East Timor in 2001

Star Notes

“East Timor in 2001”

By Richard K. Sele

Brigadier General (Retired), US Army

I thought it might be interesting to share some photos and vignettes about my short deployment to East Timor in 2001. For a very quick background summary, Indonesia occupied East Timor from 1975-1999 and declared it an Indonesian province. The UN opposed the occupation and Timorese guerillas launched a campaign against the occupying Indonesian military.

In 1999 a referendum vote for independence passed. Pro-Indonesian government militias then launched a 3-week brutal campaign against the Timorese people and destroyed much of the infrastructure in Dili, East Timor’s capital. The UN stepped in with a peacekeeping force led by Australia. The US played a supporting role in the effort and continued to maintain a small footprint in East Timor as the country’s government stood up.

In April 2001 the USS Boxer Amphibious Readiness Group and the 11th Marines Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable) planned a 3-day port visit to East Timor where it would bring in humanitarian assistance donations, conduct rudimentary engineer civic action projects, and provide basic medical services for the civilians. My small role in this effort was to assist where necessary in coordinating the relief and civic action. For example, when the World Food Program had tons of food it needed to deliver to remote areas I was able to link them up with operations and air planners on the Boxer to get helicopter support to move the supplies.

Looking back on this experience the damage to Dili was the worst I’ve ever personally seen. Bosnia and Iraq both had substantial infrastructure damage but it couldn’t even compare to what I saw in East Timor. It looked as if the militias tried to burn the city to the ground. I assume that was their intent. The civilian populace had horrible atrocities inflicted upon them during the militia’s short rampage. I believe the USS Boxer visit was a welcome breath of hope for the people.

No doubt this became a topic of discussion at my next meeting with the UN Civil Affairs office. I eventually contacted the organization that pushed out the donation and quickly realized their hearts were in the right place and they had no way of knowing where this container would end up. Aside from this small hiccup, the overwhelming delivery of clothing, food items, and common toiletries was appreciated very much.

One last humorous story from this deployment is worth sharing. Our small US military contingent lived and worked on a barge anchored off-shore. The barge had been a Thai floating hotel and restaurant so was suitable for our purposes. A gangplank connected us to the shoreline. A contingent of Marines provided security for us and the local police provided the outer cordon of security onshore. Overall it was a fairly safe environment for us.

One afternoon we were in a staff meeting and heard a commotion outside the windows. The Marine security team rushed to positions on the lower and upper decks. Their weapons were drawn and we could hear their team leader barking orders. We looked out the window to see what was going on and saw a very large mob (~100) of civilians swinging machetes in the air as they approached our barge gangplank.

Machetes were very common there but to see them being swung into action was a little stressful. We all had sidearms and were prepared to defend ourselves. Nothing to worry about with those Marines on board though. We quickly learned after getting an update from the security team that the locals were chasing a civilian thief from the next village over. This guy literally ran for his life. Luckily for him, the local police got to him first when he got closer to our position!