Timor reflections
Major among first and final peacekeepers

Goodbye: Major Karlo Terz, Officer Commanding Force Extraction Team, says his farewells to some Timorese. Photo by LACW Kim Eager

By Cpl Damian Shovell

SAYING goodbye to Timor-Leste was an emotional experience for all of the last 120 Australian peacekeepers to serve there, but for three servicemen the experience was made more poignant by the fact they were among the first, and now the last, ADF peacekeepers in the country.

Unknown to each other at the time, each arrived with Interfet on September 27, 1999, and witnessed the damage, destruction and fear firsthand from their employment across the three services. More than five years later, they completed their tours with the UN Mission of Support in Timor-Leste (UNMISET) and considered what the ADF had achieved.

Maj Karlo Terz, OC Force Extraction Team, deployed with Interfet with 10FSB’s reconnaissance group as a WO1 tasked to set up a ground and aviation fuel point at Comoro airport.

“To see what we saw when we got in here everything was alight – it wasn’t a nice place to be,” he recalled.

“I had [locally employed civilians] working for me and I could still see the fear in their eyes.”

He said being there for the end of the peacekeeping mission was a sentimental occasion.

“For me personally it is a great honour. These people are just lovely people – to see them now, they’re so confident,” Maj Terz said.

“To see the shops that have opened and even the smiles on the people’s faces now is just incredible. It feels sad that we’re leaving, and I know that the Defence Cooperation Program will be here for years to come, but it’s still sad to say goodbye.”

Leut Andrew Hobbs arrived with Interfet Headquarters as a linguist, and recalled the joy he received from the Timorese as he travelled through the country on some of the earliest reconnaissance missions into the heart of Timor-Leste.

“I distinctly remember driving into Same in convoy and the Timorese lined the streets and cheered us in. It was something surreal, like out of an old World War II movie,” he said.

He said comparing Timor-Leste today to what he saw in 1999 showed the obvious success of the mission.

“There was barely a habitable building left in Dili. There was no electricity, toilets or water. Almost every building in Dili had been destroyed or damaged in some way.

“As you drove along the north coast to Baucau or to Batugade, you could go for mile after mile and not see any locals. There were no people, no livestock, no cars, the houses had all been burnt.

“By comparison today, one of the dangers on the road is the people and the animals and the cars of the thriving communities.”

Wng-Cmdr Andrew Ormsby, aeromedical evacuation liaison officer for UNMISET, arrived with Interfet to coordinate medical evacuations in and out of country during the mission.

He remembered arriving at Dili harbour on the HMAS Jervis Bay to see hundreds of Australian troops on the ground patrolling among the burning buildings and devastation, and also considered the contrast to life there today.

“People are getting on with their lives. The whole infrastructure of the place has come on in leaps and bounds,” he said.

“Dili is a far more thriving town now, there’s a lot more productive activity and businesses.

“It’s still a country in its infancy, but a lot has improved in terms of infrastructure.”

The recurring message is that Timor-Leste is no longer a country in need of armed peacekeepers and is a country emerging on its own.