Australia's Downer to visit Indonesia

Australia's Downer to visit Indonesia

ADELAIDE, Australia (Agencies): Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said on Monday he expects to visit Indonesia soon, as Canberra presses efforts to repair relations with Jakarta after last year's East Timor crisis.

Australia led a multinational force into East Timor in September to stop the violence in the wake of East Timor's vote for independence, prompting Indonesia to break off a security pact with Canberra.

Downer, who did not give dates for his trip, said he was watching with some concern reports that senior Indonesian military officials would refuse to cooperate with an official domestic inquiry into human rights abuses in East Timor.

But he said he had no information of any heightened risk of a military coup in Jakarta.

Harassment

Separately, Australia's military on Monday apologized for the behavior of a group of soldiers accused of terrorizing East Timorese girls they were supposed to protect, their commander said Monday.

A series of incidents over several nights late last year has seriously embarrassed Australian troops and sparked a major investigation to identify the men involved.

"We are angry and we are taking some fairly strong steps to both find any culprits and make sure that people understand that it's just not on," Maj. Gen. Peter Cosgrove, commanding officer of the Australian-led International Force for East Timor (Interfet) said.

"We have apologized, of course, to the young women involved by saying we are aghast at this, as are 99.9 percent of the people who would be here," Cosgrove told ABC radio from Dili, East Timor.

"I dare say the other 0.1 percent would be feeling very guilty and stupid."

The Australian newspaper said the incidents involved up to six young daughters of a Timorese family.

The most serious happened on Dec. 16, hours after the daughters had been reunited with their parents, who had fled as refugees to West Timor.

Their mother hid behind a tree as a group of Australian men in civilian dress stormed a house in the Dili suburb of Palapasu, shouting that they "wanted a lady".

The mother later told friends she was considering taking the family back to West Timor because it was safer there.

One of the complainants, an 18-year-old girl, told the paper that in the lead up to the Dec. 16 incident, she and her sisters had been repeatedly sexually harassed by Australian soldiers.

"We were very upset," the girl reportedly said. "Sometimes they come to our house and say they are looking for a woman."

The girl said that on the night of Nov. 24, "five to seven" men entered the family's house, a two-story building.

"They were looking for us in our room, but thank God we were not there," she said. "They were drunk, wearing shorts with no T- shirts."

Military police who went to the house later arrested two soldiers wearing civilian clothes but they were only charged with being out of bounds after the women said they were not those who came to their house.

"I have no doubt that from their dealings with our military police that they are confident that we are not simply whitewashing here. They know that we are angry and looking for the soldiers," said Cosgrove.

He said the case was not closed.

"It can't be closed until we have exhausted all possibilities," he said, describing the sexual harassment as verbal and obnoxious but very isolated.

Australian unit commanders were being "strongly counseled" on the need for the troops to behave decently, he said, adding that those troops involved in the incidents should turn themselves in.

"We've got a very good record here," he said. "Every day we've got people putting their lives on the line for the East Timorese and they do that happily and gladly and they don't respond well when a stupid act by a very small proportion of the group lets the side down."

So far, eight Australian soldiers have been sent home for disciplinary matters, none of them related to sexual harassment or impropriety, said Lt. Col. Charles Reynolds of Interfet.

Cosgrove on Monday also accused militias operating in West Timor of continuing to conduct incursions into the East Timor enclave of Oecusse.

"I'm a little concerned ... but I wouldn't want to overplay that concern," Cosgrove replied when journalists questioned him about security conditions in the coastal enclave, which is surrounded by Indonesian West Timor.

Cosgrove said that militia entered the enclave one or more days ago but were arrested and were being held by UN civilian police.

The Udayana regional military commander, Maj. Gen. Kiki Syahnakri, has ordered the militia commander in Oecussi area to be arrested within a week, Cosgrove said.

"That week's not yet up," he said.

On Jan. 11, Syahnakri and Cosgrove signed an agreement that the Australian general said should make border incidents less likely anywhere in East Timor.