for-alba.html

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Does the informal economy benefit the poor? Women Roadside Sellers in Madang Province of Papua New Guinea

4/28/2016

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Does the informal economy benefit the poor?
Women Roadside Sellers in Madang Province of Papua New Guinea
Author: Tomas Freitas

Introduction

The tendency for rural people to engage in multiple, informal occupations is widespread. Women often take on small business training and technical assistance, are encouraged to form stakeholder associations, and to participate in additional community-level activities sponsored by various projects (Asian Development Bank 2002). The proliferation of informal professions in developing countries has been seen both as a phase in the process of development and a negative path leading a country back into underdevelopment (Arizpe 1977).

Both of these positions are often subscribed to by modernist scholars, who prefer the small informal sector to take a step-by-step approach in developing their business, with the possibility of access to more credit, which can be provided by big institutions with high interest. Is it possible that rural women in the informal economy will one day become rich and living in an affluent society? This is unlikely; the reason why many engage in the informal economy is because they are marginalised by the modern economy, which has left them with no choice.

Presenting the case study of roadside sellers in Madang province in Papua New Guinea, this essay will explore a number of reasons for why the informal economy does benefit the poor.
The paper will in particular focus on the way that the informal sector provides economic benefit to women in rural areas.

Definition
The informal economy has been described in various ways. Writing about the informal sector in Sri Lanka, Sandaratne (2002) explains that the informal economy has various definitions including,

the ‘unorganised sector’, ‘unregistered economy’, ‘third economy’, ‘parallel economy’, ‘non-institutional’, ‘bazaar economy’, ‘lower circuit’, ‘black economy’, ‘shadow economy’, ‘underground economy’, ‘peasant form of production’, ‘peddlers’, ‘the unremunerated’, (Sandaratne, 2002,4).

This paper will adopt a definition of the informal economy which applies to the case study of roadside sellers in Papua New Guinea, and will refer to the informal economy variously as the ‘unregistered economy’, ‘non-institutional economy’ and as a ‘peasant form of mode of production’ as described by Karl Marx in his economic model ‘relations of production’, concerned with how people are organised for the purpose of producing goods and services (Marx, cited in Stilwell, 2002). ‘Unregistered economy’, refers to the characteristic of the informal economy as being mobile, moving from one place to another, making registration or documentation of their existence difficult (Kari, 2005) and ‘non-institutional economy’ because they are not institutionalised, or integrated into any legal entity in the form of big institutions. Some, however, have organised themselves into small cooperatives whose members are composed of families and neighbours (Gustafsson, 2002); these small cooperatives have existed in the rural economy as a type of social protection (Ratuva, 2010). A peasant form of ‘mode of production’ according to Karl Marx is a type of economic structure of a society which focuses only on the social organisational aspect of the production process (Marx, cited in Mackenzie, 1984). In other words, this is a relationship of production which is concerned only with how these rural farmers have organised and produced their crops.

Demographics

Papua New Guinea is a poor country in the Pacific region. According to the census data of 2008, the total population is about 6.468 million, with a growth rate of 2.7%. The annual Gross National Income per person is $1.040 and the real GDP annual growth rate is 4.5%. The percentage of the population below the poverty line is 39.6%. Enrolment in primary education is 63.6%, with the balance of gender parity in primary education 91 girls for every 100 boys. The mortality rate for children under five years old is 69 per 1000 births, and the maternal mortality rate is 733 per 100.000 live of births (Ausaid, 2011). The benefits that the informal economy can bring to poor farmers are substantial.

Social and Cultural Advantage

Most of the Pacific Island communities such as Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Tonga, Tuvalu, Kiribati, Nauru, Marshall Islands, and Cook Islands, have a strong dependence on subsistence agriculture, which is closely linked to their social context. The culture of exchange has been practically implemented generation by generation in this society as a means of building social and economic relationships. In Vanuatu about 80 percent of the population is engaged in the informal economy in some way, which is based on commodities exchange and social networking activities (Ratuva, 2010). The informal economy, based on subsistence agriculture, is a strong component of these communities’ social and cultural context. One of the fundamental advantages of the informal economy in these Pacific Island countries is that the majority of the population live on thousands of hectares of land under customary land tenure.

Customary land tenure

Customary land refers to ‘communal ownership’, and land boundaries are normally based on rivers, trees, or even mountains, which have no official demarcation and the land title has not been registered under the formal law. The title is however recognised by custom through the elders, which usually does not allow the sale of land to persons outside the kin group or other than relatives, and also prevents individual or groups selling the land to foreigners (Cooter, 1991).

Customary tenure in PNG accounts for about 97 percent are of the land (47 million hectares). Less than three percent (1.2 million hectares) is alienated land, meaning that it does not belong to the customary landowners. Of this three percent, about 125,000 hectares is owned by missionaries or churches and about 950,000 hectares belongs to the government. The government has also leased to other parties about 120,000 hectares, under 99 year leases (Trebilcock, 1983). The 97 percent of land owned by customary tenure forms the livelihoods of around 85 percent of the 6.7 million people of PNG (Bismarck Ramu Group, 2009). As far back as 1990, about 7 million hectares of land were used for cultivation, which at that time was about 1.5 hectares per person (Anderson, 2006b). In other words, 7 million hectares were utilised for subsistence-based agriculture, which the majority of the people use for plant-food crops.

The existence of customary land tenure has made it possible for many rural farmers to base their subsistence on plant food crops, which is beneficial in a number of ways. Plant-food crops form part of the economic structure of the society; they are important because if at the end of the day the crops are not bought by consumers, they will be consumed at home. In addition, plant-food crops are not for the export market, which means that there is not demand to produce huge quantities, meaning that rural subsistence farmers do not need to borrow a lot of money from microcredit institutions to meet the cost of production.

Women and the informal economy

There are two types of custodianship land applied in Papua New Guinea: the majority have adopted a patrilineal system, however some of the islands have implemented a matrilineal system. Under a patrilineal system, the senior male in the family has the right to determine and distribute land within the family. However, in some of the eastern islands, such as in the region of Milne Bay, only the matrilineal system is recognised, which means that women have control over the land. Men in this context can also have access to the land through their mothers, sisters or wives (Anderson, 2008).
In contrast to the World Bank opinion of traditional women hardly having access to land (Deininger, 2003), the case of customary land in PNG is different. For instance a woman from Madang province has testified that even though she is married to her husband from another province, when she returns to her father’s village she is still respected and still has access to land title, no matter where she is living (Bismarck Ramu Group, 2009).

The advantages of having access to land and the consideration of the culture of exchange as mutual gifts has benefited women in the informal sector in Papua New Guinea, especially rural women in Madang province. Despite utilising four to six hectares of land for oil palm farming, and two to four hectares for vanilla and cocoa plantations, most rural farmers still have one to two hectares just for the cultivation of crops and vegetables (Anderson, 2010). The average cash income from palm oil Palm is around 4,000 kina per year, which is less than cocoa and vanilla cash returns of 14,000-16,000 kina per year, and cash crop returns of around 13,500 kina per year (Anderson, 2006a).

Higher income

Women and men in PNG including in Madang province also have the potential to generate more income by participating in the informal as opposed to the formal economy. Activity in the informal economy has the potential to earn more income compared to national standard wages. In Madang province, a survey has been conducted which focuses on roadside seller activity in eleven different places. The Watta Rais roadside market has 30 sellers, Sausi has 40 sellers, Yakumbu 20 sellers, Usino 50 sellers, Mambu 70 sellers, Four Mile 200 sellers, Maiwara 13 sellers, Pau 120 sellers, Selon 40 sellers, Nagada 10 sellers and Baitabag 20 sellers, and the minimum average income per week in these eleven places is 138 kina higher than the national minimum wage which is only 37.20 kina per week (Anderson, 2008). These particular roadside sellers sell their local produce along the main roads, and target people who are travelling from one province to another (Ausaid, 2010).

According to a rural informal sector survey report, the informal sector income in four other provinces including Central, East New Britain, Morobe, and Western Highlands is three times higher than the normal national minimum wage. Daily activities that these informal sectors conduct are buying and selling fish, local transport, trade store, selling cattle, potatoes, cocoa, coffee, food crops, betel nuts and copra (Sowei, et al, 2003).

It might be asked why these roadside sellers do not want to sell their local produce at the normal local market; the fact is that they do not have a choice - there is not enough infrastructure at the local market that the government can provide to rural subsistence farmers (AusAid, 2000). Due to the difficulty of distance, some of the women who do sell at the marketplace have to organise themselves into groups for walking there together, and carry their produce on their heads to get to there, (Epstein, 1982).

The difficulty of accessing the local market and not having many local markets around is one factor that highlights the importance of the 47 million hectares of customary owned land in PNG. We might ask why the roadside sellers have set themselves up alongside most of the national roads. One of the reasons is because they are tired of fighting for a place in the regular marketplace, and also because many of these sellers live close to main roads, and they don’t have to pay too much for local transport to carry their crops and vegetables.

Interestingly, most of the sellers are housewives, who do multiple tasks by selling their local produce as well as looking after their children (Porter & Porter, 2008). Every day their husbands work in the fields, and some of them have other jobs as well such as working as labourers on construction sites or doing some other informal activity. Roadside sellers primarily sell local produce from their home farms including sweet potato, bananas, taro, coconuts, sugar cane, cassava, yams, sago, peanuts, aibika, betel nuts, eggs, chicken, lamb, pork, and rice.

Price control

Customary land tenure again proves to play an important part in the informal economy as regards price control. As the owners of the land, the roadside sellers are also able to control the price of their goods in the market by controlling the supply, because most of the crops and vegetables are seasonally grown. These roadside sellers also know how much they will charge for each specific crop after deducting their labour costs, including costs for local transport to transport their goods to the market place or main road. Such a system is unusual from a neoclassical economic perspective, which always maintains that prices are determined by consumers, not sellers (Stilwell, 2002).

Sustainability

Inspired by the ability to control the supply in the market, it has given self-confidence to rural farmers to sustain their productivity. In contrast to large farms which use chemicals or fertiliser, these rural farmers only produce their own organic compost which is why they usually produce good quality crops and rarely experience delays in harvesting (Sillitoe, 1998). As a tropical country, typically most of the crops are seasonal, and the rural farmers generally know very well when it is time for them to start planting their seeds (Allen et al, 1995). This activity is repeated season by season and continues year after year, which is why such a system is well maintained and sustainable.

Secure and Protected

Because their system is well maintained and sustainable, it has protected the activity of roadside sellers from external intervention. The women roadside sellers of Madang are different to women in other countries. If we compare to women in Bangladesh, the microcredit institutions have exploited Bangladeshi women and maintained a strong patriarchal system (Karim, 2008). This is not the case in PNG, because rural women in PNG have always relied on their families’ contribution. The culture of exchange has been considered as mutual gifts, and this has become a barrier for external intervention such as the introduction of micro-credit or micro-finance.

The culture of exchange has been a part of rural economy activities, for example canoes are traded as gifts rather than commodities (Gregory, 1982). Such a form of commodity exchange has been discussed many years ago by great philosophers, for example according to Karl Marx (1867) in his social pre-conditions for commodity exchange:

“The reality of the value of commodities differs in this respect from Dame Quickly, that we don’t know “where to have it.” The value of commodities is the very opposite of the coarse materiality of their substance, not an atom of matter enters into its composition. Turn and examine a single commodity, by itself, as we will, yet in so far as it remains an object of value, it seems impossible to grasp it. If, however, we bear in mind that the value of commodities has a purely social reality, and that they acquire this reality only in so far as they are expressions or embodiments of one identical social substance, viz., human labour, it follows as a matter of course, that value can only manifest itself in the social relation of commodity to commodity. In fact we started from exchange value, or the exchange relation of commodities, in order to get at the value that lies hidden behind it. We must now return to this form under which value first appeared to us.” (Marx, 1867; 16).

If we analyse this paragraph and link it into Melanesian communities in Papua New Guinea and other Pacific countries, it shows that commodity exchange depends on the value of the commodity itself, and that this is determined by the social relation between two commodities. The ‘social relation’ in this case might refer to the culture of exchange that has been applied generation by generation as anthropologists referred to in ‘primitive societies’.

Another barrier that has protected this informal activity from external intervention is customary land tenure (Fingleton, 2004). The financial institutions such as microcredit and microfinance prefer to grant credit for individual land ownership rather than communal (Gosarevski, et al, 2004). Despite the existence of individual property rights, many attempts to introduce a land registration system by the government and western institutions have failed (Yala, 2006).

Conclusion

In this paper land has been identified as a fundamental structure of the rural economy, which has empowered subsistence rural agriculture and become a strong factor in economic production. In particular customary land tenure and women’s access to land in matrilineal societies such as that of Madang province in Papua New Guinea has been shown to benefit the poor. Supporting the view that the informal economy does benefit the poor, this essay has explored a number of points that support this view. These benefits are strongly contingent on the large basis of customary land ownership in Papua New Guinea. The informal sector in PNG has been shown to earn more income compared to average national standard wages. Sellers can control the price in the market, which is actually a counter argument to the neo-classical economy which maintains that consumers have the ultimate power in determining price. In addition, due to the basic subsistence agricultural system and the geographic condition of seasonal harvesting in PNG that is repeated year after year, a sustainable cycle of productivity has developed. The culture of exchange has become a barrier of protection from external intervention, and the collective ownership of land title has become an obstacle for financial institutions to implement their programs of borrowing and microcredit. The system of customary land ownership is a strong factor in the benefits that the informal economy can bring to rural subsistence farmers in Papua New Guinea. In some provinces, such as Madang, the matrilineal system that operates has benefited poor women, giving them more control over land and produce.

