Australia — Change of Command in East Timor

The Com­man­der of the Inter­na­tion­al Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Force (ISF) in East Tim­or, Colonel Simon Stu­art, con­clud­ed his eight month deploy­ment pass­ing com­mand of the joint Aus­tralian and New Zealand force to Colonel Mick Reil­ly last Sat­ur­day.

Colonel Stu­art praised mem­bers of the ISF and reflect­ed on the improve­ments he has seen in East Timor. 

“I am real­ly proud of the ANZAC team who com­prise the ISF, for all of their ded­i­ca­tion and hard work over the past eight months. They have been qui­et achiev­ers and have done a ster­ling job by any mea­sure,” said Colonel Stuart. 

“Much of their work will have endur­ing effects for the peo­ple and Gov­ern­ment of East Tim­or who are enjoy­ing the ben­e­fits of a last­ing peri­od of stability.” 

“East Tim­or con­tin­ues to face many chal­lenges, but we need to recog­nise that there is progress being made all the time in this young nation.” 

“In our work with the Defence Coop­er­a­tion Pro­gram along­side the F‑FDTL (the Defence Force of East Tim­or) we have seen encour­ag­ing progress, par­tic­u­lar­ly in terms of plan­ning capac­i­ty. I think there is a real sense of hope for the future here,” said Colonel Stuart. 

The new Com­man­der, Colonel Reil­ly, said he is look­ing for­ward to con­tin­u­ing the effec­tive work of the pre­vi­ous ISF rotations. 

Through­out Octo­ber over half of the 400 Aus­tralian troops in East Tim­or will be replaced after suc­cess­ful­ly sup­port­ing the Gov­ern­ment of East Tim­or and the Unit­ed Nations in main­tain­ing a sta­ble and secure envi­ron­ment for the ongo­ing devel­op­ment of the country. 

The depart­ing troops arrived in the ISF between Feb­ru­ary and June 2010 and include mem­bers from the 8th/9th Bat­tal­ion, The Roy­al Aus­tralian Reg­i­ment, Sig­nals and Com­bat Sup­port units and mem­bers of the Roy­al Aus­tralian Navy and Air Force. 

The troops will be replaced by the same num­ber of per­son­nel from the ADF, includ­ing the Army Reserve, main­ly from 11 Brigade based in Queensland. 

The ISF will main­tain a rapid response capac­i­ty dur­ing the changeover of per­son­nel that can be deployed through­out East Tim­or if sig­nif­i­cant civ­il dis­tur­bances were to occur. 

Press release
Min­is­te­r­i­al Sup­port and Pub­lic Affairs,
Depart­ment of Defence,
Can­ber­ra, Australia 

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