8 April 2008
1 Platoon, A Coy, 2/1 RNZIR under the leadership of Sergeant Dion Beker has recently undertaken operations in and around the Southern Timorese town of Suai, an area familiar to many serving and former NZDF personnel who served in Timor Leste with UNTAET between 1999 and 2002.
Only three members of the current 1 Platoon served in the Suai area as part of the UN forces from 1999 and for them the return to Suai has been an eagerly awaited part of their deployment to Timor Leste as part of the Australian led International Security Force (ISF).
The Kiwis were in Suai to undertake patrols and work with local community leaders as part of a broader ISF operation within the region to gather information on the activities of rebels.
Suai residents have fond memories of the New Zealanders deployed to the region under the UN mandate and welcomed the newest group to the area. Sergeant Beker and Corporal Norm ‘Roots’ Rutene served their first deployment in Suai with NZBATT 2 in 2000 and returned in 2002 when they were joined by Corporal Akuila ‘Cheech’ Wong.
Sergeant Beker said he and Corporals Wong and Rutene were pleased at the prospect of a return to Suai and had not been disappointed with the welcome they had received from locals.
“We were really looking forward to coming back to Suai and when we arrived we met a few of the locals who remember us. A lot of our old interpreters still live and work here, some as teachers, some as interpreters with the UN and UNPOL. Most of them seem to have five or six kids and have become pillars of the community, when they worked with us they were just teenagers so its really pleasing to see how their lives have developed”, said Sergeant Beker.
The site of the former NZBATT FOB on the outskirts of the town is now overgrown and un-used. The former headquarters building has been taken over by a local religious order and is in good condition, the only reminder of the once large Kiwi presence at the site is a battered sign attached to a tree with a list of exercises that one formed part of a PT circuit on the perimeter of the base.
Unfortunately the state of the former FOB is symptomatic of what Sergeant Beker and his platoon have found in Suai he says.
“The place seems a lot more overgrown than when we were first here. You don’t see many new buildings and a lot of the infrastructure has just been left and not maintained as well it could have been, coming back here after years away it is disappointing to see that.
“The population in the area seems a lot smaller than when we were here previously, there are definitely a lot less people in the Suai area now than there were when we were here with NZBATT.
“There was also more emphasis on schools in the NZBATT days, UNTAET were putting a lot of money into schools in this area. When the UN pulled out that money seems to have dried up and the students have left Suai to go through to Dili.
“However there is a new school close to our platoon base here and developments like that are pleasing to see”, said Sergeant Beker.