DILI (AFP) – Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd touched down in East Timor Friday for a lightning visit designed to show support for the tiny nation’s government after the shooting of its president this week.
President Jose Ramos-Horta was shot in the chest and back on Monday, forcing his evacuation to Australia for life-saving medical treatment, while Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao came under fire separately but was not harmed.
The commander of Australian-led peacekeepers here, Brigadier General James Baker, greeted Rudd along with East Timor’s finance minister Emilia Pires. Rudd, who approved the deployment of an additional 350 Australian troops in the wake of the attacks, was to hold meetings with Gusmao, acting president Fernando de Araujo and head of the opposition Fretilin party Mari Alkatiri.
He was also due to tour the base of the Australian-led International Stabilisation Forces before departing at 12:30 pm (0530 GMT), officials said. Timor’s foreign minister Zacarias da Costa said in a statement released late Thursday that the visit was “very important”.
“It is in difficult times that we can see who is our friend and in difficult times, the Australian prime minister himself wants to come to Timor-Leste to lend his solidarity and support to the government, to all Timorese,” he said.
Timor-Leste is the young nation’s official name. Rudd said in Canberra on Thursday that Australians were “deeply disturbed” at what he called the attempted assassination of Ramos-Horta and Gusmao. “We want to play our part in ensuring security and stability, and restate our support for long term economic growth and development in East Timor,” he said.
Ramos-Horta, who has undergone three operations and been placed in an induced coma following the attack, is recuperating in hospital in the Australian city of Darwin. Rudd travelled to Dili as an opposition frontbencher after gang violence wracked the city in 2006, leading to the original deployment of peacekeepers as well as UN police who are still on patrol here.