References

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Anderson, T., 2006a. ‘Oil Palm and Small Farmers in Papua New Guinea’, Report for the Centre for Environmental Law and Community Rights on the economic prospects for small farmers in PNG’s oil palm industry. Available from https://files.pbworks.com/download/dbes3v7EBj/np-net/12638881/Anderson%20(2006)%20Oil%20palm%20and%20small%20farmers%20in%20PNG,%20CELCR.pdf

Anderson, T., 2006b. ‘On the economic value of customary land in Papua New Guinea’, Pacific Economic Bulletin, Vol 21, No 1, Pp 138-152.

Anderson, T., 2008. ‘Women Roadside Sellers in Madang’, Pacific Economic Bulletin, Vol 23, No 1, pp. 59-73.

Anderson, T., 2010. ‘Land registration, land markets and livelihoods in Papua New Guinea’, Aidwatch. Available from http://www.aidwatch.org.au/sites/aidwatch.org.au/files/Tim%20Anderson.pdf

Arizpe, L., 1977. ‘Women in the Informal labor Sector’: The case of Mexico City, The University of Chicago Press. Vol. 3, No.1, pp 25-37

Asian Development Bank (ADB), 2002. Papua New Guinea Country Strategy and Program Update, 2003 – 05, Asian Development Bank, Manila. Available from www.adb.org/Documents/CSPs/PNG/2002 .

Australian Agency for International Development., 2000. ‘Income generation for the rural poor: The Australian aid program’s rural development strategy’, Available from http://www.ausaid.gov.au/publications/pdf/ruralstrategy.pdf

Australian Agency for International Development., 2010. ‘The Socio Economic Impact of AusAID Funded Road Maintenance And Rehabilitation On National Priority Roads in Ten Province of Papua New Guinea’, Available from http://www.pngtssp.com/publications/pdf/SEIS%20Report%20October%202010.pdf

Australian Agency for International Development., 2011. ‘Papua New Guinea: Country Profile’, Available at http://www.ausaid.gov.au/country/papua.cfm

Bismarck Ramu Group, 2009, ‘Defending Melanesian Land’, Available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmolHFFdNyc

Cooter, R., 1991. ‘Inventing Market Property: The Land Courts of Papua New Guinea’, Law & Society Review, Vol 25, No 4. Available at http://works.bepress.com/robert_cooter/42

Deininger, K., 2003, ‘Land Policies for Growth and Poverty Reduction’, A World Bank Policy Research Report, Oxford University Press, Washington. Available at http://info.worldbank.org/etools/docs/library/34919/landpoliciesexecsummary.pdf

Epstein., S, T., 1982.‘Urban Food Marketing and Third World Rural Development’, Biddles Ltd, Guildford and King’s Lynn, London.

Flingleton, J., 2004. ‘Is Papua New Guinea viable without customary groups?’, Pacific Economic Bulletin, Vol 19, No 2, Pp 96-103.

Gosarevski, G., Hughes, H., & Windybank, S., 2004. ‘Is Papua New Guinea Viable with Customary Land Ownership?’, Pacific Economic Bulletin, Vol 19, No 3, Pp 133-136.

Gregory, C.A., 1982. ‘Gifts and Commodities’, Academic Press, London.

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Kari, S, S., 2005. ‘The Origin and Setting of the National Goals and Directive Principles in the process of writing the Constitution of Papua New Guinea’, Centre for Social Change Research. Available from http://eprints.qut.edu.au/16071/1/Sam_Kari_Thesis.pdf

Karim, L., 2008. ‘Demystifying micro-credit: the Grameen Bank, NGOs and neoliberalism in Bangladesh’. Cultural Dynamics, Vol 20, No 1, Pp 5-29.

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Sandaratne, N., 2002. ‘The Informal sector in Sri Lanka: its nature and extent and the impact of globalisation’, International Labour Organization, Geneva. Available from http://ilo-mirror.library.cornell.edu/public/english/region/asro/colombo/download/nmlfml01.pdf

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Sowei, J.W., Lahari, W., & Vatnabar, M., 2003. ‘Rural Informal Sector survey Report’, National Research Institute (Social and Environmental Studies Division), Port Moresby.

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Iha interese saida Indonesia-Australia Asina Akordu Plataforma Kontinente? Revista kritiku kona ba Akordu Plataforma-Kontinente (Continental-self) 1972

2/26/2016

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Iha interese saida Indonesia-Australia Asina Akordu Plataforma Kontinente?
Revista kritiku kona ba Akordu Plataforma-Kontinente (Continental-self) 1972
Hakerek-Nain
Tomas Freitas

Introdusaun
Hanesan vizinho ba Australia no Indonesia, iha inisiu tinan 2015, Primeiro Ministro Timor-Leste Dr. Rui Maria de Araujo Hamutuk ho ninian ministros ba vizita Indonesia, no fas parte ba ajenda Primeiro Ministro deskuti ho Presidente Indonesia Joko Widodo kona ba fronteira maritima no terestre ho Indonesia (Gabinette do Primeiro Ministro, 2015).

Iha parte seluk relasaun entre Dili no Canberra bele dehan ladun harmonia, especialmente des de intelijente Australia (ASIO) ba asaltu Timor-Leste nian dokumentus iha Canberra, no mos Governu Australia nebe lakon iha tribunal internasional iha Den Haque relasiona ho kazu espionaze. Timor-Leste la iha inimigu, bazeia ba deklarasaun husi eis Primeiru Ministro Xanana Gusmao iha Manila loron 7 fulan Junho 2013 nebe esklarese katak Timor-Leste nian politika estranzeiru mak Zero Inimigo, relasiona ho Australia no Indonesia, Timor-Leste iha relasaun que diak tebes (Government of Timor-Leste 2013).

Essay ida ne, sei la tenta atu analiza politika estratejia externa ou relasaun diplomatiku Timor-Leste nian, maibe sei halo revista kritiku ba akordu Plataforma kontinente (Continental-Self Agreement) iha tinan 1972, no sei hare mos interese entre eis Presidente Indonesia Soeharto no eis Primeiro Ministro Australia nian Willian McMahon iha tinan 1970’s. Estudu empirical ida ne mos sei hato’o evidensia tekniku balun mak hanesan data geolozia nebe provas Plataforma Kontinente ilha Timor partense ba.

Historia
Ba dahuluk, faktus hateten katak Akordu Plataforma Kontinente entre Australia no Indonesia asina iha loron 9 fulan Outubro 1972 (United Nations, 1975). Haktuir Senator Australia Ian Sinclair, hateten katak iha 1956 Portugal koko deklara soverania Tasi-Timor bazeia ba prinsipiu (median-line) ou ho lian Portugues dehan Linha-Mediana ou tetum dehan risku-klaran (Sinclair, 1977), maibe Australia rezeita no la rekunyese deklarasaun ne, Australia reklama fila-fali Tasi-Timor bazeia ba Plataforma Kontinente (King, 2002). Governu Australia kontinua fo presaun iha tinan 1971, wainhira Portugal kontinua la-simu idea fronteira maritima bazeia ba Plataforma-kontinente (Seabed Boundary) hanesan baliza permanente entre rai rua (House of Representatives Hansard, 1973). Iha biban seluk, komesa husi fulan Novembru 1970 to’o iha Abril 1971, Ambasador Portugal iha Canberra, Carlos Empis Wemans buka hela halo konsultasaun ho Vice-Secretario Owen Harry, maibe la konsege tamba Canberra prefere liu halo negosiu ho Jakarta nebe apoiu liu idea Plataforma-Kontinente (la Haye, 1991). Razaun saida mak Portugal hakarak halo engkontru ho Departementu Relasaun Externa Australia nian, tamba iha publikasaun ida husi Boletim Oficial de Timor loron 24 Outubro 1970 nebe publika dokumentu rekizito (document request) husi Kompania Mina internasional Oceanic Exploration ho data 31 Dezembru 1968 ba Ministro do Ultramar, nebe iha dokumentu nian laran hakerek kona ba fo lisensa ba Kompania Oceanic Exploration hodi halao explorasaun iha area Tasi-Timor, no mos lisensa ne kovre area tetek-malun (overlapping) ka area nebe sei konflitu hela entre Australia no Portugal iha tempu neba (King, 2002). Administrasaun Portuguese laos deit fo lisensa ba kompania mina Oceanic Exploration, maibe sira mos iha Dezembru 1974 garantia kontratu ba Kompania Petrotimor hanesan grupo konsorsium, hamutuk ho Oceanic Exploration no mos interese Portugal nian (The Age, 1974), lisensa ne kovre 23,192 milhas kuadradus ou 60,700 kilometro kuadradus (King, 2002).

Molok, kompania jigante Oceanic Exploration nebe ninian baze iha Colorado, Estadus Unidos America hetan lisensa iha tinan 1968 hodi kaer projeitu Tasi-Timor, iha tinan 1962 kompania bot balun husi Australia mak hanesan Australian Aquitaine Pty Ltd, Arco Australia Ltd no Esso Australia Ltd, komesa tiha ona halo explorasaun geofizika (Laws & Kraus, 1974) no kontinua ho Aeromagnetic survey iha tinan 1963 husi kompania Woodside Petroleum, Kompania Burmah Oil, no Anglo-Ducth Shell Oil Company, no depois kontinua ho estudu seismiku iha tinan 1964-1968 (Mollan et al, 1969). Estudu hirak ne halao iha area Bonaparte Basin nebe ikus mai kunyesidu ho Area Konjunta Dezenvolvementu Petroleum (JPDA). Iha 1970 area Bonaparte deskobre potensia minarai no gas, nebe ho ninian estimasaun iha tempu neba entre milaun 500 to’o bilaun 5 barrel mina matak, no kuantidade gas Hamutuk 50,000 billion cubic feet (king, 2002).
Kontente ho informasaun kona ba potensia rezerva iha leten, iha loron 23 fulan Maio 1973, Senator Justin O’Byrne husi Australia deklara dehan;

“ buat ne bele fo vantazen diak ba ita sekuandu ita deskuti ho didiak, no ida ne bele sai ita nian rikusoin tamba area ne potensia tebes. Deklara tiha ona mos katak area ne riku ho hydrocarboneta nebe barak liu iha mundo. Nebe kontamina ho gas no minarai ho ninian kuantidade mak hanesan mos nasaun rikeza sira iha mediu-oriente.
Futuru Australia nian, ate a data akontesementu krizi mina iha nasaun dezenvolvidu hanesan Estadu Unidos America, no wainhira rekursu tradisional nebe nakonu ho suply hydrocarboneta ne signifika sei fo preparasaun ida diak tebes, nebe serteza ho pratika tradisional mak iha mudansa tiha ona, inklui mos presu ida nebe diak. Ita sente privileziu tebes, tamba ne mak momentum ida diak ba ita atu hodi tama ba iha era auto-suffisiente ka besik Auto-sufisiente tamba ita iha supply hydrocarbonetas” (Senate Hansard, 1973:1838-1840).

Depois prosesu explorasaun husi Kompanias Australia nian iha 1962, no sira atinzi tiha resultadu iha 1970. Estrazikamente, Canberra mos halao progressu makas hodi establese koperasaun official ida ho Indonesia. Mesmo que deskonfia fo suporta direita no indireita ba rezime foun liu husi Komando Jeneral Soeharto iha 1965 hodi kontra Primeiro Presidente da Republika Indonesia Soekarno, kooperasaun entre Australia ho Indonesia iha 1966 hetan suksesu liu husi engkontru Inter-Government Group on Indonesia (IGGI) nebe konkorda Australia hodi fo Miliaun 20 AUSD hanesan ajudus ba programa bilaterais Indonesia nian ba periodu tinan tolu 1972-1975. Ajudus osan ne hodi uza ba sosa aviaun Jet-Militar nian hanesan sosa Sabre jets Hamutuk miliaun $6.1 AUSD, no miliaun $2m hodi halo mapamentu iha Indonesia (King, 2002). Iha loron 16 Outubro 1970 Indonesia hatudu sira nian mapa fronteira maritima nebe bazeia ba Plataforma-Kontinente hanesan baliza entre Australia ho Timor (Robinson, 1970). Iha Febreiru 1972, segundu Presidente Indonesia Soeharto halao vizita ba Australia (King, 2002), no husu ninian kolega Primeiro Ministro Australia William McMahon iha tempu neba atu servisu makas hodi konklui lalais akordu Plataforma-Kontinente, nebe ikus mai asina duni iha loron 9 Outubro 1972 (McMahon, 1972).

Diskusaun kona ba Plataforma-Kontinente entre Indonesia ho Australia hahu’u Novembro 1969 iha konferensia ida naran Economic Commission of Asia and the Far East (Sorby, 1969). Maibe molok konferensia ne, Iha 1953 Australia prepara ho diak tiha ona atu hodi deklara Plataforma-Kontinente hanesan sira nian pozisaun fronteira maritima (Prescott, 1972) liu husi dezenvolve sira nian interpretasaun rasik ba artiklu 6.1 konvensaun Geneva kona ba lei tasi nian, nebe koalia kona ba delimitasaun fronteira internasional.
Iha orijinalidade artiklu 6.1 ne hateten:

“Wainhira estadu rua hari’i iha Plataforma kontinente mak hanesan nebe sira nian teritoria hasoru ba malun ka fo opozisaun ba malun, baliza mak bele aplika mak tenke iha konkordansia entre sira nain rua. Sekarik la hetan konkordansia, no sekarik iha eksepsaun seluk mak hanesan iha linha fronteira nebe bele justifika hanesan kondisaun especial ka Special Circumstances, entaun linha baliza (boundary-line) mak linha-mediana, nebe tenke sukat bazeia ba tasi ninin husi teritoriu ida ba teritoriu seluk no hafahe iha klaran” (King, 2002:2).

