A wild land lies in wait for the troops of Victor Company

By Greg Ansley

DARWIN - The news from Dili was not good: more shootings, signs of stiffening resolve among the militia hard-core that fled to West Timor as UN peacemakers flooded in, refugees picking their way back through the ruins of a city stripped of everything needed to sustain life.

Major John Howard, preparing to lead New Zealand's Victor Company into what remains of East Timor, stands with his Steyr rifle under the relentless 32-degree heat of a Darwin afternoon and reflects on his homeland.

"As a New Zealander [East Timor] really makes you praise your lucky stars for where you came from, and what you have to go home to."

Yesterday, Major Howard flew to Dili to prepare for the arrival of his troops, who will work initially with Australian paratroopers in an operation that has blended Anzacs and Nepalese Gurkhas with soldiers from France, the Philippines, Thailand and a dozen other nations.

Unlike the situation with Vietnam, in which several of Victor Company's fathers served, the Timor force has left New Zealand with overwhelming public support.

After the formality of Prime Minister Jenny Shipley's farewell, Major Howard sat back to read the 200-odd faxes of support circulating around the RNZAF Boeing 727 that flew them to Darwin.

His favourite read: "I'm one of the people who used to say, 'Why have an army?' Now I feel guilty."

In the seats behind, Renata Taru, a 26-year-old corporal from Levin, fought back tears as he read another, signed with a happy face, from a 10-year-old girl: "Give it your best. Godspeed."

Corporal Taru prepares for Timor with feelings torn between duty and the adrenalin of active service, and the stabbing sadness of leaving wife Onagh and son Kade, just 21/2 months old.

"As a soldier leaving was not hard," he says. "As a husband and father it was very, very hard."

Within a week or so, when Victor Company has acclimatised to the searing heat and humidity of the tropics, Corporal Taru will lead his section through the devastation of Dili and into the tangled and mountainous country beyond.

At a briefing by Major John Knight, one of New Zealand's military liaison officers who withstood the brutality of the militias after East Timor voted for independence, the soldiers faced the reality of the country they would police.

It is a wild land: towns have been razed and depopulated; much of the rural population has fled or been forced from its farms; thugs still roam streets and forests; across the border militia leaders are flexing for protracted war; in the mountains pro-independence Fretilin guerrillas bide their time, refusing to give any excuse for Indonesia to discard its agreement to abide by the referendum outcome.

Outside the towns primary rainforest blankets the hills, and much of the company's remote work will be on foot.

There will be no rain for another month, but temperatures of up to 33 degrees will drench Victor Company with humidity of 90 to 95 per cent.

For at least four months their job will be to secure whatever part of East Timor they are assigned to pacify and allow aid agencies to pump in the food, clothing, medical care and other essentials desperately needed by a displaced population that must also be moved back to where its homes used to be.

But in the town of Atambua, across the border in Indonesian West Timor, a new alliance this week emerged to threaten the long-term future of the new nation.

Militia leaders fled there as peacemakers arrived in force, and have set up a united political front for what they promise will be an extended guerrilla war to claim back the eight western regions of East Timor for Indonesia.

Among them are Enrico Guterres, Olivio Moruk and Cancio De Cavalhio, whose militias were responsible with Aitarak, Dili's biggest, for most of the terror.

With them have gone the 3 per cent that formed the hard core of the militias, many of them former members of the Indonesian special forces, and all with the open backing of TNI, the Indonesian Army.

It is feared that they will be supported and supplied by the TNI in a guerrilla campaign. The militiamen left behind are a mixed mob of diverse motivation, violence and determination. The greatest brutality and destruction was carried out by splinter groups from long-established militias, who press-ganged the bulk of their members into joining the terror.

Reluctant militiamen are expected to melt back into the life of East Timor.

Others may cause sporadic violence, wait for new commands from their leaders across the border, or provide intelligence and support for West Timor-based guerrillas or covert TNI operations.

As Major Knight told Victor Company: "This is not a walk down Queen St."