Australian Broadcasting Corporation TV PROGRAM TRANSCRIPT LOCATION: http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2006/s1656846.htm Broadcast: 06/06/2006 ### E Timor tensions 'mostly confined to Dili' Reporter: Tony Jones
TONY JONES: Well, as we said earlier Major General Mike Smith was deputy commander of the Australian-led UN peacekeeping force in East Timor for two years before becoming CEO of the aid organisation Austcare. He's currently in East Timor in that capacity, assessing the humanitarian situation. And he joins us now from Dili. Mike Smith, thanks for being there. MAJOR GENERAL MIKE SMITH (RET), AUSTCARE CEO: Thank you, Tony. TONY JONES: I know you've been up in the hills today. We haven't heard a lot about what's happening outside Dili. Can you give us your assessment of what you saw? MAJOR-GENERAL MIKE SMITH (RET): My assessment is it's pretty quiet in the hills, in all the districts, in fact. This is very much a Dili-centric problem. I'm going out again, I'm going down to the border tomorrow because we've got projects on down there. Peace-building projects, education projects, agricultural projects which are critical for the people of Timor. So I'm heading off down there tomorrow. TONY JONES: So you're saying effectively the tensions we're seeing in the capital are not reflected out in the bush, as it were? MAJOR-GENERAL MIKE SMITH (RET): Well, certainly the reading I'm getting on it, Tony, is that that is the case. It's very Dili-centric and you know, comments about civil war and genocide and ethnic cleansing - all of those sorts of comments I don't think are appropriate to East Timor today. TONY JONES: Your main office, of course, is in the Dili suburb of Comoro. There have been quite a deal of violence and action around there. You must have seen a lot of what's going on in Dili at least up close? MAJOR-GENERAL MIKE SMITH (RET): Yes, up close and personal actually. We seem to take in a lot of stray people for sanctuary. One of our mandates is protection and we've been protecting on the spot, actually. So it's been interesting times but I must say the woman who owns the house is absolutely inspirational and she talks to the people and I tend to go out there with her and convince them that we don't take sides in this. We're not political and that's what this is basically all about. It's political. We're just here to help the people of East Timor and so far, although some houses around us have gone up in smoke, ours seems to have been respected, touch wood. TONY JONES: We have seen and we're constantly seeing images of gang violence and houses burning in the capital. Do you understand why it was that the Australian military and indeed the political leadership of this country, appeared to be unprepared for this when they sent the troops in in the first place? MAJOR-GENERAL MIKE SMITH (RET): I think that this sort of operation is not an easy operation for any military force to do and some of us for some time have been saying that this type of operation is the future for the Australian Defence Force and has to be mainstreamed and ADF forces whether they like it or not, are going to be doing more of this in the future in the arc of instability that's to our north. So we'd better get used to it. TONY JONES: And from what you're saying the Australian military needs to get used to this for quite a long time in East Timor? MAJOR-GENERAL MIKE SMITH (RET): Well, I think that there will be a transition from a military-strong component, increasingly to a police component and that will be good. But what needs to happen immediately - and I might say that I've been observing the Australian Defence Force and the Kiwis and the excellent Malaysian forces I've seen - and I must say that without their presence I think Dili now would almost be destroyed. And I'd like to pay compliments to the commander of this force, Brigadier Mick Slater. I think they come no better. He's doing all he can and so are the troops in a very difficult situation. The real lessons, which have been relearned is, if we're going to put soldiers into this sort of situation then they have to be trained and they particularly need to understand civil military coordination and cooperation and to practice it more so than they have in the past. TONY JONES: Do you think the mix is shortly going to be rife with more police sent in? And do you have any sense at all as to how many police you would actually need to control the streets there, given the level the violence that we're seeing day after day? MAJOR-GENERAL MIKE SMITH (RET): Tony, it's going to take a long time, because you'll recall that the UN did set up a police force but it was not very successful and really, it's going back to scratch or square one now and building, rebuilding a police force from the beginning. It will take time. When people talk about, "We want riot police," and all the rest of it, you certainly do need some of that, and I know the Portuguese have arrived. But more importantly, you need good community policing. In the short-term before that, what has to happen now is that the international peacekeeping force that's here needs to do a lot more with the civil-based organisations. Organisations like Austcare, and working closely with the UN and the East Timorese Government - and they are starting to do this. But there's a lot, a lot more learning to go into that process. I'd like to see places like Austcare as safe houses in communities where we had particular or specific communications so that if something did arise we could quickly call somebody in. We don't have that yet, so we have to call and wait and hope if something crops up. So we need to get the people out of the internally displaced person's camps. 