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TOPIC: Vice Chief of the Defence Force Lieutenant General Ken Gillespie discusses his recent visit and the current situation in Timor-Leste.

LIEUTENANT GENERAL KEN GILLESPIE: Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. I know that you have some interest in what my team and I did over the last couple of days in East Timor, and I'd be happy to answer a few questions about that this afternoon.

We have a very busy program at the present time, and so I won't spend too much time here, but before I start, could I introduce the rest of my team? Mr Mike Pezzullo, who's the Deputy Secretary-Strategy here in the Defence Department, and Mr David Ritchie, who's a Senior Diplomat with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. And they help me in this process of negotiating with the East Timorese.

Could I say by way of introduction, before handing over to you for questions, that the force build-up in East Timor has gone incredibly well, and that as we're speaking to you here today, we're seeing our forces move out from the airport, where they've been building up, getting themselves ready, their equipment ashore et cetera, and this afternoon are moving into some of the key areas of Dili in an attempt to as quickly as possible, break the chain of violence.

It's not all military in action, we have people like padres visiting some of the churches and institutions, where people have gathered for safety, to try and talk to people, to let them know why we're there, what we're doing, and to breed some confidence back into the community.

So we've had violence over the last few days, we've had some violence today, but what we're hoping is with some movements by Brigadier Slater and his team today, that we will start to see that chain of violence be broken, and that over the next few days, we in fact get some days where we're free from violence, and we can start the process of healing in that country. I think that's probably enough as a start, and I'm quite happy to take questions.

QUESTION: Will the Army start disarming the warring factions now?

LIEUTENANT GENERAL KEN GILLESPIE: No, disarming isn't the most important criteria at the present time. The most important criteria is to break the chain of violence, and we have a plan which we've talked about with the senior officials that we spoke to over the last couple of days, that we will get the military to return to its barracks, we'll get the police to return to their barracks, and we'll get the different dissident groups that are apparent on the scene at the present time, to move back into their home environments, and therefore get disengagement and break the chain of violence that way.

Removing weapons at this stage is not something the people would want to talk to us about, but if we can get them back into areas where we can monitor who's there, what they're doing, that their weapons are in armouries and those sorts of things, then without sort of disarming people, we can actually break the chain of violence, and disarmament can come a little bit further down the path.

QUESTION: Have you had any contact with Major Reinado?

LIEUTENANT GENERAL KEN GILLESPIE: I didn't personally speak to Major Reinado during my visit, but I know that today Brigadier Slater has quite a long session with him.

QUESTION: And what's eventuated out of that?

LIEUTENANT GENERAL KEN GILLESPIE: It hasn't happened yet, well it could be happening as we speak. But let me say that our meetings in East Timor were facilitated by Foreign Minister Horta, and it's quite clear that Foreign Minister Horta is deeply involved in communications with all elements who are involved in the situation at Timor at the present time, that he's welcome in all of those camps, and that we therefore in our conversations with he, the President and the Prime Minister, became relatively comfortable that all elements want to break the chain of violence, and that we will get pretty strong co-operation from the likes of Major Reinado, the East Timorese Defence Force, the police and others, to disengage.

QUESTION: Are you confident that the East Timorese Government itself has control of its own Army? The reason I ask is that there have been reports suggesting that the Army has at least encouraged some militia elements, and that in the last hour or so, a whole series of pay-back clashes have started to take place in the wake of the burning of the house, and the killing of the woman and five children.

Is there any indication, is there any division at a government level in East Timor about one, our presence, and two, is there any doubt whether - is there any possibility the Army, the official Army in East Timor would encourage some of the violence, rather than just return to barracks?

LIEUTENANT GENERAL KEN GILLESPIE: I think there's about a day of talking and about 20 questions that you've just asked me there. Let me say that I think the term militia is an inciteful one, and it's one that shouldn't be used. I don't think that that country needs the term militia being used, it's an issue of the past, and it's not there, and I don't see it being appropriate today.

Clearly there are elements of the East Timorese Army that have separated, you've all seen that, and they've separated for reasons that the East Timorese Government is going have to come to grips with and solve, in the coming weeks and months.

