The U.N. Mission of Support in East Timor (UNMISET) should stay put for another year but be dramatically reduced from almost 3,000 civilian and military personnel to 700 while the country becomes self-sufficient, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said yesterday in a new report to the Security Council.

"Where so much has been achieved so quickly, there is good reason to believe that a further joint effort by the leadership of Timor-Leste and the international community will enable the Timorese people to reach the objective of a truly self-sufficient state that they have pursued with such determination," Annan said.

He recommended that the UNMISET contingent include 58 civilian experts in public administration and the judiciary, retain 310 troops and 157 civilian police advisers, and deploy an international response unit of 125 armed police, as well as 42 military liaison officers (U.N. release, May 3).

Annan's recommendation is in line with those of a U.N. Department of Peacekeeping Operations inspection team that assessed East Timor in January and suggested a "smaller, more compact" mission but not total withdrawal (U.N. Wire, Jan. 15).

Prominent UNMISET contributor Australia today welcomed Annan's recommendation, and said it was ready to continue sending police and soldiers to the peace mission, due to end May 20.

"We welcome the secretary general's recommendation to extend the mission through 2005," said a spokesman for Foreign Minister Alexander Downer. "We've notably been in favor of a police emphasis in the mission rather than military and this is why we're very pleased to see the inclusion of an international response unit of 125 gendarmes in the proposal," he added.

Informal discussions with the United Nations will determine exactly what role Australia will play in the mission should a resolution honoring Annan's recommendation be passed, but in any event Australia will remain "a lead contributor of military and police personnel," the spokesman said (Agence France-Presse, May 4).

Australia's contingent of 440 troops to the force would be cut, however, Downer said, although no decision has been made on how much smaller it would be.

After the East Timorese voted for independence in 1999, sparking an Indonesian military killing spree that claimed 1,500 Timorese lives, the United Nations administered the territory for 2 1/2 years before handed it over to the Timorese on May 20, 2002 (Mike Corder, Associated Press, May 4).

About 1,650 peacekeeping troops, 300 civilian police and 1,000 civilian personnel are currently in East Timor (Traci Hukill, U.N. Wire, May 4).

East Timor's response to Annan's recommendation remains to be seen. In February East Timorese Foreign Minister Jose Ramos-Horta asked the Security Council not to withdraw peacekeepers too quickly when UNMISET's current mandate expires, because, he said, a "police force does not have the same credibility as a foreign military unit" (U.N. Wire, Feb. 23).

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