Interpretasaun ba dahuluk, Australia tauk-oituan (concerned) kona ba linha mak dada tiha ona iha Tasi Arafura nian, nebe ho ninian medida East Longitude 133o 14’, Razaun tamba governu Australia entrega tiha ona lisensa ba explorasaun petroleum iha area entre West Irian no Aru Island (King, 2002). Tamba ne, Australia fiar katak area mak hetan lisensa, monu iha Plataforma-kontinental nebe legalmente regulariza husi Australia no Indonesia (Prescott, 1972).

Interpretasaun segundu, Australia fiar katak lakuna (Timor Trough) hanesan kuak ida mak klean los hodi hafahe kontinente rua, bazeia ba deklarasaun husi eis ministro estranjeiru Australia nian William McMahon iha loron 30 Outubro 1970 iha uma fukun Parlementu Australia, hateten katak lakuna (Timor tranche) ho ninian distansia naruk 550 Milhas Nautical ka 1017.5 kilometros kuadradu, ho ninian luan mais ou menus 40 milhas ka 74 kilometros, ho ninian tasi klean liu 10,000 feet ka liu 3000 metros, no bazeia ba fontes nebe iha nia hateten katak ida ne mak “unmistakably morphological” iha lian tetum dehan “formasaun estrutura nebe la falha” Haktuir McMahon signifika katak lakuna (Timor Trough) iha Tasi Timor hafahe tiha ona baliza entre Australia no Timor, nebe haketak Plataforma kontinente rua ne (Minister for External Affairs, 1970).

Banati-tuir eis ministro justice Indoensia nian iha tinan 1976, Dr Mochtar Kusumaatmaja, sai mos hanesan eis ministro estranjeiru iha tinan 1977, nebe deklara iha journal akademiku Far Eastern Economic Review hateten “la los katak lakuna iha Tasi Timor hanesan baliza nebe natural hodi haketak Plataforma rua” (Richardson, 1979:45). Nudar peritus kona ba lei tasi nian, Dr. Mochtar esplika iha Journal APPEA nebe hateten katak “Lakuna iha Tasi Timor ne hanesan kuak kiik ida husi bathymetric modern nebe ninian klean liu 10,000 feet ka 3000 metros….formasaun husi lakuna ne ho ninian probabilidade bazeia ba ajustamentu Isostatic (Isostatic Adjustment) nebe nudar kontinuasaun husi soke malun entre Plataforma Australia nian no Plataforma Asian husi parte northe Ilha Timor nian, iha era inisiu Miocene (early Miocene)” (Laws & Kraus, 1974:80). Dr. Mochtar mos esklarese iha journal Sydney Morning Herald iha loron 3 fulan Junho 1972 nebe hateten katak “wainhira Plataforma rua soke malun ninian konsikuensia mak kria lakuna nebe tun ba tasi-okos, no ida ne la’os ninin husi Plataforma rua” (Hastings, 1972). Mosaun hanesan mai husi Charles Hutchison, nebe deklara katak “Plataforma Kontinental hanesan unidade ida deit nebe hanesan mos extensaun husi Plataforma Australia Shaul nian inklui lakuna no ilha Timor nebe hit A’an no hatudu A’an’ (Smith, 2011:51).

Imajem iha leten hatudu klaru kona ba Plataforma Kontinental Australia nian nebe inklui Sumba, Timor no Ilha Papua. Imajem ne apresenta husi Asesor Geir Ytreland nebe servisu iha Ministerio Rekurso Naturais no Politika Enerjetika (MNREP) Timor-Leste, iha primeiro governasaun konstitusional (2005).
Piskiza ida ne, gasta tiha ona tempu barak hodi halibur evidensia empirical mak hanesan Estudu Survey Seismiku nebe mak produs husi Departementu Minerais no Energia Australia nian. Hakerek-Nain ba essay ida ne, iha evidensia mak sufisiente hodi kontra argumentu husi William McMahon nebe hateten katak “Lakuna iha Tasi Timor hanesan baliza entre kontinente Australia ho Ilha Timor” statementu ida ne falsu no laiha evidensia. Favor hare’e dokumentus iha kraik nebe nakonu ho statementu tekniku mak kontrariu ho McMahon nian deklarasaun.

Estudu Seismiku

Liafuan iha leten ne hateten katak “informasaun mak iha relatoriu nia laran mai husi Departementu Mineral no Energia, fas parte husi politika governu Australia nian hodi fo asistensia ba explorasaun no dezenvolvimentu rekursu minerais. Dokumentu ne sei la publika iha kualker forma, ka uza sein lisensa eskrita husi Direitor, Biro Rekursu minerais, geolojia no geofizika”.

Imajem scanned dokumentus hirak ne publika husi Departementu Mineral e Energia Australia nian, no halao tiha ona survey seismiku ida iha area lakuna Tasi-Timor iha tinan 1975, no sira hetan ninian evidensia katak Ilha Timor fas parte ba Plataforma kontinente Australia nian; deklarasaun ne totalmente kontrario ho statementu husi William McMahon. Hare didiak statement deklara husi dokumentu ne.

Tuir ita nian dalen tetum deklarasaun iha leten haklaken katak “Lakuna Tasi Timor eziste klaramente mai husi divizaun bathymetric nebe koko haketak Timor husi enkuadramentu Plataforma kontinental norte Australia nian. Proposta ne mai husi Fitch, Warris no seluk tan, nebe hateten lakuna ne resulta husi soke-malun fundamental entre Plataforma rua nia ninin, maibe agora la aktivu ona. Audley-Charles no seluk tan konsidera katak ninin husi Plataforma mak parte norte Ilha Timor nian, maibe lakuna iha Tasi Timor ne hanesan resultadu husi soke malun entre kontinente Australia ho “subduction zone” nebe iha baliza neba”.

Deklarasaun iha leten bele interpreta katak, Ilha Timor mosu bazeia ba resultadu soke-malun entre continental Australia no Zona seluk, signifika kontinente Asia.

Interpretasaun husi paragraph ne hateten katak; karakteristik husi seksaun seismiku halao provolta plataforma husi parte ninin norte to’o ba sul. Distansia seismiku provolta refleksaun 0.5 seconds (500 m) tiru tun tasi okos (seabed), no ninian resultadu hatudu distorsaun ba sedimentariu. Refleksaun tiru klean liu konsege to ba iha tasi kidun (crystalline basement) tamba area magnetic iha okos neba kaber los (smooth). Resultadu seismiku ne hatudu katak iha mos difikuldade hodi hare ba tasi klean liu tamba iha disturbansia makas wainhira akontesementu natural husi formasaun fatuk iha ninin husi parte norte lakuna nian. Probabilidade fatuk sedimentary hirak ne hanesan mos ho fatuk iha Bobonaro no hetan mos fatuk hanesan iha formasaun kosta sul Timor nian.

Orijinalidade husi lakuna ne ladun klaru, maibe teoria reprezenta expresaun leten (surface expression) husi parte norte nian monu tun (dipping) liu-liu iha parte zona soke-malun (subduction-zone) no ne ita labele diskonta ka ignora ba iha evidensia seismiku ida ne. Desturbu natural sai kauza ba fatuk barak nebe monu iha lakuna no evidensia ne hatudu katak mosu laletek, ka iha lian Bahasa dehan (tumpukan) no inglesh hateten (overlie) nebe rezulta naksuli no halis-tun ba parte ninin husi lakuna sul nian.

Liafuan iha leten hateten katak parese kose-malun (over-thrusting) ka iha lian Indonesia ita dehan “gesekan” iha parte norte mai husi (gravity sliding) ka “gesekan gravitasi” entre “lempengan” (scaly clays), nebe rezulta Ilha Timor hit-a’an iha era Miocene. Sekarik distorsaun Pliocene oozes mak hetan iha baze lakuna nian hanesan rezulta hikar-malun ka namkurut (folding), no laos interupsaun, karik, buat rua ne hanesan prosesu mak mai husi kontinuasaun nebe kleuk-tiha ona (downwarp).

Paragraph ne deskobre oinsa ilha Timor hit-a’an iha era Miocene, bazeia ba tinan geologia nian signifika formasaun ba ilha Timor akontese entre tinan miliaun 5-24 liu ba.

Imajem seismiku iha leten, hatudu katak lakuna iha Tasi Timor la klean liu 3000 metros.
Molok ita kontinua ita nian diskusaun ba oin, artiklu ida ne hakarak halo revista ba artigu ida ba ida nebe mak hakerek iha akordu Plataforma-Kontinental entre Jakarta ho Canberra iha 18 Maio 1971, akordu ne hetan asinatura husi eis Ministro Estranjeiru Australia nian Nigel Bowen ho is Ministro Minerais Indonesia nian Soemantri Brodjonegoro iha loron 9 Outubro 1972 iha Jakarta.

Akordu Plataforma-Kontinental 1972

Tradusaun iha leten hateten katak; Akordu Plataforma Kontinental 1972. No. 14123, Entre Australia no Indonesia. Akordu establesementu serteza kona ba Fronteira Tasi-Okos iha area Timor no Tasi Arafura nian, akordu ne hodi kumpleta ba agrementu 18 Maio 1971. Asina iha Jakarta loron 9 Outubro 1972. Tekstu Autentink: Inglesh no Indonesia. Rejistu husi Australia iha loron 7 Agostu 1975.

Wainhira hare didiak kover husi akordu ne, klaru hatudu Australia nian interese makas hodi ba rejistu iha ONU sein partisipasaun Indonesia nian. Karik ida ne mak sai razaun ba Dr. Mochtar Kusuma Atmaja hodi hateten katak “Australia halo Indonesia sai hanesan sira nian kriadu (pembantu)”; favour hare’e iha komentario Michael Richardson (1978), Peter Hastings (1978).

Interpretasaun;
Governu Commonwealth Australia no Governu Republika Indonesia,
Reafirma akordu entre Governua nain rua, asina iha loron sanulu-resin-walu fulan Maio tinan rihun ida atus sia hitu nulu resin ida, establese fronteira tasi-okos (seabed-boundary) iha Tasi Arafura, no iha area serteza balun iha kosta ilha Nova-Guinea (Irian),
            Reafirma liu tan saida mak mensiona iha akordu governu rua, nebe husik hela ba diskusaun ikus mak kestiona delimitasaun iha area mak deside tiha ona, entre tasi-okos iha Arafura no Tasi Timor parte weste nian ho Longitu 133023’ Leste,
            Rezolve hanesan vizinho diak no iha espiritu kooperasaun ho fraternidade, hodi hatu’ur permanente limitasaun husi areas nebe refere bazeia ba paragraph mak governu rua konkorda tiha ona hodi exerciu sira nian direitu ba explorasaun iha tasi-okos no exploitasaun rekursu naturais, hanesan konkorda tuir mai:

Paragraf ikus husi preamblu iha leten reflekta mosaun hypothetical husi parte Australia nian. Hanesan mensiona husi hakerek-nain iha paragraph inisiu essay ida ne, katak husi 1962-1970 Kompanias mina Australia halo tiha ona explorasaun no identifika tiha ona rezerva mina no gas iha Plataforma-kontinente nian okos. Kestaun mak ne, tamba sa iha tempu neba Indonesia la hatene katak iha pontu A16 no A17 nian okos toba hela mina matak Hamutuk barrel biliaun lima (5), no gas rihun lima nulu (50,000)bcf.

Interpretasaun Artigu 1.
Iha area kosta sul husi ilha Tanimbar, fronteira entre area husi tasi-okos hasoru malun ho parte Commonwealth Australia nian no mos area husi tasi-okos nebe hasoru malun ho parte Republika Indonesia nian sei dada linha los nebe mak hatudu iha chart no 3 anexu iha akordu nebe komesa husi pontus latitude 8o53’ sul, longitude 133o23’ leste (pontu 12, specifikamente iha akordu entre nasaun rua, loron sanulu resin walu, fulan Maio, tinan rihun ida, atus sia, hitu nulu resin ida), tuir mai koneksaun iha dirasaun westerly bazeia ba pontus specifiku iha aranjamentu specifiku:

Interpretasaun Artigu 2.
Iha area sul ilha Roti no Ilha Timor, fronteira entre area husi tasi-okos hasoru malun ho parte Commonwealth Australia nian no mos area husi tasi-okos nebe hasoru malun ho parte Republika Indonesia nian sei dada linha los nebe mak hatudu iha chart no 3 mak anexu iha akordu nebe komesa husi pontus latitude 10028’ sul, longitude 126000’ leste (pontu A17, specifikamente iha akordu entre nasaun rua, tuir mai koneksaun iha dirasaun westerly bazeia ba pontus specifiku iha aranjamentu specifiku:

Interpretasaun Artigu 3.
Linha entre Pontus A15 no A16 no entre Pontus A17 no A18 refere ba artigu 1 no 2, indika dirasaun proporsionalidade husi fronteira. Wainhira iha eventu kona ba kontinuasaun akordu delimitasaun ka akordu mak konkorda tiha ona entre governu rua hodi halo exercisio ba direitu soverania, nebe involve explorasaun iha tasi-okos no exploitasaun ba rekursu naturais iha area Tasi Timor, Governu Commonwealth Australia no Governu Republik Indonesia tenke konsulta ba malun hodi hare no hetan konkordansia ba ajustamentu ka ajustamentus, sekarik iha, nesesidade ba iha porsaun linha baliza entre pontus A15 no A16 no entre pontus A17 no A18.