I think that - well I know for certain that all of those factions, as you might have put it, people who have different views in government of the way ahead et cetera, there was a unanimous decision by them, and reconfirmed to us the other night, that they're incredibly happy that Australia's there, they're very happy that we intend not to become involved in East Timorese politics, and it's East Timorese politics that have to work the future out, but that we provide a secure environment in which politics can again take place, and the sorts of dialogue decision-making compromise that'll obviously be necessary, can be done free from violence, and so that's what we're after.

QUESTION: There've been reports of shootings this morning, as Duncan was just referring to, can you tell us what role, if any, Australian soldiers are playing in breaking up those shootings, what the current level of danger is for Australian soldiers who are on the ground in Dili, and how you expect this to pan out over the next 24 hours or so?

LIEUTENANT GENERAL KEN GILLESPIE: Sure. It is a dangerous environment at the present time, and we shouldn't underplay that there is, has been, and continues to be a significant level of violence. The violence has become through a trend, violence in specific areas, and the reactions of Brigadier Slater and his team today, will be about resolving the security in those areas. As soon as we can do that, we can see the security forces removing back to their barracks, the other side, the protagonists in those hot spots, moving back to their particular cantonments, and a way ahead.

So, as I said before, we've got some high hopes at the present time that all parties actually want this to happen, and that we have a methodology and a plan in place to cause it to happen, and hopefully very quickly.

QUESTION: Have Australian soldiers fired any shots this morning?

LIEUTENANT GENERAL KEN GILLESPIE: Not to my knowledge.

QUESTION: Can you comment on reports that the SAS helped rescue a family around Dili that were being attacked by gangs?

LIEUTENANT GENERAL KEN GILLESPIE: There will be lots of stories about gangs and attacks, some of those will be true, some of those will not be true. People like me know that when peoples' safety is threatened, the old 'boy who cried wolf' proverb comes true, and we will get lots of calls to places where there supposedly has been violence, to see us arrive, and therefore provide a modicum of safety.

So one of the great tasks that Brigadier Slater has at the present time is to work out fact from fiction, and what he needs to do in terms of reaction. I think he's doing that particularly well, and I'm quite comfortable with the plan that he has, and it's a plan that obviously I'm not going to go into here.

QUESTION: How many Australians are on the ground now? Have we got our full force there yet?

LIEUTENANT GENERAL KEN GILLESPIE: The full force won't be apparent on the ground until the early hours of tomorrow morning, but we have a significant force level there at the present time.

QUESTION: Can you be more specific?

QUESTION: Should Australia leave a permanent garrison now?

LIEUTENANT GENERAL KEN GILLESPIE: Look, that's for the future, it's hypothetical, what we want to do is actually provide this secure environment, break the cycle of violence, and let the East Timorese work out the future. The issue of how long we stay, what we might look like is one for government, and we'll consider that when and if we have to.

QUESTION: Have Australian forces come under fire since their arrival?

LIEUTENANT GENERAL KEN GILLESPIE: No, they haven't.

QUESTION: Not at the airport?

QUESTION: Have they actually left the airport?

LIEUTENANT GENERAL KEN GILLESPIE: There may well have been shots in the area, that have been over their heads or those sorts of things, but the reality of it is, we haven't felt threatened since we've been there.

QUESTION: Can you comment on reports or comments by the former Deputy Commander of UN Peacekeeping Forces that international troops leaving Dili last year, left East Timor vulnerable to this type of violence, and do you think that the troops should have remained there longer?

LIEUTENANT GENERAL KEN GILLESPIE: Look, I don't think that's an issue for me, or for Australia. The control of the transition in East Timor was an issue for the United Nations, the way that that was played out was governed and controlled by the United Nations, and the United Nations Mission, and clearly that body, and the Security Council, thought that the way ahead was the appropriate way ahead. So I don't think that that's an issue for me, and I don't think it's an issue for Australia at the present time.

What is an issue is that we've got an investment in that country, the Prime Minister and the government are keen to see the country get back on the road to the democracy that we know and can enjoy, and that its people can prosper in peace. That's what we're about at the present time.

