Media Room: Defence Speech

Defence
SPEECH

CHIEF OF THE DEFENCE FORCE: Well first of all good afternoon and thanks for coming out to this short doorstop. Timor Leste remains unstable and a challenging environment for our soldiers. We have separated the army and the police and they are no longer using lethal force against each other. The army has returned to barracks and we are currently in the process of getting the police to return to the police headquarters and training centre. When they arrive there they are being disarmed.

What we're seeing now on the streets of Dili are gangs of criminals seizing the opportunity to create unrest and act in a violent manner. Today AFP officers have been deployed and will assist us to restore law and order. This police capability will allow us to focus our efforts on reining in these warring gangs and helping to protect the people of Dili.

ADF Personnel are now working closely with the Timor Leste Government and the deployed forces of other nations to continue to stabilise the security situation on the ground and facilitate the separation of the various conflicting groups into safe and secure locations. Brigadier Slater is establishing critical liaison and communication teams with key parties in Dili, which is enhancing our ability to communicate with disparate factional groups. The Australian task force has continued to expand its area of influence and control and is disarming and countering attempts to delay or obstruct the re-establishment of law and order.

We have successfully secured priority areas and key infrastructure, including the airport, the police headquarters and the Dili Wharf to counter localised violence. ADF ground forces are conducting an increasing number of patrols throughout Dili, following the arrival of extra vehicles from Manoora and Tobruk. This has resulted in a growing number of weapons being confiscated, including small arms, machetes, swords and hand made knives.

ADF personnel are visiting churches in other areas where displaced Timorese citizens have gathered to inform them of the current situation and keep them updated. We have also continued to facilitate the evacuation of Australian and other approved foreign nationals. To date we have repatriated over 500 Australian and other foreign nationals. Additionally over night a RAAF C130 aircraft successfully conducted a medical evacuation of eight injured Timor Leste nationals, including a 12 month old baby.

The ADF is working closely with the Government of Timor Leste and non-government aid agencies to help the innocent victims of this crisis. One example of this was the delivery of critically needed medicines for the Dili Hospital, to which we gave urgent priority on a C130 flight from Darwin on Saturday. Additionally I've spoken to Tim Costello, CEO World Vision Australia, who has now met with Brigadier Slater and I assured him that support will be provided to his organisation by the ADF. Indeed I got a little text message not long ago which suggested that everything is under control.

However, the most effective way the ADF can help is to quickly stabilise the security situation, which remains our first priority. This will enable other government and non-government agencies such as the police and AusAID to move freely so that they can perform their required functions. I am very proud of the men and women on the ground in Timor Leste, and what they have been able to achieve since their rapid deployment began just five days ago. Our personnel are achieving wonderful results in a very demanding environment and if you have a think about it from go to woe, the button was pressed only five days ago and we have already got disengagement of the warring factions. Thank you very much, I'm ready for questions.

QUESTION: What powers do the Australian police and, or the ADF have in dealing with the criminal gangs that they're confronting in the streets? Have they got power to use legal force, to arrest, prosecute? What powers do they have?

CHIEF OF THE DEFENCE FORCE: What we have obviously in terms of the ADF people, we have an agreement with the Government of Timor Leste, that was signed by the President, the Prime Minister and the President of the Parliament. That provides the basis for everything. We have a status of forces arrangement and we also have our rules of engagement, which lay down very clearly what we can do in the use of military force. It's essentially a graduated series of responses up to and including the use of lethal force.

QUESTION: But are they mainly disarming these people and letting them out again, is that what's happening?

CHIEF OF THE DEFENCE FORCE: We've also got a detention policy which is coming into use today. So all of the police, all of the armed forces are under the control of Brigadier Mike Slater and he will use all of the military forces and police to basically stabilise the situation now.

QUESTION: How will the detention policy work.

CHIEF OF THE DEFENCE FORCE: The detention policy will essentially support what we need to do on the ground. In other words we will be able to detain people. We will essentially be able to detain them for a period of time and obviously if they've committed serious crime those people will be subject to investigation and will be subject to the normal judicial processes within the country of Timor Leste.

QUESTION: Is that a new power today? Were they able to do that yesterday?

CHIEF OF THE DEFENCE FORCE: In terms of yesterday I guess we were a little bit constrained in terms of what we could and couldn't do. But we've tightened up our approach to detention in view of what happened yesterday.

QUESTION: Has there been a change in the rules of engagement?

CHIEF OF THE DEFENCE FORCE: No there has been no change in the rules of engagement. The rules of engagement are very robust and support what we want to do. Those rules of engagement include a series of graduated steps that enable our soldiers to use a gradually escalating series of steps up to and including the use of lethal force. Now let me just say we do not want to use lethal force unless circumstances absolutely demand it. And to use lethal force against somebody who is committing a petty criminal act would be a totally disproportionate response in the circumstances that we're observing in East Timor.

