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.