Australia fears the fallout from the East Timor chaos. But Canberra helped create that chaos.
In 1974-1975, it was clear that the collapse of the former Portuguese empire had left East Timor exposed to Jakarta's expansionist ambitions. The dominant East Timor political group, the moderately progressive Fretilin party, wanted to steer the territory to some form of independence, or at least autonomy.
But Canberra, in its Realpolitik wisdom, decided otherwise. With the help of Richard Woolcott, an activist ambassador in Jakarta, it decided that Australia's relations with Indonesia were far more important than the fate of less than a million East Timorese, despite the fact that just three decades earlier these same people had suffered horribly from Japanese military reprisals for assisting Australian troops there.