QUESTION: The detention policy, Chief, how long maximally can people be held before they have to be charged and put before court in these circumstances, are we clear about that?

CHIEF OF THE DEFENCE FORCE: Jeffrey, I'll come back to you on the detail of that later.

QUESTION: What actually happens when an armed Australian soldier is confronted by an unarmed thug or someone with a machete or some other weapon, who clearly believes the Australian is not going to shoot him, does that not leave the soldier in a pretty powerless position?

CHIEF OF THE DEFENCE FORCE: Not at all. If that machete is used in a way where the life of the Australian soldier is threatened, the soldier will resort to lethal force. Let me make it very clear, we have the full power to use lethal force, but obviously we use it in a very restrained way and frankly that's the only way we can prevail in these circumstances. We're about creating trust, creating an atmosphere where we can maintain this disengagement that we've achieved and let me say, I think it's a wonderful achievement. We've achieved disengagement of the police and the army, who last Wednesday when the button was pushed, were killing each other. There has been no killing lately, indeed I'm informed by the Commander on the ground there has been no gunfire heard for 18 hours. Certainly he hasn't heard any gunfire for 18 hours and I think that suggests that the use of weapons like rifles, small arms, is hopefully in the past.

QUESTION: There was more articles this morning suggesting the ADF is overstretched, what's your reaction to that?

CHIEF OF THE DEFENCE FORCE: I think we've got a very high operational tempo and I think if you talked to all our people, they're really enjoying the challenge of being able to go out and do what they're trained to do. In terms of, you know, have we got anything behind this capability we've just deployed? The answer is a very firm yes. We have high operational tempo but we've still got a fair bit behind us. If you have a look at the numbers, we have 1,300 on the ground, another 700 or so on the ships. We've also got aircrew and a lot of other people providing the vital logistic support and all the enabling capabilities. But at the end of the day the number of people deployed on operations at the moment, is still less than 5,000. So we've still got a fair bit of capacity left.

QUESTION: When will Dili be secure?

CHIEF OF THE DEFENCE FORCE: We've achieved the disengagement, we've brought the AFP in today, about 50 policemen who will provide leadership to a police force that obviously needs very good professional leadership and we'll see how it goes. I think the important thing from here on in is to get the policing strategy in place to compliment what we're doing with our armed forces.

QUESTION: Any sign of the Timorese families who have gone to the airport and other places returning to their homes yet?

CHIEF OF THE DEFENCE FORCE: We haven't seen too much of that yet. But I think that's the important thing that we have to achieve. What we've got to do is get these criminal gangs off the streets, reduce the level of violence and get people back to their homes. Now I'm very hopeful that with the strategies that we've got in place that, that will happen in the near future. I must add that we never expected that this would be over on day two, after our, you know, our full deployment. If you look at it, our full force only arrived on the ground Saturday night and we've had less than two days with the full force operating. So we've achieved disengagement. The next thing is to get the criminal gangs off the streets and hopefully that will be achieved in the short term. If I could just take one more question because unfortunately I've got to go.

QUESTION: What role will the ADF play in providing humanitarian assistance to those people who've fled their homes?

CHIEF OF THE DEFENCE FORCE: Well again, Brigadier Slater has a massive number of requests for support from a wide variety of agencies. And the way we handle these circumstances is we take all the tasks, we prioritise them and clearly one of the tasks we've got to take on board is protecting aid agencies, such as Tim Costello's agency, to ensure that the aid gets through. And that has been arranged for the request that we have recently received from World Vision Australia.

QUESTION: Chief, can I just ask one quick thing to clarify. Just one. But in terms of the detention and the use of lethal force, were they not used before because you were taking the gently, gently approach?

CHIEF OF THE DEFENCE FORCE: No, no, no. We have, believe me, the rules of engagement that we had when we went in are exactly the same as the rules of engagement that we have now. They provide for a very measured, graduated, series of responses. Up to and including lethal force.

QUESTION: But it hasn't been necessary until now?

CHIEF OF THE DEFENCE FORCE: There hasn't been a need. There has not been a need to engage anybody with lethal force. You know, simply put we haven't seen the level of violence that was a feature of the environment before we arrived. I mean people aren't out there anymore killing each other. Sure there's violence on the streets and that comes from the fact that before we got there, there was a total breakdown in law and order. The police and the army were fighting each other, we've disengaged them, we've got an environment now that we have to work on, but we'll get there.

Thank you very much. And can I just say again, I think our young people, the people of the Australian Defence Force again are doing a magnificent job in very challenging circumstances and I'd like to thank you and obviously the people of Australia for the great support that they give our troops. Thank you very much.

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