U.S. says up to UN on chief of E. Timor force

U.S. says up to UN on chief of E. Timor force

SINGAPORE (Reuters): The United States' top general said on Monday it was up to the United Nations to choose the leader of an 11,000-strong UN peacekeeping force in East Timor.

U.S. Joint Chief of Staff Gen. Henry Shelton said that the United States was comfortable working with whoever the UN picked.

"We think the Australians have done a magnificent job during this first phase of it, and now as the United Nations take over, it's up to United Nations to determine who should lead the UN force there," Shelton told reporters in Singapore, where he was conferred the city-state's highest military award.

"From the U.S. perspective, what we'd like to see is just a good competent officer in-charge, and I'm sure that's who (Secretary General) Kofi Annan will select."

Shelton said the United Nations would decide the nationality of the force leader.

"(The) U.S. is comfortable with working with any nationality that leads a UN force, all we are asking for is let's make sure (he's) just as competent as we do when we select our own commanders for U.S. unilateral action," he said.

The UN force is due to replace the 7,500-strong international intervention force early next year to help ravaged East Timor in the transition to independence.

Australia, the Philippines and Thailand have all been touted as possible leaders. Several Filipino military officers have been interviewed as possible candidates to head the new force.

In another development, Australia said on Monday more than 500 East Timorese evacuees had voluntarily returned to their homeland three months after they fled from the pro-Jakarta militia then in control of the territory.

Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock told reporters 503 East Timorese volunteers had been flown back to the territory's capital of Dili on Sunday and Monday on aircraft chartered by the Australian government.

"The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) has provided assurances that it is now safe for the East Timorese to return. Indeed, over 110,000 East Timorese have already returned, including over 1,000 from Australia," he said.

Most of the 780 evacuees remaining were either unfit to return to their homeland or were relatives of such people, Ruddock said, but added there was an unspecified minority refusing to leave the "safe havens" set up for them.

The three existing evacuee centers would be consolidated into one at East Hills in Sydney, Ruddock said, with Timorese from the Puckapunyal and Leeuwin safe havens being moved to that center.

About 2,000 East Timorese were evacuated to Australia from the territory at the height of a wave of terror that followed an overwhelming vote for independence from Indonesia.

Many of the evacuees were local United Nations employees who spent a terrifying week holed up inside the UN compound, surrounded by militiamen who repeatedly entered the facility. Ruddock said Australia would lay on free flights for other East Timorese who had been in Australia for some time awaiting the outcome of asylum claims.