

MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS  HON ALEXANDER DOWNER, MP



TRANSCRIPTION: PROOF COPY E & OE



DATE: December 23, 2002  VENUE: Electorate Office, Stirling, SA  TITLE:   Doorstop re Indonesia travel advice, North Korea latest and Iraq latest

MR DOWNER:  The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has reissued the travel advisory, it hasn’t been  upgraded.  We remain continually concerned about the welfare of Australians in Indonesia.  The travel advisory has been reissued because of the onset of Christmas. People have be  particularly careful over the Christmas and New Year period in Indonesdia. There is the   possibility, for example, that there could be attacks on churches around Christmas time and  people should be reminded to be very careful to keep away from bars, clubs, other types of  institutions where Westerners tend to congregate because these types of institutions are  potentially targets for terrorists. So, we have reissued the travel advisory. The travel advisory  provides a fair bit of detail about parts of Indonesia to be especially careful of.  We are saying  to Australians to defer non-essential travel to Indonesia and that of course has been the case  for quite some time now ,  for a couple of months, so we simply reiterate that as well.  We have trickles of information coming in from time to time about possible threats to  Westerners, including Australians, in Indonesia. We don’t have any dramatic new information  that has led to the reissuing of the travel advisory. The travel advisory has been reissued in  order to remind people who are either planning to go to Indonesia, or Australians in  Indonesia, about what  the risks might be.

Just let me say on North Korea, we are  very concerned about the decision by the North  Koreans  to expel the International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors. This is a further  significant deterioration in the situation in North Korea. North Korea has to understand that it  needs to co-operate with the international community, not move further down the path  towards nuclear proliferation. The international community will be united in continually  increasing pressure on North Korea to get back to the Agreed Framework and make sure that   it abandons any plans that it might have to develop a nuclear capability.

JOURNALIST:   On Indonesia, what do you know about any specific new Christmas threat?

MR DOWNER:  We don’t have any new information in relation to any specific Christmas Eve threats. We  have had information that has actually been reflected in our travel advisories before now, that  there could be attacks especially on churches in Indonesia . Places of worship do tend to be  vulnerable to attack, in past years there have been attacks on churches in Indonesia, including  around Christmas time and some of those attacks, its believed, have been conducted by  Jemaah Islamiah and this year when terrorist organisations have been a little more active and,

Inquiries:  (06)  277 7500



particularly, in the wake of what we have learned from Bali, people I think should be  especially careful.

JOURNALIST: So this is more about the time of year than new information?

MR DOWNER:  Absolutley, it is much more a question of the time of year, the fact that it is the  Christmas/New Year period, it’s a period when there have been terrorist attacks in the past, a  period where we are particularly concerned about the possibility of terrorist attacks on  churches and other institutions where Westerners may congregrate, and Australians should be  careful over the next few days.

JOURNALIST:  What about Venezuala?

MR DOWNER:  We have issued a travel advisory today saying that Australians should defer all non-essential  travel to Venezuala. There has been a substantial national upheaval with very big  demonstrations in Venezuala, there’s a strike by the oil industry, there’s political  confrontation in Venezuala and we think the best thing to do is to advise Australians to keep  away from Venezuala.

JOURNALIST:  What is your reaction to the Bali suspects being paraded by the Indonesian  police?(inaudible)

MR DOWNER:  I don’t know that it does. I must say to you that I have been very impressed with the  performance of the Indonesian police throughout this investigation going right back to the  period immediately after October 12th.  They have to manage these things in a way that they see fit. Their ongoing investigations  have, so far, been very successful. They’ve obviously been significantly assisted by the  Australian Federal Police, I don’t think we should underestimate that, nevertheless  they’ve  done an excellent job and the co-operation has been outstanding. We don’t want to say or do  anything that would disrupt that co-operation.

JOURNALIST:  (inaudible)

MR DOWNER:  The Indonedian police are providing more commentary than we normally would on these  things - I mean our position is that we tend not to provide commentary on investigations as  they are ongoing. I particularly don’t think Ministers and Prime Ministers feel comfortable in  providing ongoing commentary. All I would say is that they’ve detained a number of people,  they’ve got still further leads, what is of particular concern to us is the sophisitication of the  attack that took place in Bail. It’s a concern that there could be links not just to Jemaah  Islamiah but possibly even Middle Eastern organisations like Al Quaeda. But we suspected  that right at the beginning - a lot of the information that has been unearthed by the police  investigation has tended to confirm that but there is still a fair bit of work to be done yet,  before we can be sure about all these things.

Inquiries:  (06)  277 7500



Inquiries:  (06)  277 7500

JOURNALIST:  Do you have any concerns about how much information is being released?

MR DOWNER:  Not really, I mean this is a matter for police at a State and Federal level in Australia and in a  number of countries - police operations are arms length from police ministers and cabinet and  the Prime Ministers or Premier and I think that’s how it should be, so when the police decide  they want to make public comments they obviously do so making judgements about what the  implications for their investigations will be - I’m just not qualified to be able to do that.

JOURNALIST:  On Iraq as well and the offer of allowing CIA officers into Iraq being  described as a stunt?

MR DOWNER:  I think we could just make the general point about Iraq that, first of all, as you know we have  been deeply concerned about the development of Weapons of Mass Destruction capabilities in  Iraq - chemical and biological weapons as well as Iraq’s nuclear weapons ambitions. We  would expect Iraq simply to comply with Security Council resolutions including resolution  1441. And I would have thought that they’d be well advised to in particular cooperate with the  United Nations and there has been an indication they’re not cooperating with the United  Nations and that is with the declaration that they submitted to UNMOVIC and the IAEA -  that declaration I think was very disappointing and even the United Nations has said that.  Now, they would be wise not to get into any sort of stunts at all - this is a profoundly serious  situation for Iraq and for the international community. There is a real risk of conflict in Iraq.  We hope that can be avoided - we continue to hope that can be avoided. But Iraq really needs  to contemplate the seriousness of the situation and if they move ahead now and declare what  capabilities they have and they allow for those capabilities to be destroyed then that  guarantees that conflict will be avoided.  If they continue to resist the United Nations, they  play ducks and drakes with the international community then I am sorry to say that conflict  becomes all the more inevitable.

JOURNALIST:  Re availability of travel advisories

MR DOWNER  We are continuing to make travel advisories more available than has been the case in the past  and that is proving so far to be successful. But still we hope, early next year,  to introduce a  couple of other initiatives which will even better make travel advisories available to people as  they leave the country. I don’think in a free society passing laws - I’m not sure what the  constitutionality even would be of them - requiring every travel agent to present a traveller  with every travel advisory is necessarily very sensible. I mean I don’t think in a free society  you’d do that but I think in a free society what we should do is make sure people know that  travel advisories exist, know that they’re available on the website, they can ask the travel  agents about them. But introducing some sort of draconian law forcing travel agents to do  things - that’s probably a bit over the top I suspect.

Ends