Sekarik ita halo komparasaun entre artigus 1,2 no 3 iha leten, klaru katak akordu plataforma-kontinental la rasional, tamba iha artigu 1 no 2, defini medidas pontus kordinat bazeia ba pozisaun nasaun rua mak hasoru malun, maibe iha atigu 3, governu nain rua ‘tenke konsulta ba malun ho vizaun ida mak konkorda ba malun hodi halo ajustamentu’, perguntas mak ne, tamba sa mak sira tenke konsulta ba malun? Sekuandu pontus kordinat bazeia ba spiritu Plataforma-kontinental, tan sa mak Australia no Indonesia preokupa los kona ba pontus kordinat hat ikus ne? karik tamba pontus A16 no A17 sai hanesan pontus savi nebe favorese ba rezevoar jigante balun? Mai ita hare, iha nebe lolos pontus A16 no A17 kona lolos.

Fontes: Woodside
Mapa iha leten ne Kompania Woodside uza ba internal deit, no mapa ne klaru hatudu katak pontu A17 besik lolos kampo Laminaria, Corallina, no Bufalo. Sekarik linha ne para deit iha pontu A18, ne signifika kampo minarai hirak ne bele tama hotu Area Konjunta Dezenvolvementu Petroleum (JPDA).

Fontes ba mapa kampo Sunrise no Troubadour ne, mai husi dokumentu Akordu Unitizasaun Internasional (IUA).
Imajem iha leten hatudu ezatamente kona ba pontus kordinat A15 no A16, bazeia ba Akordu Unitizasaun Internasional iha pajina ikus liu, hatudu pontus A15 no A16 mak hafahe kampo Sunrise no Troubadour ba 20.1% tama iha area JPDA no 79.9% konsidera area Australia nian. Perguntas mak ne, iha tempu neba Indonesia hatene kalae katak pontus kordinat A15 no A16 kona lolos iha rezevoar jigante mak iha gas barak?

Artigu 4,
Governu Commonwealth Australia no Governu Republika Indonesia mutualmente rekunyese direitu governu rua nian iha no liu area Tasi-Okos (Seabed) ho ninian limitasaun nebe establese iha akordu ne, ho nune sira bele hapara hodi okupa (claim) ou bele halo exercio direitu soverania nian ba explorasaun husi tasi-okos no exploitasaun ba rekursu natureza nebe fora husi baliza mak establese.

Artigu 4 hateten katak ho respeita ba explorasaun iha tasi-okos no exploitasaun ba kada rekursu natureza, bele fora liu linha fronteira “beyond the boundaries” nebe konkorda. Oinsa mak Indonesia bele konkorda hodi husik Australia halao explorasaun no exploitasaun fora husi linha fronteira? Emphaze husi artigu 5 deklara katak tasi-okos (seabed) inklui kamada-rai (subsoil), no ida ne sei iha eksepsaun (exemption) nebe signifika katak ne laos rekerementu husi diskonkordansia kona ba explorasaun no exploitasaun husi tasi-okos.

Artigu 5,
relasiona ho akordu ida ne, “tasi-okos” (seabed) inklui kamada-rai (subsoil) iha tasi okos, exepsaun wainhira iha kontekstu mak diferente.

Artigu 6. 1.
Pontus kordinat nebe specifikamente iha artigu 1 no 2 husi akordu ne mak kordinates jeografika, no ninian lokalidade aktual husi pontu hirak ne mak linha sira ligasaun ba malun nebe sei determina husi metodu mak hetan konkordansia husi autoridade kompotente governu rua nian.

Artigu 6.2.
proposta husi paragraf 1 husi artigu ida ne, hateten katak autoridade kompetensia nebe iha relasaun ho Commonwealth Australia mak hanesan Director Nasional Mapamentu ka ema ida mak reprezenta autoridade ne, no relasaun ho Repuplika Indonesia mak hanesan Chefe husi kordinador survey nasional no mapamentu (Ketua Badan Koordinasi Survey dan Pemetaan Nasional) ka ema seluk mak reprezenta autoridade ne. (United Nations, 1975).

Artigu 6, hateten katak instituisaun regulatoriu Australia ho Badan Koordinasi Survei dan Pemetaan Nasional, mak sei determina Hamutuk pontus linha Plataforma-kontinental hirak ne. bazeia ba evidensia mak hakarek-nain informa iha paragraph balun iha leten, hateten katak Australia fo ajudus bilaterais miliaun $20 AUD, no husi osan ne, miliaun $6.1 sei uza ba sosa aviaun funu, no miliaun $2.0 hodi halao mapamentu ba fronteira Indonesia nian, no ajudus ne sei fo durante durasaun periodu 1972-1975. Iha informasaun seluk mos hateten katak iha 16 de Outubro 1970, Indonesia iha tiha ona sira nian mapa kumpleta nebe bazeia ba Plataforma-kontinente. Oinsa mak Indonesia bele iha lalais tiha mapa kumpleta iha tinan 1970 kona ba fronteira maritima no bazeia ba Plataforma-kontinental nebe persija osan barak hodi halo estudus? Hakerek-nain deskonfia (curiga) katak Australia mak prepara tiha ona mapa ne, hodi foba Indonesia hodi aprezenta, tan ne artigu 6.1 no 2 ne so para taka falta deit. Estranyu tebes ba Indonesia hodi asina akordu Plataforma-kontinente ne, sekuandu sira iha tiha ona mapamentu mak klaru kona ba informasaun tasi-okos (seabed) no kamada-rai (subsoil) iha Tasi Timor neba.

Artigu 7.
Sekarik iha kualker akumulasaun hydrocarbonetas likidu ou natural gas, ka kualker deposito minerais mak hetan iha tasi-okos neba, bele halo extensaun ba kada linha nebe specifikamente ka hanesan deskreve tiha ona iha artigu 1 no 2 husi akordu ne, no husi parte kada akumulasaun ka deposito nebe hetan iha linha nian sorin seluk no bele rekopera iha formasaun likidu, governu rua bele buka dalan hodi konkorda atu oinsa halo exploitasaun mak efektive no fahe lukru mak hanesan ba akumulasaun ka deposito nebe iha.

Artigu 7, ne hatudu katak governu Australia iha ambisaun makas hodi buka minarai no gas iha depositos, mesmo que rezevoar balun dok liu kordinat points.

Artigu 8.1
Nebe Governu Commonwealth Australia bele grante lisensa explorasaun ba petrolifero ou lisensa produsaun ba petrolifero bazeia ba lei (Submerged Lands) lei nebe husi Commonwealth Australia, liu parte tasi-okos nian nebe governu tenta atu exersiu direitu soverania liu husi kualidade akordu ne, no fo lisensa tenke imidiatamente sai prioridade hodi legaliza akordu ne, Governu Republika Indonesia ka ninian autoridade ajente sei simu aplikasaun husi sosiu rejistradu (registered holder) nebe iha lisensa, ou sosiu rejistradu nebe barak liu ema nain ida, sira bele temporariamente kombina ba malun, iha boa-vontade hodi oferese no negosia Kontratu Fahe Produsaun (PSC) bazeia ba Indonesia nian lei, hodi explora no halo produsaun ba minarai no natural gas.

Analiza ba artigu 8.1 hatudu katak Australia nian determinasaun bot liu hodi hasai lisensa ba kompania mina sira, no obriga kompania sira tenke kumpri lei Asutralia nian (Submereged Lands) nebe regula futuru industria ne. hakerek-nain la hetan evidensia involvement Indonesia nian iha hasai lisensa ba area Tasi Timor nian, ne hatudu katak akordu ida ne (seabed boundary) so fo deit benefisiu ba parte ida mak Governu Australia.

Artigu 8.2
Aplikasaun ba negosiasaun bazeia ba konkordansia iha paragraph 1 husi artigu ne tenke deside liu husi sosiu rejistradu ka sosiu rejistradu sira seluk iha fulan sia nia laran depois de akordu ne aplika. Sekarik laiha aplikasaun mak halo durante period ne, ka oferesementu halo bazeia ba konkordansia ho paragraph 1 husi artigu ne, depois negosiasaun, la aseita, ka la permiti ou la fo lisensa, Governu Republika Indonesia sei la iha obrigasaun hodi rejistru sosiu sira, no sei la permiti hodi fo lisensa bazeia ba paragraph 1 husi aplikasaun akordu ne.

Pontu 2, klaru hateten katak, Governu Australia halo tauk no ameasa Indonesia, liu husi desizaun fulan sia deit ba Indoensia hodi prosesa aplikasaun no halo rejistasaun ba sosiu sira. Tamba sa mak regulamentu fulan sia ne aplika deit ba parte Indonesia nian? Sekuandu akordu ne bazeia ba relasaun mutual, entaun tenke aplika mos ba nasaun rua, laos ba Indonesia deit.

Artigu 8.3
Haktuir proposta husi artigu ne, “sosiu rejistradu” (registered holder) signifika kompania ida nebe rejistu sosiu (saham) no hetan lisensa ba explorasaun petroleum ou lisensa ba halao produsaun, iha kazu ne bazeia ba lei (Submerged Lands Acts) husi Commonwealth Australia nebe imidiatamente aplika tiha ona iha akordu ne.

Iha pontu numero 3, iha tendensaun makas Australia refere liu ba sira nian lei, laos Indonesia nian lei.

Artigu 9
Sekarik iha desputa entre governu rua mosu husi interpretasaun ka implementasaun husi akordu ne, tuir mai so bele resolve ho hakmatek (peacefully) liu husi konsultasaun ka negosiasaun.

Artigu 9, reflekta tipiku attitude nasaun iha ambisaun makas, nebe la justu iha negosisaun, sira sempre prevene disputa iha futuru liu husi aplika seksaun ne, nebe kualker problema so bele resolve liu husi dalan hakmatek (peacefully) konsultasaun no negosiasaun, signifika sira lakohi atu lori ba Tribunal Internasional.

Artigu 10.
Akordu ne sei ratifika bazeia ba konstituisaun mak vigora iha nasaun rua, no sei aplika ba lei iha loron nebe instrumentu husi ratifikasaun ne troka ba malun.

Sai sasin ba asina, sira nebe hetan autorizasaun husi governu rua, mak sei asina akordu ne.

Kumpleta no duplika iha Jakarta iha loron sia fulan Outubro 1972 iha lian Ingles no Indonesia.

Reprezenta Governu Commonwealth Australia:
Nigel Bowen nudar ministro estranjeiru Australia nian,
Reprezenta husi Governu Republika Indonesia:
Sumantri Brodjonegoro, nudar Ministro Minerais Indonesia nian.

Konkluzaun

Essay ne hato’o tiha ona evidensia balun mak iha relasaun ho Australia nian interese iha Tasi Timor, nebe hatudu klaru sira nian interese ekonomia bot liu Indonesia. Involvementu husi eis Presidente Indonesia Soeharto no eis Primeiro Ministro Australia William McMahon klaru tebes, no ita bele hare ne liu husi fa’an akordu Plataforma-kontinente ho osan miliaun $20 ba ajudus bilaterais, mesmo que ida ne, iha mos evidensia empirical hanesan data survey seismiku prova tiha ona katak kontinente Australia mos fas parte ilha Timor, maibe sira kontinua ignora faktus hirak ne. Governu Australia sei halo buat hotu atu hodi legaliza aktividade exploitasaun ba rezerva minarai no gas; no buat ne hatudu tiha ona iha akordu Plataforma kontinente ne, nebe hahu’u husi artigu 1 to 10 so favorese deit ba Australia laos Indonesia.

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The Age., 1974. 'Australia calls for report on oil leases', The Age, 14 December 1974.
United Nations.,1975. ‘Agreement Between the Government of the Commonwealth of Australia and the Government of the Republic of Indonesia Establishing Certain Seabed Boundaries 1972’, Accessible on 3 of November 2015, Available at http://www.un.org/Depts/los/LEGISLATIONANDTREATIES/PDFFILES/TREATIES/AUS-IDN1972TA.pdf

Wynn, C, J.,1979. ‘Electromagnetic Coupling with a Collinear Array on a Two-Layer Anisotropic Earth’, Geological Survey Professional Paper, Vol 1077, Pp 121. Available at https://books.google.com.au/books?id=PbQ-AQAAIAAJ&pg=PA323&lpg=PA323&dq=who+is+R+A+Laws+and+C+Kraus&source=bl&ots=DGuvgruVj3&sig=xbkXEzM6qZphat8Eeb31-nhusOc&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CBwQ6AEwAGoVChMI5fi52bP0yAIVZh2mCh1ACQI4#v=onepage&q=who%20is%20R%20A%20Laws%20and%20C%20Kraus&f=false

Ytreland, G., 2005. ‘Petroleum Potential and commercial advantages’, Oil and Gas Energy Directorate. Power Point presentation on 16 November 2005.

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What is the interest behind the Indonesia-Australia Seabed Boundary? A critical review of the Continental Shelf Agreement of 1972

11/10/2015

6 Comments

What is the interest behind the Indonesia-Australia Seabed Boundary?
A critical review of the Continental Shelf Agreement of 1972
Author
Tomas Freitas

Introduction
As a neighbour to Australian and Indonesia, early this year Timor-Leste Prime Minister Dr. Rui Maria de Araujo with his ministers visited Indonesia, and as part of the agenda the Prime Minister had a discussion with the President of Indonesia Joko Widodo about the maritime and terrestrial boundary with Indonesia (Gabinette do Primeiro Ministro, 2015).

On the other side the relationship between Dili and Canberra could be said to be a little bit rough, especially since the ASIO raid on Timor-Leste documents in Canberra, followed by the Australian Government loss in the International Court of Justice in the Hague, which was related to the espionage case. As stated by former prime minister of Timor-Leste Xanana Gusmao in Manila on 7 June 2013, Timor-Leste foreign policy has zero enemies, and in particular Australia and Indonesia currently had an excellent relationship with Timor-Leste (Government of Timor-Leste, 2013).

This essay will not challenge Timor-Leste foreign policy strategy or diplomatic relationships, however it will critically review the continental shelf agreement of 1972, and will look at the interest between former Indonesian President Soeharto and former Prime Minister of Australia William McMahon back in the 1970’s. This empirical study will also will provide some technical evidence of geological data which proves where the continental shelf of the island of Timor belongs.

