Subject: JDW: E.Timor is developing an independent
security policy
Date: Sat, 06 Mar 1999 08:42:59 -0500
From: "John M. Miller" <fbp@igc.apc.org>Received from Joyo:
Jane's Defence Weekly March 3, 1999
*East Timor is developing an independent security policy
By Robert Karniol JDW Asia Pacific Editor
Bangkok
The East Timorese resistance is quietly developing a coherent policy on security during
pre- and post-independence periods that could devolve from a tentative agreement reached
last month by Indonesia and Portugal (Jane's Defence Weekly 17 February).
Together with internal debate, talks are being selectively initiated with some East
Timorese currently serving in the Indonesian armed forces and police, and with potential
foreign partners.
Speaking by telephone from Lisbon, resistance leader Jose Ramos-Horta identified
Australia, Fiji, New Zealand and Portugal as countries that could potentially provide
paramilitary training and equipment. Portugal, the former colonial power, is already
"fully committed" to supplying any assistance required and security subjects
will be raised during talks he expects to hold in Fiji and Australia within a month.
The former foreign minister in the short-lived Democratic Republic of East Timor
further noted the importance of establishing "a highly-sophisticated
intelligence-gathering system, both for internal and external security". Accurate and
timely information offers "the best protection" for a small country, he said,
and Portugal and Israel could help create an effective intelligence agency.
Ramos-Horta said that a peaceful transition to independence should be supervised by a
UN force of 1,000 to 2,000 personnel. Together with ensuring stability, this force would
train a local armed police force formed around a core drawn from the resistance army and
supplemented by East Timorese currently serving in the Indonesian armed forces and police.
He said that the pro-independence resistance now has an armed strength of about 1,000
although Indonesian sources give a figure of "under 200". This would be expanded
to around 3,000 during the transition period to become the "rapidly deployable"
armed police force of an independent East Timor.
The Nobel Peace Prize laureate added that he is opposed to establishing a standing army
following independence. "I personally don't believe that a small country like East
Timor should have a professional army," he said. "Rather, something along the
Costa Rican [paramilitary] model and treaties of neutrality with neighbouring
countries."
Such a paramilitary police force would be required for a "few years" to
ensure stability following independence, he said, and then East Timor would decide on a
more permanent security structure. Despite this scenario, independence for East Timor has
yet to be assured, with autonomous status within Indonesia still an alternative. However,
Indonesian President B J Habibie said on 11 February that he wants the issue resolved by
the end of this year. "As a friend, we will let them decide by themselves," he
told a meeting of the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
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