The backyard

Australia has done well, but Asia needs a posse, not just a lonely sheriff

AP

ANOTHER week, another failing Pacific state: Australia must be wearying of the troubles in its backyard. This time it is Timor-Leste, or East Timor as it was until recently known.

On May 25th John Howard, Australia's prime minister, ordered 150 soldiers to be sent to his tiny neighbour, a half-island that broke away from Indonesia in 1999 after 24 years of brutal occupation and has been chaotically misgoverned ever since. Its latest troubles (see article) have been caused by the mutiny of close to half its army, and compounded by a breakdown in the relationship between its president and its prime minister. By the end of the same day, Mr Howard had increased Australia's contingent to some 1,300: 500 Malaysians and some New Zealanders and Portuguese have arrived too. But the situation on the ground has kept getting worse. On May 30th Xanana Gusmão, the president and former guerrilla leader, invoked emergency powers to take command of the army and the police out of the hands of the prime minister, Mari Alkatiri, who is generally reckoned to be incompetent but who refuses to resign. Some 2,000 Australians have now been deployed. (...)"
(The Economist)

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