Lindsay Murdoch in Darwin - April 29, 2011 - The Sydney Morning Herald
JULIA GILLARD'S proposal to build a refugee centre in East Timor has been rejected by the country's President, Jose Ramos-Horta, the only senior political figure in the tiny nation who had left the door open to the plan.
"Timor-Leste [East Timor] says that we will not agree to set up an asylum-seeker processing centre in the country," Dr Ramos-Horta told Timorese journalists.
The declaration will embarrass the Prime Minister, who insisted that talks with Timorese leaders were continuing at the highest levels despite an earlier rejection of the plan by the country's Prime Minister, Xanana Gusmao, the Deputy Prime Minister, Jose Luis Guterres, and senior ministers.
Yesterday a spokesman for the Immigration Minister, Chris Bowen, was still insisting East Timor's council of ministers - the equivalent of the Australian cabinet - had not rejected the plan.
But the council decided last year East Timor would not negotiate the plan directly with Australia, referring it instead to a 50-nation meeting on people smuggling known as the Bali Process.
Official sources in Dili have told the Herald that members of East Timor's delegation felt they were poorly treated by Australia's representatives during a ministerial-level meeting of the Bali Process last month, where Ms Gillard's plan did not rate a mention in official talks.
Their complaint was discussed during a recent meeting of the council of ministers in Dili, sources said.
Mr Bowen said on radio on Wednesday that Dr Ramos-Horta still regarded the centre as a possibility and that "discussions continue".
But Dr Ramos-Horta delivered the final blow to the plan in comments reported by East Timor's Independente, saying a regional centre was not an issue to be discussed between East Timor and Australia.
"There should be a regional agreement and the agreement should not be made by Timor-Leste and Australia because it is not a bilateral problem," Dr Ramos-Horta said.
Observers in Dili say the plan was never going to be approved by East Timor, a country of 1 million mostly impoverished people with myriad social, security and development problems.
But East Timor's leaders wanted to be seen to consider Ms Gillard's proposal as Australian diplomats and officials tried to push what was widely seen as an ill-conceived proposal.
As well as government leaders, the plan was opposed by the Fretilin opposition, four parties in the ruling coalition and dozens of non-governmental and community organisations.
The Canberra journalist Laurie Oakes revealed last year that hours before Kevin Rudd was deposed as prime minister he told Ms Gillard that a refugee centre in East Timor would not work and East Timor would not accept it.
But Ms Gillard went ahead despite the advice and announced her plan for the centre only days before the last federal election.
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