By DPA
Wellington : New Zealand put additional troops on standby to deploy to East Timor if the security situation worsens in the wake of the attempted assassination of President Jose Ramos-Horta, Defence Minister Phil Goff said Monday.
Prime Minister Helen Clark said she was “deeply distressed” to hear of the attack and hoped the surgery Ramos-Horta was reported to undergo in Australia would be successful.
She told her weekly news conference the attempted murder underlined the fragile situation and appealed to the people of East Timor to be calm.
New Zealand has about 180 army and air force personnel in East Timor as part of the Australian-led International Security Force, and 25 policemen with a United Nations policing mission.
Another platoon of about 35 troops has reportedly been put on alert in case of a new outbreak of violence, which New Zealand officials fear could occur when news that rebel leader Alfredo Reinado was shot dead by Ramos-Horta’s bodyguards gets around the bitterly divided Asian country.
“The fact that the attacks took place simultaneously suggest that this was a pre-organised event, and we don’t know yet the people that are responsible for it, but it is of course suspected that it may be those who were loyal to Major Reinado,” Goff said.
He said he had been told that Dili was calm, but there could be reaction once word of Reinado’s death spread.