Interview on 4BC

Subject: East Timor

GREG CARY: Our Foreign Minister, Stephen Smith, is on the way to the airport as we speak to make his way to Darwin to check out on the condition of Jose Ramos-Horta, as you know, shot several times in an assassination attempt in East Timor yesterday.

Foreign Minister, good morning.

STEPHEN SMITH: Good morning, Greg.

GREG CARY: I appreciate your time. What's the latest you're hearing both from Darwin and the condition of the patient there, Jose Ramos-Horta, and from East Timor itself?

STEPHEN SMITH: Well, the latest advice I've got this morning is that his condition remains very serious but stable, and obviously we're hoping that he will pull through and recover. But very serious but stable.

Insofar as East Timor itself is concerned, this morning our reports are that it's very calm in Dili, but we're obviously monitoring that very carefully and we we'll keep in that frame of mind for the next few days.

GREG CARY: Has a state of emergency been declared there?

STEPHEN SMITH: I don't know what the East Timorese Government has declared. I don't know that they use the term 'state of emergency', but the effect is that there is a curfew for the next 48 hours from 8pm at night to 6am in the morning, obviously in an endeavour to keep calm and keep people off the streets.

So that'll take effect over the next 48 hours. That's of course the decision by the Prime Minister and the East Timorese Government. But that's the effect and we hope that makes its own contribution to ensuring we have a period over the next few days of peace and calm.

GREG CARY: How concerned is their government and our government about this thing spiralling out of control up there? And what happens if it does?

STEPHEN SMITH: Well, we're obviously very concerned to make sure that we continue to have in East Timor peace and security and stability.

We of course were deeply disturbed by the events of yesterday morning, and that's why at the request of the East Timorese Government we made an immediate contribution of additional troops and additional police to the International Stabilisation Force. We wanted to show our very strong support for the duly elected East Timorese Government and we also wanted to effectively have a show of strength.

And the contribution of the troops and the police, plus the presence now in the area of HMAS Perth, sends a very strong signal that we're serious about making sure that we have ongoing peace and stability and an atmosphere of security in East Timor.

GREG CARY: In terms of expressing that seriousness, how far would we be prepared to go as a country to ensure stability in East Timor?

STEPHEN SMITH: Well, we're already going a long way. We have, when you include the additional complement - and they'll start arriving in the course of the day - we'll have nearly 1000 troops in the International Stabilisation Force. The United Nations Police Force will be in order or in the sum of about 1500, and we'll have between 120 to 150 police of our own in that contingent. So it's a significant show of strength.

And we've been saying for a long time that what East Timor really needs is ongoing stability and peace because it's only in that context that people like Mr Ramos-Horta and Prime Minister Gusmao have the chance to effectively build their nation. They can get on with the real challenges of what we call building capacity for the nation state - education, training, jobs, all the attachments that go to a parliamentary democracy.

GREG CARY: Well, with Reinado, now - the terrorist now out of the way, is there a better chance of that - maybe a better way to frame the question. Are you getting any sense yet as to whether this was an isolated group of disaffected former military, or are they symbolic and representative of something bigger at work?

STEPHEN SMITH: Well, we know that Reinado had a core support group of 20 or 30. There's a wider group of former army personnel who've become disaffected, and we hope that with Reinado's death in the incident yesterday that his core group will now effectively fall away.

Now, it's very early days and we're not making any claim to that effect. What we have been encouraging people who were associated with Reinado to do is

to essentially turn in their arms and not persist. Now, whether they do or not, time will tell.

But we've got a large International Stabilisation Force there. We're adding to that, and we certainly hope that their presence will lead to a period of, as I put it, peace and stability.

GREG CARY: Okay, final question, and I know you're about to get on that plane to go to Darwin. Given their past record and influence in the area, and I imagine given their ongoing interest there, have you spoken to your equivalent or anybody in Indonesia about what's happened there yet, or they to you?

STEPHEN SMITH: No, I haven't spoken to my counterpart, Hassan Wirajuda, I haven't spoken to the Indonesian Foreign Minister. But one of the things that we did yesterday deliberately was once we'd made our decision to add to the complement, we made sure that Indonesia, New Zealand, who also have a presence in the international force, and also the United Nations, were made aware of our decision, coming as it did at the request of the East Timorese Government.

One more important point I'll make in conclusion is that the United Nations mandate for a presence in East Timor expires later this month, and when I was in the United States recently, both in New York with United Nations officials and in Washington with United States officials, I made the point that Australia very strongly believed that the United Nations mandate had to be rolled over again and extended for a 12-month period.

It's very important that we have a United Nations presence in East Timor, just as we have the internationalisation - sorry, the International Stabilisation Force as well.

So yes, we made sure that our Indonesian neighbours were aware. We made sure that our New Zealand colleagues were aware, and we also made sure that the United Nations itself was aware as soon as we'd made the decision yesterday.

GREG CARY: Foreign Minister Stephen Smith, appreciate your time.

STEPHEN SMITH: Thanks very much, Greg.

Ends

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