Aussie files reveal deadly clashes during East Timor peacekeeping
Aussie files reveal deadly clashes during East Timor peacekeeping
Agence France-Presse, Sydney, Australia
Australian soldiers shot and killed at least 14 pro-Jakarta
militia and exchanged fire with Indonesian forces during UN
peacekeeping operations in East Timor (Timor Leste) in 1999 and
2000, according to government documents revealed on Monday.
The defense ministry reports obtained by The Australian
newspaper under Freedom of Information laws were the first
confirmation of the extent of casualties during Australia's
deployment in East Timor, which began a month after the territory
voted for independence from Indonesia in August 1999.
According to the documents as reported in The Australian,
Australian soldiers were involved in 33 "engagements" with pro-
Indonesian militia armed with automatic weapons and grenades.
The first incident occurred barely two weeks after the 7,000-
strong UN force (Interfet) deployed in East Timor, when several
trucks carrying militia crashed through a UN roadblock near the
West Timor border.
"Shots fired by Interfet, six militia casualties, 116 militia
detained," the official report read, adding that the UN soldiers
involved were members of Australia's elite Special Air Service
(SAS) regiment.
An Interfet truck escorting militia detained in the first
incident was then ambushed and in the ensuing firefight, two UN
troops were wounded and two militia killed, it said.
In all, the report says at least 14 militia were killed in
clashes with the UN soldiers within weeks of the peacekeepers'
deployment.
"The high death toll among the pro-Jakarta forces early in the
cross-border probes against the superior firepower and quality of
Australian soldiers also appears to have dramatically reduced the
militia's appetite for battle within weeks of the deployment,"
The Australian said.
The newspaper said analysis of the 33 engagements revealed in
the documents showed that UN forces never initiated firefights
with militia, instead only reacting to fire or incursions across
the border.
The documents also confirmed that Australian troops clashed
with Indonesian soldiers and police in October 1999, when the
Indonesians fired on an Australian platoon over an incident
caused by Australian confusion about the border demarcation
between East and West Timor, it said.
One Indonesian policeman died in the incident.
No Australian soldiers died fighting in East Timor, although
several were wounded during their 15-month deployment.
Australia contributed 5,000 of the 7,000 soldiers in Interfet,
which was tasked with preventing violence by pro-Indonesian
forces in the run-up to East Timor's independence in 2002.