NEW ZEALAND WILL CONTINUE TO SUPPORT TIMOR-LESTE

Dili, 3 February 2004
The Honorable Phil Goff, the New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, left to Bali today to attend Bali Ministerial Meeting after three days visit in Timor-Leste.

The Hon. Phil Goff had visited Timor-Leste when UNAMNET exercised here in 1999, as an observer for the election process. He was impressed with the progress that Timor-Leste has made but he was aware of the very big challenges in terms education, health, un employment and the building process for the new nation.

Speaking to the journalists at the VIP room, International Airport of Nicolao Lobato before departure he said “New Zealand has a significant contributed to Timor-Leste up to 830 troops and big contribution to the peace keeping force over the three years period. Today we still have small number of troops that under the United Nations working with the Falintil, Timor-Leste Defense Force”, said The Honorable Phil Goff, the New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

The other discussion focused on during his visit is the need for the successor mission following the end of the UNMISET mandate of the 20 of May 2004. New Zealand will be promoting in New York for the continuation of a down side peace keeping force and advisory groups to assist with the stable transition for Timor-Leste and to ensure that capacity building is still in place for the time that Timor-Leste needs it.

“ Yesterday I traveled to Oecusse and Balibo, Oecusse because obviously issues of border security are going to be very sensitive area and to giving the idea of the land which the border control unit operating and to get the sense of what people of Oecusse felt about the needs or some ongoing international presences. Oecusse is a main part of Timor-Leste and there is general desire that some international people should continue to be presence in Timor-Leste for the next year” added the Hon. Phil Goff.

In Balibo he visited the house where the television news people where killed in 1975, which reminds us that justice still has not been done for to hold the account the perpetrators of the murder occurred in October 1975.

New Zealand supports the continuation of work of the Serious Crimes Unit for a far year and we also will be speaking in favor of that in New York. We also support strongly the CAVR.