The rationale for the lifting of the embargo is that Indonesia's transition to a democratically elected government is now complete. But the move flies in the face of all prevailing evidence of the military's role in violence in East Timor last year. The military and its militias are terrorizing over 100,000 East Timorese refugees still trapped and living in appalling conditions on the border of West and East Timor. In the border enclave of Oecussi, leader of the peacekeeping force Peter Cosgrove has accused the area's Indonesian regional commander, Lieutenant-Colonel Manuel Maneral, of having links with local militia leader Moko Soares.
Tensions remain high as militias have threatened locals and the peacekeepers.
500 Jordanian peacekeepers are to replace the Australians in the area. Jordanians are immensely unpopular in East Timor because of the close relationship between former Indonesian Special Forces chief General Prabowo and the King of Jordan. In the early 1990s Prabowo directed a terror campaign against villages supposedly harbouring pro-independence guerrillas. Jos Ramos Horta describes sending Jordanian troops with links to Prabowo to guard Oecussi as 'like sending wolves to guard the chickens'. But it is not just East and West Timor that feels the brunt of a military now bolstered by EU arms.