More Australia choopers, troops for East Timor

More Australia choopers, troops for East Timor

SYDNEY (AFP): Australia is to send four blackhawk helicopters and an extra 100 troops to East Timor to help support the United Nations peacekeeping mission, Defense Minister John Moore said on Thursday.

Moore said the decision was made some weeks ago to increase Australia's involvement in the peacekeeping operation, and it was not a response to the death of a New Zealand soldier near the border with West Timor on Monday.

Private Leonard Manning was shot and killed during a clash between UN troops and a heavily armed group of gunmen believed to belong to a militia group.

Moore, who held talks with New Zealand's Defense Minister Mark Burton prior to the announcement, said the helicopters would help Australian troops to better control the situation.

"The extra blackhawks will improve the Australian battalion's ability to properly perform its mission in East Timor, and ensure our forces are even better prepared to manage the security situation," he said.

"This newly announced deployment has the full support of the United Nations."

Moore called on the Indonesian government to address the militia problem on its side of the border. "Our concern is to be able to deliver a civilian government to East Timor in a timely and appropriate manner," he said.

"That presumably comes up in the latter part of next year. Under those circumstances, we'd like to see the border situation resolved, so that people can peacefully pass across it both ways, at that point."

He also made a veiled criticism of the UN command in East Timor. "We have no reason to believe the current command structure up there is anything else but adequate," he said.

"Quite clearly, the Australians and New Zealanders carry the major load -- they've been there on the border itself.

"As we move into next year, it will of course presumably lead to some change in the political structure of East Timor," he said. "That will lead to certain judgments to be made then."

Burton said New Zealand had sent clear messages to Indonesia on the militia threat.

"We do believe Indonesia has to redouble its efforts, particularly as to security on the border, addressing the issue of the refugee camps and taking some responsibility for the western side of the border," he said.

He said New Zealand expected Indonesia's co-operation in identifying the militia involved in the killing of Private Manning.

Australia currently has 1,500 peacekeepers deployed in East Timor, which voted overwhelmingly for independence from Indonesia last August, prompting a backlash from sections of the military, police and armed militias.

The killing and mutilation of Private Leonard Manning put East Timor on the agenda of the forum involving the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and key dialogue partners including the United States, Japan, China and Russia in Bangkok.

A militia gang believed to operate from within one of the squalid refugee camps inside Indonesian West Timor is suspected of carrying out the attack.

"The clear evidence is that the incursions have taken place ... by militias that operate out of refugee camps," said New Zealand Foreign Minister Phil Goff.

"What I am raising in Bangkok today is the need for the Indonesian government to decisively disband and disarm the militia and to deal with the problem of the refugee camps," he said on the fringes of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF).

He added: "Clearly, we will expect Indonesia to put into action its promises to deal resolutely with the situation."

Goff said both Indonesia and the UN authority supervising East Timor's transition to full independence must work out a solution to the militia problem.