Australia answers East Timor's plea for help (Roundup)

Feb 12, 2008, 18:26 GMT

Australian peacekeeping soldiers patrol a street in Dili, East Timor, 12 February 2008, to help enforce a state of emergency. East Timor\'s interim president Vicente Guterres declared a state of emergency and appealed for calm, after apparently coordinated attacks against President Jose Ramos-Horta and Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao threw the young nation into a fresh crisis. EPA/ANTONIO DASIPARU

Sydney - A fresh wave of Australian troops landed in East Timor on Tuesday with a mandate to round up rebel soldiers who lost their leader in a failed attempt to assassinate the troubled country's two top leaders.

As C-130 Hercules transport planes hit the tarmac at Comoro Airport in the East Timor capital Dili, doctors in a Darwin hospital said President Jose Ramos-Horta should fully recover from the gunshot wounds he sustained in what Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao said was a 'coup attempt against the state.'

Gusmao was himself also targeted by rebels loyal to the slain Major Alfredo Reinado but escaped unharmed when his car came under fire in Monday morning's twin assassination attempts.

Ramos-Horta was operated on for three hours after being flown from Dili to the northern Australian city of Darwin.

'I expect that he's quite resilient and I expect that recovery would be a full recovery,' Royal Darwin Hospital head Len Notaris said. 'He remains in intensive care and will remain there until at least Thursday this week on a ventilator.'

The 58-year-old Nobel laureate took at least two bullets and needed a transfusion of eight litres of blood before his medical evacuation to Darwin. He is in an induced coma, but Notaris said he would breathe unassisted if taken off the ventilator.

Vicente Gutterres was named Acting President and declared a state of emergency in a nationally televised address.

'Our country is right now in an extraordinary situation where a state of emergency will bring us back to normality. I ask for your help,' Gutterres said.

Gusmao, who called in additional troops from Australia, appealed to the remnants of Reinado's renegade army to give themselves up.

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who despatched 190 soldiers and police to bolster its East Timor security force to almost 1,000, confirmed reports from Dili that the city was calm, that peacekeepers had control of the streets, and that the feared backlash by supporters of Reinado had not transpired.

Rudd, who will visit Dili by the end of the week, said the Australian warship HMAS Perth was already at anchor off Dili with its full complement of 150 sailors.

Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith, who met with his East Timor counterpart Zacharias da Costa in Darwin, said there was a core group of around 25 rebels and the fresh troops would go after them.

'It may well be necessary for that additional complement to be used to effectively round up Reinado's supporters,' Smith said. 'We would hope that, given that the rogue ringleader is now dead, there may be some peaceful and amicable way of his supporters returning to the fold or at least handing in their arms.'

Ramos-Horta shared the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize with compatriot Bishop Carlos Belo for leading the diplomatic campaign for freedom. Indonesia invaded the former Portuguese colony in 1975 and its occupation continued until 1999, when Australia led an international force that helped guide East Timor to full independence in 2002.