East Timor’s capital was returning to normal on Friday after Australian troops took to the streets to restore order and stop bloody clashes between the Timorese military and rebel soldiers.
One day after some of the worst violence since independence in 2002 left at least 15 people dead, residents of Dili began leaving their houses and some shops, which had been closed for security fears, started to re-open.
Foreign Minister Jose Ramos-Horta announced that the Australian force, which had been invited in to help, had been put in charge of security in Dili after troops had secured the city’s international airport.
Black Hawk helicopters flew over Dili and armoured personnel carriers rumbled through the streets. Groups of youths, in a gesture of peace, handed out miniature East Timorese flags.
”Now the Australian troops are the ones holding the reins of security,” Horta told Agence France-Presse.
”There are still some isolated incidents, some of them serious, in some suburbs,” he told Lisbon-based Radio Renascenca.
”But at the end of the day the Australian contingent, whose numbers are rising quickly to reach 1 300, will start to patrol the streets of Dili and I think the thugs behind the violence will be detained or removed from the city.”
The troubles began last month after 600 of the 1 400 soldiers in the Timorese army were sacked after going on strike to protest what they said was discrimination against troops from the east of the country.
Sporadic clashes escalated this week with gangs roaming the streets and both sides opening fire on each other. Horta asked Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand and Portugal to send police or troops, and all four nations agreed.
The first Australian contingent arrived on Thursday, and Malaysian troops were seen at the airport on Friday morning.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard took pains to underline that his soldiers had been invited by the government but signalled that he was unhappy with how one of the world’s newest and poorest nations was being run.
”I’ve watched a deteriorating situation in East Timor for some months,” Howard said. ”The way in which the country has been governed in the last few years has left a lot to be desired.”
Thousands of people were taking shelter in schools, convents and other makeshift refugee camps, while foreigners continued their exodus from the country.
Chinese nationals and ethnic-Chinese Timorese queued for visas at the Australian embassy in a bid to escape the chaos.
An AFP reporter saw a plane of Westerners getting ready to depart in mid-afternoon — many of them joking with Australian troops in a sign that the mood had lightened since Thursday.
In the worst reported attack, Timorese soldiers opened fire on unarmed police after a stand-off, killing nine and wounding another 27, said Sukehiro Hasegawa, who heads the United Nations mission in the country.
Meanwhile an AFP reporter visited a burnt-out house where five women and a child were killed overnight on the city’s outskirts. Residents said a gang had doused the house with petrol and set it ablaze.
The acting Australian commander in East Timor, Lieutenant Colonel Michael Mumford, said his troops would not hesitate to use force if required but that their main task was to help the two sides to negotiate.
Timorese Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri said the clashes between security forces and the disgruntled soldiers amounted to an attempted coup.
But the rebel leader, Major Alfredo Reinado, said on Thursday that his fighters did not want to topple the government and would not give the Australian forces any trouble.
”I’m with Australia. I’m with peacekeeping forces. I’m ready to cooperate with them based on any agreement that will be reached by our president,” Reinado said.
New Zealand said it is sending 60 police and soldiers, Malaysia pledged 500 and Portugal, which colonised East Timor for four centuries until 1975 when the territory was taken over by Indonesia, was sending 120 paramilitary police. — AFP
