Timorese fury at 'immoral oil grab' - Australia

[dArKeR]

East Timor risks becoming "another Haiti" because of an attempt by Australia to exploit offshore oil and gas reserves between the two countries, according to its president, Xanana Gusmao.

Gusmao, who led East Timor's fight for independence from Indonesia, said the country would be at risk if Australian plans to exploit oil and gas fields claimed by Dili went ahead.

"It makes the difference to our future," he said. "We would not like to be a failed state. Without all this we will be another Haiti, another Liberia, another Solomon Islands, and we do not want that," he told The Guardian.

An Australian Green party senator, Bob Brown, has accused Canberra of blackmail and robbery in its attempts to take control of two slices of the $30-billion Timor Sea reserves, while demonstrators in Dili this week likened the claim to the 1975 Indonesian invasion of their country.

http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=34329