History
First for some facts behind the continental shelf agreement between Australia and Indonesia which was signed in 9 October 1972 (United Nations, 1975). According to one of the Australian Senators Ian Sinclair, in 1956 Portugal claimed Timor-Sea sovereignty based on the median-line principle (Sinclair, 1977), however Australia refused to recognise this and reclaimed sovereignty with the Continental Shelf platform (King, 2002). The pressure continued on by the Australian government in 1971, when the Portuguese still refused the seabed boundary as a border between two countries (House of Representatives Hansard, 1973). On the other hand, from November 1970 up until April 1971, the Portuguese Ambassador in Canberra, Carlos Empis Wemans was seeking consultation with Canberra, specifically with Deputy Secretary Owen Harry, however it did not happen because Canberra preferred to negotiate with Jakarta in favour of the seabed boundary (La Haye, 1991). The reason why Portugal was seeking a meeting with the Australian Department of External Affairs was because the Boletim Oficial de Timor of 24 October 1970 published a document request from the Oceanic Exploration Company with the date 31 December 1968 to the Ministro do Ultramar regarding an exploration concession in the Timor Sea area, and also because the licensing covered an overlapping area which was claimed by Australia (King, 2002). The Portuguese not only provided license to the Oceanic Exploration, but they also in December 1974 provided permits to the Petrotimor Company as a group consortium together with Oceanic Exploration and Portuguese Interests (The Age, 1974), for which the licensing covered 23,192 square miles or around 60,700 square kilometres (King, 2002).

Previously, before the giant company Oceanic Exploration which was based in Colorado United States touched the Timor Sea, in 1962 some large Australian oil companies such as Australian Aquitaine Pty Ltd, Arco Australia Ltd and Esso Austra1ia Ltd, has started geophysical exploration (Laws & Kraus, 1974) and followed aeromagnetic survey in 1963 by Woodside Petroleum, Burmah Oil Company and Anglo-Dutch Shell Oil Company, and continued on with seismic study in 1964-1968 (Mollan et al, 1969). The study was conducted around the Bonaparte Basin which later on was to be called the Joint Petroleum Development Area (JPDA). In 1970 Bonaparte Gulf was revealed as potential fossil fuels region, which was estimated to contain between 500 million – 5 billion barrels of oil, and 50,000 billion cubic feet of gas (King, 2002).
In spite of potential reserves information above, on 23rd May 1973, Australian Senator Justin O’Byrne declared that;

“It can only be to our advantage to have this matter settled amicably. We have the very good fortune to possess a defined area that is potentially rich. It has been stated that this area could become the richest hydrocarbon empire in the world. It contains gas and oil in quantities that could match even the fabulous riches of the Middle East. The future of Australia, at a time when a fuel crisis is developing in the United States of America and when the traditional source of supply of hydrocarbons is the subject of very delicate arrangements, with certain traditional practices being changed and the prices being under barter, is bright. We are extremely fortunate that at this time we are emerging into an era of self-sufficiency or near self-sufficiency in the supply of hydrocarbons” (Senate Hansard, 1973:1838-1840).

After the exploration process by the Australian lead companies in 1962, they achieved a result in 1970. Strategically, Canberra was moving fast by establishing an official cooperation with Indonesia. Apparently, with or without direct support to the coup of the new regime under Commander General Soeharto in 1965 against the first President Indonesia Soekarno, the cooperation between Australia and Indonesia in 1966 was successful via the Inter-Government Group on Indonesia (IGGI) which agreed to a $20 million aid program to Indonesia for the period 1972 – 1975. The aid included a military air-strike plane, Sabre jets [$6.1m] and mapping in Indonesia [$2m] (King, 2002). On 16 October 1970 Indonesia showed their own maps which were based on the continental shelf as the median line between Australian and Timor (Robinson, 1970). In February 1972, second Indonesian President Soeharto visited Australia (King, 2002), and asked fellow Prime Minister William McMahon in that time to work hard and fast to conclude the seabed boundary or continental self agreement, which was finally achieved on 9 October 1972 (McMahon, 1972).

The continental self talks between Indonesia and Australia began in November 1969 at the Economic Commission of Asia and the Far East conference (Sorby, 1969). In 1953 Australia had well prepared to claim its continental self as their maritime boundary position (Prescott, 1972), by developing two interpretations of Article 6.1 of the 1958 Geneva Convention on the Law of the Sea, which in regard to delimitation of international boundaries states:

“Where the same continental shelf is adjacent to the territories of two or more States whose coasts are opposite each other, the boundary of the continental shelf appertaining to such States shall be determined by agreement between them. In absence of agreement, and unless another boundary line is justified by special circumstances, the boundary line is the median line, every point of which is equidistant from the nearest points of the baselines from which the breadth of the territorial sea of each state is measured” (King, 2002:2).

First Australia was concerned about drawing the line at the Arafura Sea, east of longitude 133o 14’ East. The reason for the line was because the Australian government had already provided a license for petroleum explorations, which is in between West Irian and Aru Island (King, 2002). Therefore, Australia strongly believed the permits area was lying in the continental shelf which arbitrated to both Australian and Indonesia (Prescott, 1972).

A second interpretation is that Australia believed that the Timor Trough was a ‘huge steep cleft or declivity’ as state by former minister for External Affairs William McMahon on 30 October 1970 at Parliament House; the Timor tranche is more than 550 nautical miles long or 1017.5 kilometres long with an average of 40 miles wide or 74 kilometres, and with the slopes down a depth of over 10,000 feet or over 3000 meters, and according to his source above, it is therefore what he called “unmistakably morphological”, meaning he claimed that the Timor Trough is consequently a boundary between Australia and Timor, which unravelling the continental shelf (Minister for External Affairs, 1970).

According to former Indonesian Justice Minister in 1976 and Foreign Minister in 1977, Dr. Mochtar Kusamaatmadja as stated in the academic journal Far Eastern Economic Review it “is not true that the Timor Trench constituted a natural boundary between the two shelves” (Richardson, 1979:45). As a law of the sea expert, Dr. Mochtar explained in the APPEA Journal that “The Timor Trough is a modern bathymetric trench in which water depths exceed 10,000 feet (3000m) ….The formation of the trough is probably due to isostatic adjustment following the collision in the Early Miocene of the Australian and Asian Plates in the region immediately north of the island of Timor” (Laws & Kraus, 1974:80). Dr. Mochtar also stated in the newspaper the Sydney Morning Herald on 3rd of June 1972 “If the plates collided north of Timor then the Trough/Trench was indeed merely 'an incidental depression in the sea-floor, not the definitive edge of two shelves” (Hastings, 1972). The same notions also came from Charles Hutchison, which declared that “the continental shelf unit extends from the Australia Shaul shelf, beneath the axis of the Timor Through, to reappear uplifted and folded on the island, where it is widely exposed” (Smith, 2011:51)

The images above clearly show that the Australian continental self included Sumba, Timor and Papua Islands. These images were presented by one of the advisors (Geir Ytreland) working at the Timor-Leste Ministry of Natural Resources and Energy Policy (MNREP) in the first constitutional government (2005).

Seismic Survey

The scanned image above states that the Department of Minerals and Energy Australia has conducted a seismic survey across the Timor Trough, in which they found that the Timor Island was a part of the Australian Continental Shelf; this is in contrast to what William McMahon had declared. See the following statement as declared by that document.

The statement above can be interpreted that the island of Timor was formed by a collision between Australian continents with another zone at that boundary, meaning the Indonesian continent.

The last sentence in this paragraph refers to the same sedimentary rocks in the Timor Trough as similar to clays in Bobonaro.

This paragraph states that because of gravity sliding, this has lifted the island of Timor since the Miocene time which according to the geologic time scale means the formation of the island has happened around 5 to 24 million years ago.

The above images which were published with the above documents prove that the Timor Trough did not go a further 3000 meters downward.

Before entering further discussion this paper would like to review each of the articles (as written in italic fonts) that were comprised in the continental shelf agreement between Jakarta and Canberra of 18 May 1971, which were signed by former Australian Foreign Minister Nigel Bowen and Indonesian Mining Minister Soemantri Brodjonegoro on 9 October 1972 in Jakarta.

Continental Shelf Agreement of 1972

No.14123
“Agreement Between the Government of the Commonwealth of Australia and the Government of the Republic of Indonesia Establishing Certain Seabed Boundaries in the Area of the Timor and Arafura Seas, Supplementary to the Agreement of 18 May 1971 (9 October 1972)” Authentic text: English and Indonesian. Registered by Australia on 7 August 1975 (United Nations, 1975).

The cover of the agreement clearly illustrated Australian interest by registering the agreement without Indonesia participation. This could be the reason why Dr Mochtar Kusuma Atmaja stated that “Australia had taken Indonesia to the cleaners”; see Michael Richardson (1978), Peter Hastings (1978).

The Government of the Commonwealth of Australia and the Government of the Republic of Indonesia,

“Recalling the Agreement between the two Governments, signed on the eighteenth day of May One thousand nine hundred and seventy-one, establishing seabed boundaries in the Arafura Sea and in certain areas off the coasts of the island of New Guinea (Irian),
Recalling further that in the aforesaid Agreement the two Governments left for later discussion the question of the delimitation of the respective areas of adjacent seabed in the Arafura and Timor Seas westward of Longitude 133° 23' East,
Resolving, as good neighbours and in a spirit of co-operation and friendship, to settle permanently the limits of the areas referred to in the preceding paragraph within which the respective Governments shall exercise sovereign rights with respect to the exploration of the seabed and the exploitation of its natural resources,
Have agreed as follows:” (United Nations, 1975).

The last paragraph of the preamble above reflects the hypothetical motion of the Australian side. As mentioned earlier in this essay, from 1962 to 1970 Australian oil companies had explored and identified fossil fuel resources beneath the continental shelf. The question is how could Indonesia at that time not notice that under the coordinated points A16 and A17 lay five billion barrels of oil and fifty thousand billion cubic feet of gas.

Article 1
“In the area to the south of the Tanimbar Islands, the boundary between the area of seabed that is adjacent to and appertains to the Commonwealth of Australia and the area of seabed that is adjacent to and appertains to the Republic of Indonesia shall be the straight lines shown on the Chart annexed to this Agreement commencing at the Point of Latitude 8°53' South, Longitude 133° 23' (Point A 12 specified in the Agreement between the two countries dated the eighteenth day of May One thousand nine hundred and seventy-one), thence connecting in a westerly direction the points specified hereunder in the sequence so specified:

A 13. The point of Latitude 8° 54' South, Longitude 133° 14' East
A 14. The point of Latitude 9° 25' South, Longitude 130° 10' East
A 15. The point of Latitude 9° 25' South, Longitude 128° 00' East
A 16. The point of Latitude 9° 28' South, Longitude 127° 56' East” (United Nations, 1975)

Article 2
“In the area south of Roti and Timor Islands, the boundary between the area of seabed that is adjacent to and appertains to the Commonwealth of Australia and the area of seabed that is adjacent to and appertains to the Republic of Indonesia shall be the straight lines, shown on the Chart annexed to this Agreement commencing at the point of Latitude 10°28' South, Longitude 126° 00' East (Point A 17), and thence connecting in a westerly direction the points specified hereunder in the sequence so specified:

A 18. The point of Latitude 10° 37' South, Longitude 125° 41' East
A 19. The point of Latitude 11° 01' South, Longitude 125° 19' East
A 20. The point of Latitude 11° 07' South, Longitude 124° 34' East
A 21. The point of Latitude 11° 25' South, Longitude 124° 10' East
A 22. The point of Latitude 11° 26' South, Longitude 124° 00' East
A 23. The point of Latitude 11° 28' South, Longitude 123° 40' East
A 24. The point of Latitude 11° 23' South, Longitude 123° 26' East
A 25. The point of Latitude 11° 35' South, Longitude 123° 14' East” (United Nations, 1975).

Article 3
“The lines between Points A 15 and A 16 and between Points A 17 and A 18 referred to in Article 1 and Article 2 respectively, indicate the direction of those portions of the boundary. In the event of any further delimitation agreement or agreements being concluded between governments exercising sovereign rights with respect to the exploration of the seabed and the exploitation of its natural resources in the area of the Timor Sea, the Government of the Commonwealth of Australia and the Government of the Republic of Indonesia shall consult each other with a view to agreeing on such adjustment or adjustments, if any, as may be necessary in those portions of the boundary lines between Points A 15 and A 16 and between Points A 17 and A 18.” (United Nations, 1975).

If we compare and analyse the Article 1,2 and 3 above, it’s clear that these continental self agreements are not rational because in Article 1 and 2 it clearly states the measurement coordinate points based on the adjacent position of two countries, but in Article 3, both governments ‘shall consult each other with a view agreeing on such adjustment or adjustments’, n terms of points A15 to A16 and A17 to A18. The question is, why do they have to consult with each other? If the coordinates are based on the spirit of the continental shelf, why are Australia and Indonesia concerned about these last four coordinate points? Is it because points A16 and A17 are the key coordinate points which are in favour of some large reservoir? Let’s see where exactly points A16 and A17 lie.

Source: Woodside
The images above are for Woodside’s internal use only, however the point of A17 is laid exactly near Laminaria, Corallina, and Buffalo fields. If the line just stopped at A18, this could mean that most of the fields lie inside the Joint Petroleum Development Area (JPDA).

Source for the images above is Greater Sunrise International Unitisation Agreement.

The above images show exactly where the coordinate points A15 and A16 are. According to the Seabed Boundary Agreement on the last page of the document, coordinate points A15 and A16 are divided between Sunrise and Troubadour fields, with 20.1% belonging to the JPDA and 79.9% belonging to Australia. The question is would Indonesia have agreed knowing that coordinate points A15 and A16 are lying on a gigantic gas field?

