Australia-led force leaves East Timor

Australia-led force leaves East Timor

DILI, East Timor (Agencies): The Australian-led multinational force formally left East Timor on Wednesday and handed over to United Nations peacekeepers, five months after going in to end a wave of mass killings.

At a departure ceremony at the former East Timor governor's office, now being used as UN offices, its commander said the force had been lucky to have achieved its task with relatively little violence.

Maj. Gen. Peter Cosgrove sailed out of Dili harbor around midday, shortly after the INTERFET force's emerald-green flag was lowered for the last time.

When the force first arrived on Sept. 20, there were still thousands of Indonesian troops in the territory, and tension was running high.

Asked whether it was luck that there were no clashes, he said: "Absolute luck on a lot of occasions."

Before setting sail for Darwin in a military catamaran along with 300 troops from Australia and Thailand, Cosgrove received a set of military fatigues of the former resistance movement Falintil from independence hero Xanana Gusmao.

On behalf of the East Timorese, Gusmao thanked the force, known as INTERFET, for its action. "It was an important act, the troops were able to avoid... another bloodshed," Gusmao said.

Asked about his favorite memories of the assignment, Cosgrove said: "When I saw an INTERFET soldier playing with local children at the tenth day, when the situation was very tense."

The force, which grew to 11,000 troops, was deployed to secure the territory after pro-Jakarta militias, backed by Indonesian troops, reduced it to charred ruins and killed hundreds of East Timorese in the wake of the August 30 vote for independence.

INTERFET has been replaced by a 23-nation United Nations peacekeeping force led by Lieutenant General Jaime de los Santos of the Philippines, although 80 percent of the UN force of around 9,000 troops will transfer from INTERFET.

The United Nations expects to administer the former Portuguese colony for two to three years leading to independence. But despite the general peace, the U.N. takes over amid lingering tension over more than 100,000 refugees still in Indonesian West Timor and concerns about reprisals by militia.

At the weekend Indonesian troops guarding the sensitive border fired several hundred shots after a militia-sponsored attack on refugees in East Timor.

Violence has also been increasing on the streets of the territory, where armed gangs and inter-village fighting have become more prevalent.

Local man Humberto Goncalves, 64, said he was glad most of the INTERFET troops would remain in the territory as United Nations peacekeepers because he was concerned about anti-independence groups in West Timor, especially around its capital Kupang.

"I was in Kupang for two months and I heard that pro- integrationists were having lots of meetings and they want to come back and kill the people here," said Goncalves, sweeping rubble on the streets of Dili.

Meanwhile, East Timorese refugees being housed in a Sydney army barracks have refused to go home, starting a blockade at the gate, police said on Wednesday.

Police were called in to try and maintain the peace at the barracks where about 500 East Timorese refugees have been housed. Refugee Naldo Rea said they were refusing to leave because conditions in their homeland were still poor.

Rea said 250 refugees had created a blockade preventing buses carrying 150 refugees leaving for Sydney airport.

Many refugees were suffering from tuberculosis and orphaned children were in the group, he said.