Australia, US spied on Indonesia at UN talks
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Australia and the United States mounted a joint surveillance operation on Indonesia during the 2007 UN climate talks in Bali, it was reported yesterday.
The Guardian newspaper’s Australian edition cited a document from US whistleblower Edward Snowden showing Australian spy agency the Defence Signals Directorate worked alongside America’s National Security Agency to collect the phone numbers of Indonesian security officials.
Australia’s relationship with close neighbor Indonesia is already under pressure after reports last week that Canberra’s overseas diplomatic posts were involved in a vast US-led surveillance network.
Missions in Indonesia, as well as embassies or consulates in China, were used to monitor phone calls and collect data, sparking demands for an explanation from Jakarta and Beijing.
The Guardian said the 2007 spy operation at the United Nations climate change conference was not particularly successful, with the only tangible outcome being the mobile phone number of Bali’s chief of police.
“The goal of the development effort was to gain a solid understanding of the network structure should collection be required in the event of an emergency,” according to an account of the mission included in a 2008 weekly report from the NSA base at Pine Gap in Australia, one of the agency’s biggest overseas bases.
Summing up at the end of the operation, the NSA, according to the Guardian, said: “Highlights include the compromise of the mobile phone number for Bali’s chief of police.
“Site efforts revealed previously unknown Indonesian communications networks and postured us to increase collection in the event of a crisis.”
While largely unsuccessful, the operation is hugely embarrassing for Australia. At the time, Kevin Rudd was the country’s newly elected prime minister and he attended the summit — his first high-profile international foray — at the personal invitation of Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
Both leaders agreed then to work together to advance ties.
The latest allegations are another blow to ties between the two countries, which have been tested by new Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s hardline policies on trying to stop asylum-seekers who board boats in Indonesia from arriving in Australia.
“Every Australian governmental agency, every Australian official, at home and abroad, operates in accordance with the law and that’s the assurance that I can give people at home and abroad,” Abbott said of the spy network last week.
After last week’s claims in the Sydney Morning Herald, China’s foreign ministry demanded the US and Australia “make a clarification.”
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