Article 4
“The Government of the Commonwealth of Australia and the Government of the Republic of Indonesia mutually acknowledge the sovereign rights of the respective Governments in and over the seabed areas within the limits established by this Agreement and that they will cease to claim or to exercise sovereign rights with respect to the exploration of the seabed and the exploitation of its natural resources beyond the boundaries so established.” (United Nations, 1975).

Article 5
“For the purpose of this Agreement, "seabed" includes the subsoil thereof, except where the context otherwise requires.”(United Nations, 1975).

Article 6
“1.The co-ordinates of the points specified in Articles 1 and 2 of this Agreement are geographical co-ordinates, and the actual location of these points and of the lines joining them shall be determined by a method to be agreed upon by the competent authorities of the two Governments.

2. For the purpose of paragraph 1 of this Article, the competent authorities in relation to the Commonwealth of Australia shall be the Director of National Mapping and any person acting with his authority, and in relation to the Republic of Indonesia shall be the Chief of the Co-ordinating Body for National Survey and Mapping (Ketua Badan Koordinasi Survey Dan Pemetaan Nasional) and any person acting with his authority.” (United Nations, 1975).

Article 4 states that with respect to the exploration of the seabed and the exploitation of its natural resources, “beyond the boundaries” is agreed to. How could Indonesia agree to let Australia explore and exploit beyond the boundaries? The emphasis is on Article 5 which re-declares that the seabed includes the subsoil, and that it will be an exemption which means that there is no requirement of disagreement on exploration and exploitation under the seabed. In Article 6, it clearly shows that the Australian regulatory body did not consult the Indonesian Badan Koordinasi Survei dan Pemetaan Nasional; it would be strange if Indonesia had noticed but still signed the agreement.

Article 7
“If any single accumulation of liquid hydrocarbons or natural gas, or if any other mineral deposit beneath the seabed, extends across any of the lines that are specified or described in Articles 1 and 2 of this Agreement, and the part of such accumulation or deposit that is situated on one side of the line is recoverable in fluid form wholly or in part from the other side of the line, the two Governments will seek to reach agreement on the manner in which the accumulation or deposit shall be most effectively exploited and on the equitable sharing of the benefits arising from such exploitation.” (United Nations, 1975).

Article 7 shows the ambition of the Australian government for seeking oil and gas deposits even though the reservoir extended beyond the coordinate points.

Article 8
“1. Where the Government of the Commonwealth of Australia has granted an exploration permit for petroleum or a production licence for petroleum under the Petroleum (Submerged Lands) Acts of the Commonwealth of Australia over a part of the seabed over which that Government ceases to exercise sovereign rights by virtue of this Agreement, and that permit or licence is in force immediately prior to the entry into force of this Agreement, the Government of Indonesia or its authorised agent shall, upon application by the registered holder of the permit or licence, or where there is more than one registered holder, by the registered holders acting jointly, be willing to offer and to negotiate a production sharing contract under Indonesian law to explore for and to produce oil and natural gas in respect of the same part of the seabed on terms that are not less favourable than those provided under Indonesian law in existing production sharing contracts in other parts of the seabed under Indonesian jurisdiction.

2. An application for negotiation in accordance with paragraph 1 of this Article must be made by the registered holder or holders within nine months after the entry into force of this Agreement. If no application is made within this period, or if an offer made in accordance with paragraph 1 of this Article is, after negotiation, not accepted by the permittee or licensee, the Government of the Republic of Indonesia shall have no further obligation to the registered holder or holders of a permit or licence to which paragraph 1 of this Article applies.

3. For the purpose of this Article, "registered holder" means a company that was a registered holder of an exploration permit for petroleum or a production licence for petroleum, as the case may be, under the Petroleum (Submerged Lands) Acts of the Commonwealth of Australia immediately prior to the entry into force of this Agreement.” (United Nations, 1975).

Article 8 shows the Australian determination for releasing licensing to oil companies, and urges the Australian Act of (Submerged Lands) to rule this future industry. By finding no evidence over Indonesian involvement in release licensing around the Timor Sea area, it is proved that this Seabed Boundary agreement only provided one sided benefits to the Australian government.
Point number 2 clearly states that the Australian government frightened Indonesia by giving a nine month period to process the application of the registered holders. Why would this rule only apply to Indonesia; if this agreement is based on a relationship of mutual respect, it should be written for both, not just Indonesia.
At point number 3, tendentiously Australia refers to their laws not Indonesia.

Article 9
“Any dispute between the two Governments arising out of the interpretation or implementation of thisAgreement shall be settled peacefully by consultation or negotiation.” (United Nations, 1975).

Article 10
“This Agreement is subject to ratification in accordance with the constitutional requirements of each
country, and shall enter into force on the day on which the Instruments of Ratification are exchanged.I

N WITNESS WHEREOF the undersigned, being duly authorized by their respective Governments, have signed this Agreement.

DONE in duplicate at Jakarta this ninth day of October 1972 in the English and Indonesian languages.” (United Nations 1975).

Article 9 reflects a typical attitude of any country that has been ambitious or not fair in negotiations or agreements, that they always prevent future disputes by applying this section, in which any type of settlement has to be achieved “peacefully by consultation or negotiation”, meaning not to be taken to the International Court of Justice.

Conclusion
This essay has provided some evidence related to the history of Australian Interest in the Timor-Sea, which clearly shows economic interest over Indonesia. The involvement of former Indonesia President Soeharto and former Australian Prime Minister William McMahon are very obvious, which we can see through trading over the continental shelf agreement with the twenty million Australian dollar aid program. Even though the empirical evidence such as seismic data survey has proven that the island of Timor is part of the same continental shelf with Australia, still they ignored the facts. The Australian government will do everything to legalise the action of exploiting natural resources; we can see as a good example the continental self agreement, which from Articles 1 to 10 is in favour of Australia and not Indonesia.

References

Australian Parliament House., 1999. ‘CHAPTER 7 AUSTRALIA’S POLICY: LATE 1975–99’, Available at http://www.aph.gov.au/~/media/wopapub/senate/committee/fadt_ctte/completed_inquiries/1999_02/east_timor/report/c07_pdf.ashx

Cook, C., 1981. ‘Filling the Gap - Delimiting the Australia-Indonesia Maritime Boundary’, Australian Year Book of International Law, Available at http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/AUYrBkIntLaw/1983/4.pdf

Cour Internationale de Justice., 1992. ‘Portugal C Australie’, Vol 1. Available at http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/84/6838.pdf

Forbes,L, V.,2010. ‘The Hate/Love Triangle in The Timor Sea: Australia, Indonesia and East Timor-Part One’, Strategy Analysis Paper. Available at http://www.futuredirections.org.au/files/1273648322-FDI%20Strategic%20Analysis%20Paper%20-%2012%20May%202010%20(Part%20One).pdf

Garnett, P, A, R., 1975. ‘SEISMIC REFLECTION PROFILES ACROSS THE TIMOR TROUGH’, Bureau of Minerals, Resources, Geology and Geophysics, Department of Minerals and Energy. Available at http://www.ga.gov.au/corporate_data/13272/Rec1975_032.pdf

Government of Timor-Leste., 2015, ‘Prime Minister and Delegation return from successful Official Visit to Indonesia’, accessible 30 of August 2015, available at http://timor-leste.gov.tl/?p=13158&lang=en

Government of Timor-Leste., 2013, ‘Peace and Reconciliation- The Timorese Experiences’, Accessible 7 of June 2013, available at http://timor-leste.gov.tl/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Peace-and-Reconciliation-UP-College-of-Law.pdf

Hastings, P., 1978. 'Re-arranging The Sea Bed A Task For Diplomacy', Sydney Morning Herald, 22 December.

House of Representative Hansard., 1970. ‘Continental Self of Australia: Ministerial Statement’, Page 3107-3109 Accessible 4 November 2015. Available at http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/hansard80/hansardr80/1970-10-30/toc_pdf/19701030_reps_27_hor70.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf#search=%221970s%201970%22

House of Representatives Hansard.,1972. ‘Australia – Indonesia: Seabed Boundaries, (Question No 6214). 26 October, Pp 3380-3381; Accessible 4 November 2015, available at
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House of Representatives Hansard., 1973. 2 May 1973, Pp.1586 Available at http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/hansard80/hansardr80/1973-05-02/toc_pdf/19730502_reps_28_hor83.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf#search=%221970s%201973%2005%22

House of Representatives Hansard.,1977. Vol.105, 2 June 1977, Pp.2589 available at http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/hansard80/hansardr80/1977-06-02/toc_pdf/19770602_reps_30_hor105.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf#search=%221970s%201977%2006%22

Jonesl, J, P., & Nicoll, S,R., 1985. ‘Late Triassic conodonts from Sahul Shoals No.1, Ashmore Block, north western Australia’, Journal of Australian Geology and Geophysics, Vol 9, Pp 361-364. Available at http://www.ga.gov.au/corporate_data/81199/Jou1984_v9_n4_p361.pdf

King, J, R., 2002. ‘The Timor Gap 1972 – 2002’, The Free Library. Available at: http://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+Timor+Gap,+Wonosobo+and+the+fate+of+Portuguese+Timor.-a087146249

Laws, R., and Kraus, C., 1974. 'The Regional Geology of the Bonaparte Gulf-Timor Sea Area', APEA Journal, 1974, 14 (1) Pp.77-84.

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Munton, J, A.,2006. ‘A Study of The Offshore Petroleum Negotiations Between Australia, The U.N. and East Timor: A Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctoral of Philosophy of The Australian National University.

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Richardson, M., 1978.'Boundary threat to seabed leases', The Sydney Morning Herald, 21 December

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Robinson, P., 1970. ‘Aust’s “expanding rim” offshore minerals doctrine in question’, Australian Financial Review, 16 October 1970.

Senate Hansard House of Representative.,1973. ’Australian Senator Justin O’Byrne has declared that potential hydrocarbon in the Timor Sea’. Accessible on 28 of October 2015 at http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/genpdf/hansard80/hansards80/1973-05-23/0000/hansard_frag.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf

Smith, J, M., 2011. ‘Australian Claims to The Timor Sea’s Petroleum Resources: Clever, Cunning, or Criminal?, Monash University Law Review, Vol 37, No 3. Pp 42-72. Available at
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/MonashULawRw/2011/28.pdf

Sorby, R., 1969. 'Indo-Aust. Talks on who owns Off-shore Oil', The Australian Financial Review, 4 of November.

The Age., 1974. 'Australia calls for report on oil leases', The Age, 14 December 1974.
The Parliament Of The Commonwealth Of Australia., 1997. ‘Australia-Indonesia Maritime Delimitation Treaty: 12th Report’ November 1997.

United Nations.,1975. ‘Agreement Between the Government of the Commonwealth of Australia and the Government of the Republic of Indonesia Establishing Certain Seabed Boundaries 1972’, Accessible on 3 of November 2015, Available at http://www.un.org/Depts/los/LEGISLATIONANDTREATIES/PDFFILES/TREATIES/AUS-IDN1972TA.pdf

Willheim, E.,1989. ‘ Australia-Indonesia Sea-Bed Boundary Negotiation: Proposals for a Joint Development Zone in the “Timor Gap”’, Natural Resources Journal, Vol 29, Pp 821-842. Available at http://lawschool.unm.edu/nrj/volumes/29/3/09_willheim_austrailia.pdf

Wynn, C, J.,1979. ‘Electromagnetic Coupling with a Collinear Array on a Two-Layer Anisotropic Earth’, Geological Survey Professional Paper, Vol 1077, Pp 121. Available at https://books.google.com.au/books?id=PbQ-AQAAIAAJ&pg=PA323&lpg=PA323&dq=who+is+R+A+Laws+and+C+Kraus&source=bl&ots=DGuvgruVj3&sig=xbkXEzM6qZphat8Eeb31-nhusOc&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CBwQ6AEwAGoVChMI5fi52bP0yAIVZh2mCh1ACQI4#v=onepage&q=who%20is%20R%20A%20Laws%20and%20C%20Kraus&f=false

Ytreland, G., 2005. ‘Petroleum Potential and commercial advantages’, Oil and Gas Energy Directorate. Power Point presentation on 16 November 2005.

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A Critical Review of World Development Report: “Understanding the Links between Development and Climate Change”

8/23/2015

1 Comment

A Critical Review of World Development Report:

“Understanding the Links between Development and Climate Change”

Author: Tomas Freitas

Introduction

According to the World Development Report 2010, climate change has affected economic growth both in developed and developing countries. Developing economies will be more affected however because of their exposure to climate shocks and low adaptive capacity, therefore urgent action is needed in order to mitigate the global warming (World Bank, 2010).

The report describes many facts of the implications of climate change including lower rainfall which affects agriculture production, reduced water on glacier plateaus, temperature rises which also cause an increase in malaria and dengue, and an unprecedented number of hurricanes and floods, all of which affect the financing of disaster prevention. The report also discusses the types of mitigation policies that could reduce global warming, such as green taxes, hydro power projects, and biofuels. Analysis of the report demonstrates that the policy recommendations for climate change mitigation have been designed to suit the neoliberal concept of free market orientation.

This essay will critically evaluate the report from a political economy perspective, while also analysing the content and recommendations as provided by the report. Some of the issues that will be referred to in the report include purchasing power parity of affluent and not so affluent societies; the power of large companies and institutions; women’s participation in innovation; food security; the potential for hydropower projects and debt and structural adjustment policies; expansion of non-subsistence food production crops such as sugarcane; and the introduction of green taxes.

