Low-flying Hercules aircraft from the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) will begin dropping food and medical supplies tomorrow to starving refugees hiding in the barren mountains of East Timor from pro-Indonesian militias, the Australian Prime Minister, Mr John Howard, said yesterday. This follows the successful airlift yesterday morning of 1,540 East Timor refugees to Darwin in northern Australia after the UN abandoned its besieged compound in the East Timor capital. Dili. The UN Mission to East Timor (UNAMET) has now withdrawn all its officials to Darwin, as the build-up for the deployment of an international peacekeeping force gets under way.
"The aim is to start the drops on Thursday," the Australian Prime Minister, Mr John Howard, told ABC television yesterday, when asked how soon emergency aid could be delivered to the hundreds of thousands of refugees in the hills, many under the protection of pro-independence FALINTIL guerrillas.
Australia has held off dropping aid packages onto East Timor territory partly because of fears for the safety of low-flying aircraft. "You do need to be completely satisfied of the right conditions on the ground, including removing any possibility of the planes being fired at," Mr Howard said. "We do want to be satisfied that [food] is not immediately grabbed by the militias, or the refugees going for it are not shot by the militias."
The Australian government aid agency, AusAid, said the Indonesian government was being asked to ensure the security of the deliveries to five main areas in central East Timor holding about 20,000 refugees each. AusAid spokesman Mr Matt Francis said the first flights by C-130 Hercules aircraft were expected to deliver rice, cooking utensils, medical supplies, water containers, and materials for emergency shelter.
Indonesian troops agreed to co-operate in arranging the airdrops after direct approaches by world leaders to President B.J. Habibie of Indonesia, who agreed on Sunday to the introduction of a peacekeeping force. Mr Habibie is also believed to have given an order that the 1,540 refugees in the UNAMET compound be escorted to the airport for a major airlift by the RAAF. Four convoys of 10 trucks each raced through the dark streets of Dili in the early hours of yesterday morning carrying the refugees and the 57 remaining UNAMET staff. "They had the whole route locked down, with troops facing the inside of town all the way to the airport," a UN official said.
The refugees were given only two hours notice that they would be taken to safety, in case word spread and other refugees hiding in the hills were tempted to rush down and expose themselves to militia gunfire. UN officials said the evacuation from the compound started at midnight, with UNAMET staff spread throughout the convoy to make the refugees feel safer. Burning and looting were still going on as the trucks passed. One local UNAMET employee, Mr Neme zio Fernandez, said some soldiers taunted them as they left, saying: "It's your country, don't go to Australia, [East Timor] is independent, why are you leaving?"
At first light a fleet of 16 Hercules planes began transporting the refugees on the hour-long flight to Darwin, capital of Australia's Northern Territories. UNAMET's police commissioner, Mr Alan Mills, who was on the last plane out, said conditions in the compound, an old teachers' training college, had become intolerable. Hygiene was a major factor, he said. "Within a couple of days the compound would have been subject to typhoid, as these people were living in very appalling conditions." The rescue of the men, women and children from the compound was one of the prouder achievements of the UNAMET mission which successfully organised the August 30th referendum.
The UNAMET spokesman, Mr Brian Kelly, one of the last UN officials to leave yesterday, said that Jakarta had only agreed to the evacuation of the refugees, "because we made it clear, probably, that we would not go without them. It was for us the absolute sticking point." The UN and aid agencies are now concerned about preventing a humanitarian disaster among displaced persons in the hills and in camps controlled by militias in West Timor.
Meanwhile opposition is growing in Indonesia to the use of Australian troops in the international force, as many Indonesians accuse its southern neighbour of being biased in favour of East Timor's independence. A senior member of Indonesia's ruling Golkar party said yesterday that the inclusion of Australian troops would trigger a conflict between Australian troops and pro-Jakarta militias. "The emotions of people will rise and the conflict will start again," Mr Aisyah Amini said.
The governor of East Timor, Mr Abilio Soares, one of the main architects of the pro-integration campaign, also warned that peacekeepers will have to fight their way into the former Portuguese colony. The solution is only fighting. It is impossible to have reconciliation. Everything is too late," he said. Australia announced yesterday its contingent would be led by Maj-Gen Peter Cosgrove, commander of the Australian army's 1st division, its major combat group.
Kevin Rafter, Political Reporter, adds:
A proposal for the deployment of up to 25 "front-line" Defence Forces personnel in East Timor is likely to be made at today's Cabinet meeting by the Minister for Defence, Mr Smith.
The Government has already indicated a willingness to assist the UN operation although it had been thought only senior officers would be involved.