70,000 of them in Dili and they won't leave there until they really feel that they have security and that will only come about if the ADF and the civil community work together. And that's one of the reasons why Austcare is working so hard, to try and get funding to put protection officers, civil protection officers - these aren't people with guns and rifles - these are civil protection officers working closely with the UN agencies to make sure that people can integrate back into society here and this nation can go forward. This is the poorest nation in Asia. TONY JONES: I'll come on to that in a moment. But I'd just like to reflect just for a moment on what you've just said. Because it seems to us that the Reverend Tim Costello from World Vision was saying very similar things right at the very beginning when the Australian troops went in there. So it's hard for us to understand now why the military is not working more closely with aid organisations such as your own after what was said at the beginning. Do you understand why? MAJOR-GENERAL MIKE SMITH (RET): Let me just say that they are working closely. I've had personal discussions with a number of military people and I might say, that's not a reflection on my previous military career. I rang a number, asked could I see somebody and I did. I think they've been outstanding in what they've been doing. But they are underresourced and underequipped to do this sort of operation. ADF, the Australian Defence Force, is fundamentally a war-fighting organisation. It is not a peace enforcement, peacekeeping. They've always done it in addition to war fighting and what I'm saying is you can't do it in addition anymore, you've got to mainstream it. TONY JONES: Let me just ask you this, and I want to go back to something you said in the past. You actually said in the past that Australian intelligence failed to anticipate what happened in, or what was going to happen in 1999. Are we seeing now the results of another intelligence failure? MAJOR-GENERAL MIKE SMITH (RET): Well, just let me first say there is no similarity between 1999 and this particular issue here. We are now talking about totally an internal problem within East Timor, as best as I can see. Did the Australian Government - was there a failure of intelligence? I don't know, because I'm not in the Australian Government anymore. I'm interested in humanitarian relief operations and that's how I spend my days now. TONY JONES: OK, fair enough. Can you explain, though, why things have changed so dramatically from the time when you were there for those two years, 2000 to 2002? What's happened to turn this situation around so that we have virtually on our doorstep now a failed State? MAJOR-GENERAL MIKE SMITH (RET): I think the problem is mainly political and it is mainly focussed on Dili. But underlying all of that is a huge problem of poverty. And a population just over a million of which more than 50% is under the age of 18. Most unemployed people out in the countryside are finding it difficult to put food on their tables. We need to be doing grassroots poverty alleviation programs. And we need to up the ante to do it. And please Australia, dig deep, because this country East Timor, needs it. TONY JONES: Yes, some people are actually arguing that what is now needed in East Timor is something like a mini-marshal plan where huge international effort is put into rebuilding the State, its institutions and its economy from the ground up. Is that the way you see things? MAJOR-GENERAL MIKE SMITH (RET): I certainly see that there has to be security and development go closely together and I believe that the East Timor Government is capable of taking a lead in that. But it needs assistance, coordinated assistance from the United Nations - and I certainly hope an up-gunned - that's the wrong phrase - a sort of an increased and more capable UN mission is put here. I certainly hope that occurs. That's required and the ADF or the security forces that are here all have to work in tandem. But the East Timorese Government needs to maintain the lead. And I think it's do-able. We're not talking about a country that cannot get out of this situation. It can, but it needs to be planned and as well as starting at the top end of town in terms of governance, we really have to go to the bottom end. We have to go down to the rural poor. We have to have employment schemes. We have to really think it through and we've got to fix up the lines of communication. There is a mammoth effort required here, but the fact is it's do-able and we can have a very secure and stable country to Australia's north. It's in the interests of the East Timorese for this to happen. It's certainly in the interests of Australia for this to happen and it's in the interests of Indonesia and the rest of the world as well. TONY JONES: OK Mike Smith, I'm sure a lot of people have heard that appeal pretty clearly. We thank you very much for taking the time to come and talk to us tonight.