Apart from the facts outlined above, the report also provides data relating to individual contributions to green gas houses emissions based on high, medium and low income counties, as shown in Figure 1.1 in the Report. Moreover, high income countries such as Australia, Canada and the United States are in the top three greenhouse gas emitting states. Looking at the contribution of emissions by high income in comparison to medium and low income countries, the discrepancy is very obvious, because the high income countries have more capacity in terms of their purchasing power parity compared to the others. This means that as a consumer with a high income, it will have more options to choose products according to its interest. In this situation it is possible to apply the neoclassical theory of ‘consumer rationality’, which is ‘utility maximisation’, meaning that with the knowledge and preferences about the products, the consumer spend their disposal income to their satisfaction (Stilwell, 2002).

The table below which describes the percentages of the four main gas emissions into atmosphere, based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report 2007.

Table 1. Sources: IPCC Report (2007) and Earth Reform (2012)

If we have a look the table above, it is very clear that high income countries have contributed the most gas emissions into the ozone, especially the contribution of fluorinated gasses. This is very typical of affluent society consumption, which adopts utility maximisation of consumer rationality theory. This data has been calculated taking into account the pre-industrial era, around 250 years ago (IPCC, 2007).

The data in the table clearly shows that the contribution of burning fossil fuels is very high; however the World Development Report 2010 did not refer to any international corporate or giant oil companies, who are the main actors for extracting fossil fuels. According to one professor of geology James Lawrence Powel, the first organisation that denies global warming is the Global Climate Coalition which is founded by Exxon Mobile, Chevron, Shell, Texaco, American Petroleum Institute, Chrysler, Ford, General Motors, Amoco, American Forest and Paper Association and U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The coalition has campaigned strongly against the Kyoto Protocol (Powel, 2011, Chapter 9). The question is why does the report not mention those giant corporate companies?

As described in Box 1.1, the report specifically highlights women’s participation in all productive sectors, for example women’s participation in natural disaster management in La Masica- Honduras, women’s participation and innovation in water resources management in Zammour- Tunisia, and that women’s participation enhances food security and forest protection in Central America countries (World Bank, 2010).

This paper does not intend to underestimate the capacity of women in natural disaster management; rather, the intention is to analyse the sources of evidence which have been brought by the World Bank, which typically reflects an epistemology or anti foundationalist position, which means that their interpretation is based on another observation, what David Marsh and Paul Furlong (2002) called ‘double hermeneutics’ or indirect observation.

Information regarding women’s participation in the early warning system of disaster management in La Masica Honduras after Hurricane Mitch in 1998 was not clear. Actually, the information has been cited from one report to other reports with the result that the content of the information has been modified slightly to feed the interest of readers. The report has been cited by the World Bank from the World Health Organisation, which WHO also has quoted from the Inter-American Development Bank, (WHO, 2005), and the IADB also has cited the information from another consultant, (Buvinic, 1999). However, the information did not appear in local community reports (Alonzo, 2000). Moreover, the training project for an early warning system was funded by the German government through the German Technical Cooperation (GTZ), and the report published by GTZ does not specifically refer to women’s participation but rather remains very general, referring to strong participation from local NGOs, local leaders and community (GTZ, 2005).

Women participation in water resources management in Zammour, Tunisia is an example of innovation from seventy-year old women who invented a system for watering water melon plants using plastic bottle for collecting raining water. This kind of innovation is supported by local indigenous organisations (UNESCO, 2003). So where is the support from climate change finance?

Women in Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Peru and Haiti plant and collect Maya nuts as a staple food. The original story came from the Maya Nut Institution (2012), an organisation that has trained more than 17,000 thousand women from 1200 communities. The Maya Nut institution was founded by agriculturist and florist activist Erika Vohman. The organisation has received several awards and funding from donors including from the World Bank (Buffle & Vohman, 2011). According to the financial information, the total budget for 2008 was $226,974, in 2009 it was $136,106, 2010 it was $96,694, and in 2011 $128,991 (Maya Nut Institute, 2012). The financial allocation does not seem much, but the organisation performed well in managing programs and activities in several countries. The organisation has proved that big funding is not the answer for everything; however, at the same time it also confronted issues in regards to trading of their products. The Maya Nut Institution website, declares that the organisation will form an alternative trade organisation, to protect the rights of Maya Nut producers (Maya Nut Institution 2012). The problem of trading has always been an obstacle for farmers in developing countries, because developed countries always protect their own agriculture by subsidising their farmers and applying high tariffs for import grains from developing counties (Khor, 2005).

If we analyse the participation of women in Maya Nut productivities above, we might wonder why the World Bank also funds these kinds of activities, even though the contribution from the World Bank is unclear. It is possible that the World Bank might think not to provide big funding, because the market for Maya Nut may not be large enough, and the production may not yet be ready for global export orientation, meaning that it is not like coffee beans or tea leafs that can be exported to European and Western countries. For example in the film “The End of Poverty? Think Again”, the Kenyan Agriculture Minister, Kipruto Arap Kirwa, talks about how Sudanese tea farmers export tea leaves to Europe, which are bought by Lipton and then processed and marketed to the world as final products ready for consumption (Diaz, 2008).

Maya Nut also has a positive impact on food security, as the food product can be consumed as a daily meal as well as in the school feeding program. So far this kind of root crops can only be found in Central America and Caribbean countries throughout the bushland, where the crop grows together with other different types of trees. Historically, roots crops are the subsistence food of indigenous Mayan society, preceding corn cultivation during the Mesoamerican period (Bronson, 1966). A testimony from a female farmer declares that the Mayan Nut has saved their lives during the war in El Salvador (Maya Nut institution, 2012).

“During the war my father could not plant the corn or anything. He could not even go outside, none of us could; it was too dangerous. My grandmother went out at night and collected Maya Nut seed from beneath the big trees by the river. We had to eat them raw because a fire was not possible. We survived almost a month on the Maya Nut and other things my grandmother scavenged at night. She saved our lives, Maya Nut saved our lives. Elvia Sanchez, Morazan, El Salvador”. (Source: Maya Nut Institute, 2012, Available at http://mayanutinstitute.org/)

This testimony reminds us of the history of colonialism as seen in the film “The End of Poverty? Think Again”, where the colonial power took productive land and used it for planting commodities such as sugar, cocoa, coffee, copra and other cash crops. When it came time to harvest, this merchandise was exported back to the county of the colonisers (Diaz, 2008). Productive land is normally flat or containing volcanic soils, which is perfect for growing export crops (Rosset, 2005). If we compare the above testimony about the location of the Maya Nut tree near the river, it does make sense that this kind of staple food was not an export commodity during colonial times, because normally this kind of tree is found in the bushland, rainforest, and riverside (Maya Nut Institution, 2012b).

The testimony also clearly indicates that this Maya Nut is an original food, which could possibly become an alternative food for rural communities in Central American and Caribbean countries, which could become a vanguard against famine. If this ancient food was successfully introduced to the entire region of Latin American countries as a daily meal, it would become an obstacle for giant companies such as Monsanto to introduce their genetically modified seeds, and will become a barrier for food companies in the United States, Canada and Europe to export their food products to Latin America. This movement could become a form of resistance to monopolisation of the food market by the north in the entire region. This is why the World Bank does not want to fully support the program of the Maya Nut institution; because it could become food security against transgenic crops from big companies.

Despite unclear support from the World Bank toward this movement, on the other hand the Bank wants to show to the public that it supports the actions of women in mitigating climate change.

According to the report, mitigation policies have also been discussed around the potential of hydropower projects in Sub-Saharan Africa, as presented on Map 1.5. This policy is a typical Keynesian idea of spending on infrastructure (Stilwell, 2002). Yes, hydropower is a kind of alternative energy but to build the infrastructure is not cheap. There are questions around who will finance the project? And where will the Sub-Saharan government get the money from? To build a mini-hydropower with total capacity production of energy of 30 megawatts, from the experience of Timor-Leste and the case study of the Ira Lalaro Hydropower, it will cost at least US $64 million up to US $112 million. This can be seen in Table 2 below.

Table 2. Sources: Asian Development Bank (2004,pp 73,75,80 & 81) and Ministry of Transport, Communication & Public Works 92005,pp33)

If we compare the total estimated costs of 2004 and 2005, the cost has increased by 100%. The above costs were estimated eight or nine years ago; however, the project has been cancelled because of the uncertainty of the cost of development of the project, as well as because the new government has been warned by local civil society about the negative impact on the environmental that could be caused by the project, (Haburas Foundation, 2006) and (Lao Hamutuk, 2004:17).

According to Map 1.5 in the Report, Tanzania is one of the economically feasible countries for hydropower projects. Since 1964 the country has built a few hydropower plants, in particular the Kidatu hydropower funded with World Bank loans of US $30 million, for generation of 50 megawatts of energy electricity (World Bank, 2012a). This can be seen in Table 3 below.

Table 3. Sources: Tanesco "The Power Sector in Tanzania", ESI Africa2 (2006): 16, cited in Hoag & Ohman (2008:642)

If the World Bank has provided $30 million in loans for the Kidatu Hydropower Project, how much would it cost for all of the projects in the above table? Will climate change finance provide grants to build new hydropower projects? Or will the Tanzanian government need to ask for more loans. See Table 4 below:

Table 4. Source: The World Bank (2012b)

This table shows that it is impossible for the Tanzanian government to build more hydropower plants. Where they will get the money from? They still have to pay back the existing loans; how will it be possible to get other loans. The World Development Report 2010 does not make sense in recommending mitigation policies in tackling global warming with feasibility hydropower projects for sub-Saharan African countries such as Tanzania.

The Tanzanian case is actually not about where the Tanzanian government will get the money from; but rather, when a country engages with loans they are usually never able to pay back the loan, and there are conditions and structural adjustment imposed on the loan (Bracking, 1999). The Tanzanian government is already engaged with structural adjustment programs as conditionality for existing loans. This essay will not explore further SAP implementation in Tanzania; but will make the point that the intention of mitigating climate change from institutions such as the World Bank includes strategies to force poor countries to adopt and implement SAP policies.

The utilisation of corn-based ethanol has been condemned by many people especially by activists fighting against hunger, including Fidel Castro (former Cuban President). Fidel Castro (2007) has criticised his counterpart Lula Da Silva, President of Brazil, because Lula has exported 27,300,000 of high protein soy beans to the United States, which Castro believes will use for biofuels. According to Castro, ninety percent of eight states in Brazil including Paraná, Minas Gerais, Sao Paulo, Goiás, Mato Grosso, Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina and Mato Grosso do Sul are producing corn, and only four states, that is sixty percent are producing sugar cane including Sao Paulo, Paraná, Pernambuco and Alagoas. However, according to the Sugar Cane Industry Association (UNICA) (2012), in the last three decades sugar cane plantations and production has expanded enormously. The graphic below shows that except for two states, sugar cane production has increased rapidly, particularly since 2005.

Table 5. Source: Sugar Cane Industry Association (2012)

An analysis of the graphic in Table 5 indicates that the expansion of sugar cane plantations has indirectly affected 90% of corn production, as referred to by Fidel Castro. Further, corn production will continue to remain under stress, because early in 2012, the U.S. Congress has moved to deregulate tariff imports against ethanol-54 cents-per-gallon, which will encourage more productivity in sugar cane plantation as opposed to corn plantations (Mathews, 2012).

As mentioned in the World Development Report 2010, Brazil could become the “next big energy supplier of ethanol”; it is quite possible that this will happen because as can be seen in the graphic in Table 6 below, sugar cane plantations are expanding to almost reach ten million hectares in 2010, and according to the new bill of land permission, 64 million hectares of national land will be secured for sugarcane farming (Secretariat for Social Communication, 2012).

Table 6. Source: Sugar Cane Industry Association (2012)

The World Development Report (2010) also refers to a green tax as one of the mitigation policies for climate change. The World Bank’s commentaries on this policy are very general, and it does not particularly favour this policy, because the World Bank believes carbon tax should affect direct and indirectly household economies. In the explanation, it is stated that green tax will contribute directly to rising energy prices like electricity bills and fuel for transportation and will indirectly affects household expenditure because the price of goods will increase (World Bank, 2010, Ch1).

Some countries have applied green tax as part of mitigation policies, such as Australia’s carbon tax, which has been introduced as part of the package of the Energy Trading Scheme (ETS), which collects AU $23 per ton of gas emissions, and handles over five billion dollars as a carbon price mechanism to help companies reduce their gas emissions (Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, 2012). According to an environmental organisation, Friends of the Earth Australia, the scheme will provide benefits to the polluters (mining and oil companies) and keep polluting the atmosphere. The Gillard government has provided five billion dollars every year for polluters, which includes 1.5 billion for emission reductions in power stations, 1 billion for energy renewables and 2.5 billion for compensation of loss in competitiveness (Goodman, 2011). Ideally, if the government is serious in tackling global warming, it should increase the rate of the carbon tax, and provide 100% investment in energy renewables.

However, mitigation policies are not only the responsibility of government, but should also involve giant corporate business, which are purely profit orientated. This is why to convince the mining and oil companies to reduce their emissions, the government has to provide incentives otherwise the carbon tax will be passed on to household economies as explained in the Report. The carbon price is an incentive; according to the business sector, it is considered to be a deposit to guarantee the deal. According to Anderson (2011), the energy trading scheme is based on the spirit of market transaction or “market mechanism”, a neoliberal concept, which is why the carbon price can be considered as a “deal” to avoid conflict of interest between mining companies and government.

Conclusion

This paper has considered a number of issues in relation to the World Development Report “Understanding the Links between Development and Climate Change”. The paper began with the viewpoint that developing economies will be more affected by climate change however because of their low adaptive capacity to be able to make the changes needed to mitigate climate change.

