Aussies outstay their East Timor
welcome By Loro Horta
DILI - Since the 2006 deployment of
Australian peacekeeping troops to East Timor, the
Australian Defense Force (ADF) has been confronted
with a persistent anti-Australian sentiment from
large sections of the population. How did a
peacekeeping force that was once welcomed as a
national liberator for East Timor from 24 years of
brutal Indonesian occupation so quickly find
itself unwelcome?
Australia first helped
to rescue East Timor in 1999, when it contributed
nearly half of the 9,900 troops to the United
Nations authorized International Force for East
Timor, or INTERFET, which then neutralized the
Indonesia-backed paramilitary gangs which raped
and pillaged the island after it voted for
independence from
Jakarta in a national
referendum.
The current ADF contingent was
deployed with East Timorese government permission
in May 2006, as part of an Australian-led
International Stabilization Force (ISF) tasked
with containing another spasm of violence that
erupted from a schism inside the Timor Leste
Defense Force (FDTL). The ISF's main unit, the
ANZAC Battle Group, currently consists of about
780 Australian and 170 New Zealand soldiers.
That foreign presence has largely restored
stability and was crucial to the successful
holding of presidential elections in 2007, which
were won by Jose Ramos Horta. Horta told voters on
the campaign trail that he supported the continued
presence of the Australian-led forces for at least
five years, or until the FDTL, which was decimated
by the 2006 violence, becomes unified along
regional lines and is technically capable enough
to take sole responsibility for national security.
The FDTL now receives support from a host
of donor countries, including Australia, China,
Portugal and Brazil. Opposition candidates,
however, had on the 2007 campaign trail called for
the ISF to be withdrawn as soon as possible,
arguing that the foreign armed presence undermined
the new nation's hard-earned sovereignty. Those
calls are now increasing in pitch as certain ADF
personnel, particularly its young privates, act in
ways that undermine the peacekeeping force's
image.
According to observers, many ADF
personnel have shown an utter lack of respect for
local customs and have on several occasions
insulted some of the country's highest government
officials. The first serious incident took place
in October 2006 when the ADF established various
checkpoints around the FDTL's headquarters.
Then, FDTL Commander Brigadier General
Taur Matan Ruak was prevented at gun point from
leaving his own headquarters, with the ADF
insisting to search him before he was allowed to
leave. He was eventually allowed to pass, but the
humiliation at the hands of a teenaged Australian
corporal did tremendous damage to the ADF's image
among the FDTL's rank and file.
Soon after
the standoff with the FDTL's commander, Australian
soldiers without cause stripped a Timorese police
inspector out of his uniform in the middle of one
of Dili's most public places, leaving the officer
literally in his underwear. More gravely, they
also stand accused on at least one occasion of
interrupting the parliamentary process.
In
the sub-district of Letfo, where the defense and
security commission of the national Parliament was
meeting with authorities, an Australian officer
who insisted on talking with the local police
commander, barged into the meeting. When member of
Parliament Davide Ximenes requested that the
Australian officer leave the room and wait outside
for the meeting to end, the Australian officer
reportedly began to scream at the members.
In the end, the situation was resolved
when a Brazilian officer dragged the Australian
officer out of the meeting room and a Chinese
officer calmed the largely built and hot-tempered
Ximenes. Following the incident, the head of the
United Nations mission to East Timor, Indian
diplomat Atul Kare, sent a letter of apology to
the national Parliament, while no words of remorse
ever came from the ADF or the Australian Embassy.
Other minor issues have added to the ADF's
image problem. In October 2006, the ADF drove four
armored personnel carriers into the Cristo Rei
beach coral reef, a protected marine with unique
coral formations, to the outrage of even some
Australian non-governmental organizations.
Meanwhile, ADF personnel often drive their armored
cars at high speed in heavily populated areas,
throwing up dust in storefronts and at passerby,
say locals. Their reckless behavior has even led
to complaints from Australian diplomats based in
Dili
The clearest example of the ADF's
sometimes reckless behavior was seen in early
January. Horta's convoy, made up of more than 10
vehicles, was on its way back to the capital from
the western region of the island when it was
nearly overrun by two ADF vehicles which failed to
stop at the roadside to make way for the
presidential convoy. Three Australian citizens
were at the time traveling with the president,
including an ADF major.
To be sure, the
majority of Australian troops in East Timor have
done a laudable and professional job. That
includes the bravery of Corporal Andrew Wratten,
who blew the whistle on the sexual abuse of
Timorese young boys by Jordanian peacekeepers in
the town of Ocussi. The corporal reportedly had to
be evacuated to Australia under armed escort to
prevent the Jordanian soldiers from taking
revenge.
There are countless other cases
of the ADF's honorable conduct, such as the case
of Major General Mike Smith, who served in the
territory as brigadier and since the crisis of May
2006 greatly assisted the war-torn nation in his
capacity as head of AUSAID. The current Australian
commander in Timor, Brigadier Peter Hutchison, has
been an improvement over his predecessors and
shows that with greater discipline these issues
can be addressed. Hutchison's decision to
begin purchasing basic foodstuffs and other
supplies from local farmers and shops instead of
importing them from Australia has given much
needed income to the impoverished local population
and helped with the ADF's image problem. His
tougher disciplinary style has recently reduced
cases of ADF reckless driving, public drunkenness
and overall rude behavior.
The great
majority of Australian military personnel have
acted with honor and professionalism while on
service in East Timor. However, the arrogant
behavior of a small minority has broadly
undermined the ADF's image in the eyes of the
Timorese population. While the current wave of
anti-Australian sentiment is the result of many
factors - some of which, to be fair, are beyond
the ADF's control - addressing the issues over
which they have command is crucial for the
continued success of their mission.
Due to
its geographical proximity to Australia and the
two countries' shared store of natural gas
resources, East Timor and its stability will
always be of strategic importance to Canberra. As
such, Australia should not neglect the way it
exercises its hard and soft power inside the newly
formed country.
While some of the
incidents have been minor and no doubt the result
of cultural misunderstandings, they have the
potential to create serious tensions between the
neighboring nations. As the Australian saying
warns, "From little things, big things grow."
Loro Horta is a research
associate fellow at the S Rajartnam School of
International Studies, Nanyang Technology
University, Singapore and a visiting scholar at
the Center for International Security Studies,
Sydney University, Australia. He formerly worked
as an advisor to the Timor-Leste Defense
Department.
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