Australian Warship Heads for Stricken Solomons

SYDNEY (Reuters) - An Australian warship left for the lawless Solomon Islands on Monday carrying the first contingent of a 2,000-strong force of troops and police hoping to restore order to the near-bankrupt South Pacific nation.

The 8,500-tonHMAS Manoora transport ship will act as a floating command post, hospital and supply base for the Australian-led peacekeepers, whose deployment was approved last week by the Solomon Islands parliament.

The commanding officer, Commander Martin Brooker, said the vessel and the 600-crew and support personnel aboard expected to drop anchor off the Solomons capital Honiara on Thursday, when the rest of the force is due to be airlifted.

"The Manoora's got a lot of capabilities and our primary role over there is going to be logistic support to the police forces and military elements there, to support them on the ground," Brooker told reporters in the northern city of Townsville.

The intervention force -- the biggest military deployment in the South Pacific since World War II -- will first secure Honiara, where the rule of law has collapsed after years of ethnic clashes between militias from Guadalcanal and Malaita islands, and following a police-backed coup in 2000.

Drafted as "special constables" into the police force, many former militiamen have turned to crime and extortion, using the threat of violence to demand payments from the government, while renegade warlords control swathes of remote countryside.

The unrest has almost bankrupted the former British protectorate of 450,000, and persuaded Australia to intervene because of what it sees as the risk that a failed state on its doorstep could be exploited by criminals and terrorists.

The force, expected to stay in the 1,000-island chain for several months if not years while the nation's legal system and government departments are built up, will consist mainly of Australian troops and police.

But it will also have small contingents from New Zealand, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Samoa and Tonga.

Its members will be allowed to use lethal force if confronted by armed militia in the Solomons, which lie around 1,750 km (1,100 miles) northeast of Australia and which witnessed some of the fiercest Pacific-theater fighting of World War II.

Following a military coup in Portugal in 1974, East Timor felt independence inching closer, and several political parties sprang up. Indonesia also saw an opportunity on the horizon, and on 11 August 1975 an internal dispute between the two major Timorese parties, Fretilin and the Timorese Democratic Union (UDT), gave the neighbouring power all the excuse it needed. Although independence-minded Fretilin was restoring order, Indonesia headed in. The invasion commenced on 7 December 1975, and although the Fretilin forces proved their worth as guerilla fighters, Indonesia's superior military strength won the day. East Timor was officially declared Indonesia's 27th province on 16 July 1976.

The Indonesian invasion and occupation was brutal. Falintil, the armed wing of Fretilin, fought a guerrilla war with marked success in the first two or three years but after that began to weaken considerably. The cost to the Timorese people was horrific, with estimates of 100,000 or more dead, many through starvation or disease due to the disruption of food and medical supplies.

The only "genocidal blood-bath" was the one the Indonesians did to the (majority christian) people of East Timor. In 1999 Indonesia decided (after much pressure from Australia) to hold a vote on independance for East Timor. Despite constant violence by pro Indonesian milita groups (read Indoesian army special forces) over 80% of East Timor voted for independance.

In response, the Indonesians killed tens of thousands and virtually burnt the country to the ground (scorched earth policy). Australia sent 5000 troops to restore order (we asked Clinton for some help and got told to f*** off).

After some clashes between the Aussies and the pro Indonesian forces (read Indonesian army special forces) which resulted in some spectacular kicking of Indonesian ass, the Indonesians withdrew and East Timor is now the world's youngest democracy.

Australia still has troops in East Timor (about a thousand or so) to help train the East Timor Army and act as a deterent to Indonesia (who want East Timor back under their control).

The only people unhappy with the Aussies are the Indonesians. East Timor loves the Australian forces there, and well they should; if you lived next door to the world's largest Muslim country with a history for invading you and killing nearly a million of your countrymen over 25 years of occupation, wouldn't you want some powerful friends?

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