QUESTION: You said that the full deployment will arrive by tomorrow morning, are you happy with that time it's taking to get there, or would you have preferred them to get there earlier than that?

LIEUTENANT GENERAL KEN GILLESPIE: I'm delighted in the time that it's taken to get there. I mean this has been a magnificently executed plan by our people, in Sydney at the Joint Operations Command, and in Three Brigade and the various parts of the military, the Navy and the Air Force, it's been co-ordinated, it's happened pretty quickly, and I'm absolutely delighted with the way that it's going, so I don't have any hang-ups about what it is that we've done, or how fast we've done it.

When you consider that when we were told to go, on the afternoon we had commandos into the airport very quickly, within just a few hours of the executive order to move, we had helicopters on the ground, deployed across the Timor Sea into the country, with a significant number of troops on board, our ships appeared as I arrived at the airport over the horizon, I'm delighted with the way that it's gone, and there's no other way to describe it.

QUESTION: How dangerous was your actual mission to contact the leaders of the government over there?

LIEUTENANT GENERAL KEN GILLESPIE: It's an interesting point, we had to move through some of the areas where there had been violence. I discussed that with my colleagues here, and we were all quite comfortable that we had a job that had to be done, and we were being escorted by the best trained troops in the world, so in that regard I was quite happy to do what we had to do.

QUESTION: Vice Chief, has Defence calculated any kind of death toll as a result of the violence we've seen over the past week or so in East Timor?

LIEUTENANT GENERAL KEN GILLESPIE: No, we haven't, information is hard to get, and as I said, there's a lot of boy cried wolf-type reporting goes on. We struggle hard to make head or tail of that, and as our troops spread out and move into the areas that we're looking to look after, we'll get a much better handle on that sort of issue. But I've got to reinforce here that those sorts of issues and the way ahead, are not something that we are working our way through, they're something for the East Timorese Government to work its way through.

And I re-emphasise again that the Australian role here is to simply cause disengagement, cause the violence to stop, to allow trust to redevelop, and cause the East Timorese Government to have the space that it needs to solve its political issues in its own way, and set a course for the future.

QUESTION: Can you give any more details about where the Australian troops will be branching out into in Dili?

LIEUTENANT GENERAL KEN GILLESPIE: No, I'm not going to go into the plan, except to say that there are a number of key facilities that we have gone to, and that will become obvious to observers who are there. We've taken steps to secure the police headquarters, we've taken steps to secure the government buildings so that the government can go about its business free from the thought of attack, and we've secured the UN compound at Obrigado Barracks, and then throughout the day we'll be moving out in some of those areas where there has been confrontation, checkpoints manned by different factions, and we will relieve the tension in those areas.

QUESTION: Can you characterise the violence that we've seen this morning? Who's perpetrating that violence?

LIEUTENANT GENERAL KEN GILLESPIE: I don't think that anybody has a good handle on the intricate politics of the country at the present time, it's not a matter of who's orchestrating it, it's a matter of stopping it. We think that we're talking to all of the key players, and we think we have an agreement with them, quite clearly, that they want the cycle of violence to stop, and that they're going to work with us to cause that to happen.

QUESTION: Can you just clarify the number of troops, the overall number? Initially we were talking about 1300, then there was a figure of 1800, does that include the Navy, or have you increased the number of militant Army personnel?

LIEUTENANT GENERAL KEN GILLESPIE: No, the 1300 refers more specifically to the troops who'll be on the ground, but when you take into account the three ships that we currently have in Dili Harbour, Air Force personnel who are taking part, et cetera, because whilst there is a front end to all this, there's a very heavy back end of it, and the joint operational headquarters in Sydney are working frantically to make sure that this happens, the strategic operations staff, the strategy staff, the people from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, there's quite a heavy back end to this, making sure that it all goes correctly, and as smoothly as we can make it.

And so 1300 on the ground, or about, up to whatever we need, and about 1800 when you put the others, who are actually flying in to, or sailing in the waters, is more about the numbers.

Thank you.

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Issued by Ministerial Support and Public Affairs, Department of Defence,
Canberra, ACT
Phone: 02 6127 1999
Fax: 02 6265 6946
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