Damien Kingsbury – Australia's renewed intervention in East Timor will help defuse what was growing into an explosive situation, and which threatened the fledgling state.

There is little doubt that without intervention, the crisis would worsen. Not only were there almost 600 armed rebel soldiers, but East Timor's Opposition Leader, Fernando de Araujo, and his family, along with thousands of others, also escaped to the hills following last month's rioting.

This dispute has a political as well as a military dimension, and could have degenerated into civil war.

The main task now for Australian troops will be to contain the situation, provide security and disarm the rebel soldiers. To avoid open conflict, disarming the soldiers will require Australian troops to talk down the rebel troops, rather than force them down.

Despite Australia's previous culpable neglect and mistreatment of East Timor over the division of Timor Gap revenues, the Australian Army is liked and respected. If the rebel soldiers will listen to anyone, it will be to an Australian army officer.

To bring the rebels down, and others such as de Araujo, Australian soldiers will have to guarantee security to not only the Government, but also to the rebels. To this end, there will have to be agreement on some process of mediation, and an investigation into what led to this crisis.

Key contributors were the inflexibility of East Timor's Fretilin Government, especially by Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri and Home Affairs Minister Rogerio Lobato, and Australia's precipitous military withdrawal from East Timor.

The rebel soldiers are from the western command of the East Timor Defence Force and claimed that they had been discriminated against by their seniors and other colleagues. Having raised this issue, without a response from the Government, they went on strike. This was a mistake.

The Government ordered the soldiers back to barracks, they refused and were sacked. This was also a mistake. While a government may not tolerate striking soldiers, given East Timor's fragility it should have listened to the soldiers' grievances. When they went on strike, they should have again been offered the ear of the Government, along with the order to return.

The rebel soldiers claim the discrimination against them was based on allegations of some being close to former Indonesian militias and having links across the border to Indonesia. Some of these soldiers do have family and other links near and across the border, which artificially delineates common family and ethnic groups. Cross-border smuggling has also become rife.

That the Government failed to talk to the soldiers reflects poorly on Alkatiri and Lobato. The two have developed a reputation for dismissing expressions of concern, and treating harshly any reaction.

A more moderate move would have been for Alkatiri to call on popular President Xanana Gusmao to act as a mediator. However, Alkatiri and Gusmao have poor personal and political relations, and Alkatiri would be loath to see the ceremonial President take credit for fixing a problem he could not resolve. Gusmao was thus ignored, and this was also a mistake.

When the 600 rebel soldiers came to Dili last month, their protest turned into a deadly riot, in part because it was hijacked by others, including some from the organisation Colimau 2000. This organisation exists in a netherworld between politics and crime, includes former Indonesian army-backed militia members and is believed to have links to cross-border smuggling operations, which are controlled by the TNI.

East Timorese security forces are also alleged to have used excessive force against rioters, as well as more peaceful protesters, reflecting Alkatiri's hardline approach to dissent. The death toll from the riots was officially five, but there have been reports that many more were killed.

Beyond the Government's inadequate response to this growing crisis, the Australian Government also bears responsibility. Until the middle of last year, Australian soldiers were stationed in the area that the rebel soldiers come from.

The East Timor Government asked Australia for the soldiers to stay, at least as a nominal force. Australia refused, in part bowing to pressure from Indonesia to remove its military presence from the Indonesian border.

Yet had Australia kept some soldiers there, this problem may not have arisen. Australian troops ensured that cross-border smuggling was minimised, and advised East Timorese soldiers. They would have advised against strike action as being an inappropriate response by a military. And they could have provided a conduit for the rebel soldiers' complaints.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer now says that Australian soldiers will be in East Timor only until the job is done. This implies Australian soldiers will be withdrawn once this immediate problem is tackled.

What this approach fails to note, however, is that East Timor will continue to face internal difficulties, and will require a continuing if nominal Australian military presence for the long term until these difficulties are addressed.

Australia has a moral obligation to support East Timor as a good international citizen and as a major regional power. It also has a debt to pay for ignoring the plight of East Timor, and the deaths of some 180,000 people, until 1999.

Australia is right to send soldiers following an official request, to help stabilise the situation in East Timor. It should not be pressured into again taking them out too soon.

[Associate Professor Damien Kingsbury is director of the masters degree in international and community development at Deakin University, and has written on East Timor's security issues.]