The analysis has included review of the expenditure of disposal income, showing us that purchasing power parity is still dominated by an affluent society which has become the major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. It has also referred to the ignorance of the global climate coalition to the Kyoto Protocol, showing that giant corporate companies remain powerful. Further on, the paper has looked at the participation of women and the evidence that local indigenous organisations are more proactive in support innovations in rural areas compared to external organisations and funding.

The paper has also discussed at some length the re-forestation of the ancient Maya Nut trees in Central American and Caribbean countries, which has become an opponent to transgenic imports of food. Further, the potential to build new hydropower projects is a strategy to force poor countries into debt and then to adopt SAP policies. The interpretation of these observations becomes typical knowledge of the mainstream scholar. In addition, the expansion of sugar cane plantation will become dangerous to food production.

Finally, this paper has considered some of the issues around green tax, using Australia’s mining tax as an example. The paper has concluded that mining companies will come on board with green tax initiatives as long as the transactions include a carbon price as part of the deal.

The focus of the paper has been on the intentions and actions of large institutions and the corporate sector, in the context of the neoliberal global economy. The analysis has shown, through a number of examples as outlined above, that the policy recommendations for climate change mitigation have been designed to suit the neoliberal concept of free market orientation.

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Can Marxism explain economic crises? Comparison Asian and Sub-prime mortgage crises

3/30/2015

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Can Marxism explain economic crises?

Comparison Asian and Sub-prime mortgage crises

Author: Tomas Freitas

Introduction

The first economic crisis broke out in the year 1815, followed by 1825, 1836, 1847, 1857, 1866, 1873, 1882, and 1891 and again in 1895. The alternation between prosperity and crisis had become a regular occurrence between 1873 and 1895. Another crisis occurred again in 1907 (Kautsky, 1911, 12). However, why were those crises so very extensive affecting the whole of society at regular periods? This short essay will not discuss the historical background of these various crises as has been discussed by Kautsky, but will examine two recent crises which occurred in East Asia in 1997 and in the United States just recently in 2008. This short essay will attempt to link the Sub-prime mortgage crises and Marx theories of economic crises.

After the Asian monetary crisis of the mid-1990s, the economic crisis has returned and is affecting the global economy, global financial markets, companies, banks, and jobs. Global stock markets have declined, big financial institutions have shrunk or been bought out, millions of workers have lost their jobs and governments in even the wealthiest countries have had to respond with economic stimulus packages. However, what are the causes of this crisis? And why the Marxist tendency questions the crises rather than the recovery? These questions challenge the main hypotheses of Marx economic theory in explaining economic crises. This essay will present a number of contradictory arguments around the proposition that Marxism can explain economic crises.

Do these phenomena correspond to Marxist theory of the failure of capitalism? How do these crises correlate with Marx’ criticism of capitalism? Can Marx prove his theories of economic crises? This essay will explore the relevance of these notions to reality in the 21st century.

Marx Theories of Economic Crises

There are three distinct theories of crises that Marx strongly believes in which are discussed in detail in Capital II and III. Those theories are the theory of ‘disproportionalities’, the theory of, ‘the tendency of the rate of profit to fall (TRPF)’ and the theory of ‘underconsumption’. To understand how those theories work, Marx has illustrated three components to analyse total value of goods and services produced in each industry in a capitalist economy. These components include ‘Constant capital (c)’ the value of all means of production in other words is as an instrument of labour such as capital goods, like buildings, machinery and labouring animals etc., and circulating constant capital, such as raw and auxiliary materials, semi-finished products, etc. ‘Variable capital (v), so far as its value is concerned, is equal to the value of the social labour-power employed; in other words, it consists of the labour-power in action, is the direct contribution of the workforce. The third item, ‘Surplus value(s) ’, is that part of the total value created that is used by the employer (Marx, 1885).

Frank Stilwell in his book Political Economy: The Contest of Economic Ideas (2002), has simplified some of Marx’ terminologies such as ‘disproportionalities’. This terminology officially refers to inequalities among the two sectors. It is the Marxist economic model to scrutinize the crucial circumstances for reproduction and growth of the economy, for instance dividing into two groups according to whether they produce capital goods (Department 1) or consumer goods (Department 2): Department 1: total value = c1 + v1 + s1 and Department 2: total value = c2 + v2 + s2 . Marx argued that the economy can reproduce itself if the two conditions met each other. The first condition is that the value of capital goods which has been used in the production process during any time period (c1 + c2) must be matched by new disbursements on capital goods (c1 + v1 + s1): (c1 + c2) = (c1 + v1 + s1). If this condition is met, the ability production of industry is sustained. The second condition is that total non-refundable incomes of the workers (v1 + v2) and the capitalists (s1 + s2) should be equal to the value of the output of consumer goods (c1 + v1 + s1): v1 + v2 + s1 + s2 = c2 + v2 + s2. If this condition is met, all the commodities made will be sold (Marx cited in Stilwell, 2002, 122).

To illustrate the second theory of TRPF, Marx has used three important ratios defined as follows: s/v is the rate of surplus value (sometimes called rate of exploitation), c/v is the organic composition of capital: s / (c + v) is the rate of profit. This rate of profit can be expressed in terms of the rate of surplus value and the organic composition of capital by dividing each term in the numerator and denominator by v, that is: s / v divide into c / v + 1 But why does this rate of profit tend to fall as capital accumulation takes place? Consider the effect of a rise in c / v, caused by businesses installing more plants and machinery in their production processes (Marx cited in Stilwell, 2002, 139).

Marx’ third theory of crises is ‘underconsumptionist’ or ‘Overproduction’; this theory is not entirely Marx, but in different categories of analysis development, John Maynard Keynes and Kalecki (1971) also explain the problem of inadequacies in effective demand. This theory explains that the periods in which capitalist production applies all its forces are always phases of overproduction, because the forces of production can never be utilised beyond the point at which surplus value can be not only produced but also realised.

Correlation between theories and evidence

Asian Crises

As mentioned in the introduction, this essay will only examine two current crises, namely the East Asian crisis of 1997 and 2008 crisis in the United States caused by the collapse of sub-prime mortgages.

First, the Asian economic crisis, and some preliminary methodological remarks on what it means to “cause” a crisis. How did the East Asian miracle unravel into a deep crisis? Some arguments state that an important change was the detection of swift financial liberalisation and capital accounts opening without the development of strength supervision and regulation. There were difficulties faced by East Asian policymakers in coping with the in-flows of capital that resulted from rapid capital market liberalisation. And the ability to undertake preventative macroeconomic policy was not present (Berg, 1999).

An IMF working paper states:

The crises had their origins in fundamental deficiencies in the affected countries. In Thailand, some role was played by traditional macroeconomic problems, particularly current account deficits that became unsustainably large and an exchange rate that had become overvalued. Generally, though, the weaknesses in the crisis countries derived from the interaction of weak domestic financial institutions with large capital inflows (Berg, 1999, 3).

To simplify the IMF statement above, Bill Lucarelli has stated that the causes of the economic crises in Thailand, Indonesia, The Philippines and Korea is due to speculator attacks on their respective currencies (Lucarelli, 2008).

If we analyse the IMF statement above, it shows a mutual connection between investments in ‘large capital inflows’ and the Marxist theory of ‘TRPF’. It makes sense because those Asian countries invested enormous amount of equities in foreign financial markets with deficits in local currencies, and with a lack of supervision and regulation (traditional Macroeconomic theory), which is then easily attacked by speculators. In Thailand, the government tried to support their own national currency by selling dollars from its reserves, and buying up the local currency to sustain its value. But eventually, the government ran out of hard currency, there were no more dollars to sell, the currency plunged and the speculators were satisfied (Stiglitz, 2002). The former of the head of World Bank, Joseph Stiglitz, states that: “I believe that capital account liberalisation was the single most important factor leading to the crisis” (2002, 99). He pointed out that the capital account liberalisation represents risk without return. Stiglitz (2002) also analysed that there has been a trend in the last quarter century for investors to prefer huge outflows to inflows.

Marx theory of TRPF can be seen in relation to the Asian crisis in that bankers bought more equities in foreign currencies, while their management was still in a process of improvement. On the other hand, governments held strong their national currency, but at the same time created deficits. And ‘capital account liberalisation’ can accumulate profit, however this leads to major consequences in a downturn.

Sub-prime Mortgage Crisis

So what are the causes of this 2008 crisis? One common approach has been to lay the blame on the collapse of sub-prime mortgage markets in the United States, which is a credit crisis in US mortgages investment. This has happened because faced with a loss of equity capital, banks are unwilling to make ordinary business loans. Without credit, many businesses are facing bankruptcy and liquidation. This means a rising rate of joblessness, reduced individual expenses rating, and declining industry revenues (Cobb, 2009).

Bill Lucarelli has described the sub-prime mortgage crisis as simple to follow. The commercial banks failed in properly monitoring the risk and value of the credit borrowers, which were sold to the secondary market in the form of collateralised debt obligation (CDO) assets. This meant that the conventional function of banks in examining risk was handed over to the prevailing credit agencies. The main reason for the banks doing this was to sell CDOs in order to accumulate a payment or a commission. In other words, financial deregulation permitted banks to issue credits and sell these assets into the second level of the markets, which were then renewed and mixed into other classes of financial assets (Lucarelli, 2008).

A similar perspective has been visualised by Jonathan Jarvis (2009) about the sub-prime mortgage credit crisis, starting with diversification of the CDOs into three different rates of categories: AAA for safe investments where interest rates are lower; category BBB called good investments; and category CCC, high risk investment that comes with high interest rates. The banks created category CCC because they had run out of the mortgage market for safe investment. However, category CCC was the one used to sell to lower-income families in the United States. This lower income family is called ‘sub-prime’, where the banks sell the entire category CCC. The banks also added high risk for new owners of sub-prime mortgage; no down payment, no free money and must have proof of income or the banks will take back the money. Then however when the banks try to re-sell the mortgage, it cannot be done because the mortgage price has dropped (Jarvis, 2009). Lower prices increase the necessity to sell and reinforce the excess supply, making it even more difficult for the investor to fully repay his/her loan from asset sales (Kregel, 2008).

The credit crisis in sub-prime mortgage became popular as a topic for economists to analyse the crisis. Aside from Lucarelli and Jarvis, Michael Dooley and Michael Hutchison have both provided strong analyses of this current crisis. They describe the sub-prime mortgage credit crisis as a result of ‘emerging markets’ which have had large impacts on Credit Default Swaps (CDS) spreads in emerging markets, which efficiently transmitted the financial crisis in the U.S. to markets abroad (Dooley & Hutchison, 2009).

If we analyse the chronologies of the credit crisis in the sub-prime mortgage industry, it shares a common understanding with the Marx theory of ‘underconsumption’ or ‘overproduction’, where the banks and the investors in mortgages in the United States ‘run out the market’ and try to re-sell it through the CDOs, failing at this however and finally resulting in bankruptcy which affected the entire global economy. Oversupply (overproduction) of housing was exacerbated when interest rates were increased and hundreds of thousands of lower middle income borrowers could no longer afford their mortgage payments and the houses came back onto the market (Gupta, 2008). Another once-popular theory was that a chronic problem of “under-consumption” the inability of households to purchase enough goods and services to utilise the economy’s productive capacity had exacerbated the slump (Bernanke, cited in Foster & Magdoff, 2009).

Conclusion

It is still unclear as per explanations from political economists as to why the economic crises occur periodically through the decades without any recipe for cure. There are many definitions of economic crisis, even to the extent that some political economists consider the crisis as whole cycle beginning from recession to recovery, with some only questioning recession rather than recovery. The international financial institutions still blame the Asian economic crises on a lack of experience in supervision and regulation which is a traditionally macroeconomic viewpoint. The same reasons have been applied to the credit crisis in subprime mortgages in the United States, which is lack of supervision by the commercial banks in controlling the credit agencies. Marxist classical theories of disproportionality seem to be correlated in the earlier years but have not really been discussed in relation to the more recent crises. However, this essay has attempted to demonstrate that Marx’ theory of ‘TRPF’ and ‘underconsumption or overproduction’ seem to have more of a place for debate as one of the unpredictable reasons relevant to contemporary economic crises.

References

Bellamy, F., & Magdoff, F., 2009. ‘Financial implosion and stagnation: Back to the real economy’. The Monthly Review. Available from: http://tomweston.net/FinStag.pdf

Berg, A., 1999. The Asia crisis: causes, policy responses, and outcomes. Social Science Research Network. Available from: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=880665

Cobb, C., 2009. Editor’s Introduction. The American Journal of Economics and Sociology. Volume 68, No 4

Dooley, M & Hutchison, M., 2009. Transmission of the U.S. subprime crisis to emerging markets: Evidence on the decoupling–recoupling hypothesis. Journal of International Money and Finance. Volume 28, Issue 8, pp 1331-1349

Gupta, A., 2008. ‘How to Wreck the Economy’. The Independent. Available from: http://www.indypendent.org/2008/10/02/how-to-wreck-the-economy/

Jarvis, J., 2009. The crisis of credit visualised. Available from: http://crisisofcredit.com/

Kalecki, M., 1971, Selected essays on the dynamics of the capitalist economy 1933-1970. Cambridge University Press.

Kautsky, K., 1911. Finance – capital and crises. Available from: http://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1911/xx/finance.htm

Kregel, J., 2008. Minsky’s cushions of safety: Systemic risk and the crisis in the U.S. subprime mortgage market. The Public Policy Brief, Volume 93.Washinton DC.

Lucarelli, B., 2008. The United States Empire of debt: The roots of the financial crisis. Journal of Australian Political Economy, Edition 62, pp 16-38

Marx, K., 1885. Capital Volume II. Available from: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/Marx_Capital_Vol_2.pdf

Stiglitz, J., 2002. ‘Globalization and its Discontents, Chapter 4: The East Asia Crisis’. Allen lane, London

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