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EAST TIMOR: Australia Flexes Muscles Following Coup Bid

Analysis by Stephen de Tarczynski

MELBOURNE, Feb 13 2008 (IPS) - Australia’s rapid response to this week’s attacks on East Timor’s president and prime minister speaks volumes about how East Timor’s large southern neighbour sees its role in the fledgling nation and the region.

While details of Monday’s attacks on two of East Timor’s most beloved independence heroes remain sketchy, the government has taken measures to stabilise the country. East Timor requested additional forces from Australia and on Wednesday parliament approved a request from Prime Minister Xanana Gusmão – one of the targets of the attacks – to extend the state of emergency by 10 days after the initial 48-hour emergency period expired.

But Australia has also moved quickly to beef up its military presence in East Timor following Monday’s shooting of President José Ramos-Horta and the attack on Gusmão by forces apparently operating under the command of former major Alfredo Reinado, who was killed in the attack.

Some 200 extra Australian troops were dispatched along with an additional 70 federal police officers joining the 48 already in the country. The soldiers add to the 780 Australian Defence Force (ADF) personnel stationed in East Timor, who along with 170 New Zealand troops constitute the International Stabilisation Force (ISF), which was deployed following civil unrest in 2006.

The Australian navy frigate, ‘HMAS Perth’, has also been sent to Dili harbour in another show of force.

Australia’s foreign affairs minister, Stephen Smith, told ABC television on the day of the shooting that “at the East Timor Government’s request we have responded very, very quickly with the additional troop and police complement.”

Australia has also taken on the responsibility of caring for East Timor’s wounded leader. Ramos-Horta was evacuated to Darwin for emergency treatment after being shot twice during an exchange of gunfire. The president is expected to remain in an induced coma until the weekend and doctors anticipate that he will make a full recovery, describing his condition as serious but stable.

It is also apparent that stability in East Timor is of a high priority to the upper echelons of Australian political powers. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will make a visit to the troubled nation this week while Stephen Smith has also signalled Australia’s intentions.

At a joint media conference with his East Timorese counterpart, Zacarias da Costa, Smith spoke of Australia’s desire for peace, stability and security in East Timor. “This is essential because in the end our ultimate aspiration, just as it is the ultimate aspiration of the East Timorese Government, is to enable East Timor to grow as a nation state, to provide the jobs and training and education and healthcare that any nation state wants to provide to its citizens.”

Described by Smith as an “attack upon a duly elected democratic government,’’ he argues that Australia must “respond quickly and firmly with a show of force and a show of strength that makes the point that we stand shoulder to shoulder…with the East Timorese people and the East Timorese Government.”

Michael Leach, a research fellow at Deakin University’s school of international and political studies in Melbourne, told IPS that stability is of great concern to Australia. “As well as having East Timor’s stability at heart, there’s also obviously a role there in terms of maintaining what they see as regional security through this presence,” he says.

“If you read some of their policy documents they talk about the arc of insecurity in the Melanesian region,” says Leach.

In a speech in October 2007 – with Labor still in opposition – then opposition spokesman for foreign affairs, Robert McClelland, said that “civil unrest and lack of respect for the rule of law in East Timor, the Solomon Islands, Fiji, Tonga and Papua New Guinea shows how unstable our neighbourhood is’’.

“These fragile states don’t just constitute an arc of instability – this is our arc of responsibility. We need to focus our security and foreign policy resources on our region,” McClelland told his audience.

He added that “these fragile states can quickly become economic basket cases, a haven for organised crime, terrorist training or influenced by other countries that don’t share Australia’s interests’’.

In regards to East Timor, Australia also has economic interests to be mindful of. In 2006, the two countries signed a deal to equally divide billions of dollars of revenue from oil and gas deposits – which lie closer to East Timor – in the Timor Sea, bringing an end to negotiations that had been ongoing since East Timor’s independence in 2002. Australia was widely criticised for its hardline approach, under which it refused to accept East Timor’s claim that the maritime boundary lay midway between the two nations.

“In the Australian case, right or wrong, there’s always been a perception that Australia has interests in Timor’s oil and gas, which to some degree it clearly does,” Leach told IPS.

While the East Timor expert says that this perception is held by “elements in Timorese society”, he argues that it is not a view shared by the country’s political leaders. But Leach says that these perceptions still need to be managed sensitively.

As Australian soldiers continue to search for the remnants of Reinado’s group, Leach argues that it is important for East Timor’s long-term stability that the presence of Australian armed forces be scaled back once the group is taken into custody.

“I would argue that it would be good if Australia moved towards having a larger police presence (as opposed to an army deployment) because once these former military are disarmed it’s really a policing issue,” says Leach.

“What it would do is make Australia less vulnerable to criticisms from Timorese that they are there for their own interests,” he argues.

He adds that the ISF should come under United Nations control, as Australia – the lead partner in the stabilisation force – can easily be singled out when mistakes are made. “If you’re under U.N. command it’s a lot more difficult to isolate one country when something does go wrong,” says Leach.