Tens of thousands of refugees begged for shelter and hundreds of international workers were evacuated from East Timor on Sunday as an army rebellion spilled over into gang violence and ethnic unrest in the capital, Dili.
Gangs armed with machetes, bows and arrows and slingshots roamed the streets while a 2 000-strong Australian-led peacekeeping force concentrated on calming incidents and confiscating firearms.
Dozens of homes and businesses were torched and plumes of smoke rose above the skyline, as gangs built makeshift barricades to mark out their territories. In the centre of the city men looted sacks of rice from a world food programme warehouse after breaking padlocks from its doors.
At least 27 people have been killed in the violence, the worst in the country since its 1999 independence vote from Indonesia. A Reuters reporter saw a group of around 20 youths beating a man to death with rocks and clubs in the doorway of a half-built house.
”He was setting fires,” one of the ringleaders said. Other reporters intervened to save the life of another man who had been set upon by a crowd who suspected him of hoarding weapons.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reported that at least 27 000 people were seeking shelter from the unrest. Julita Abuk (30) a refugee who escaped with her four children as her home was being destroyed, sat weeping at the airport. Her husband, a police commander, had been missing since a deadly shooting earlier in the week which killed 10 and wounded 29. ”Just a few minutes ago they burned down my house. My cousin was there making breakfast and there were men in military uniforms with guns setting the house on fire,” she said.
”We lost everything we have. I haven’t seen my husband since the incident.”
Hundreds of United Nations employees and 60 Filipinos were evacuated on Sunday, and China will fly out 200 of its citizens sheltering in its embassy today. Unrest has been rampant in East Timor since last month, when nearly half of the 1 400-strong army rebelled owing to pay disputes and ethnic tensions between troops from the west of the country and officers and political leaders from the east.
The 600 rebels have taken up positions in the hills surrounding Dili. Australian commanders cited the communal nature of the violence as the reason for tolerating some of the more low-level incidents. The Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, told ABC radio that the mission was ”trickier than some people think”.
One youth, who was manning a barricade on the main road leading from the airport, nonetheless seemed baffled. ”Why aren’t the Australians doing anything?” he said.
The tensions have exposed ethnic and political divisions that lay largely concealed during the country’s 24-year independence struggle against Indonesia, which invaded in 1975 after the withdrawal of Portuguese colonial rule.
Observers said the youth gangs in Dili appeared to be aligning themselves with either the ethnically western rebel soldiers or the eastern-dominated government. Tensions within the Fretilin party that dominates Timorese politics have also contributed to the violence.
On Saturday the Prime Minister, Mari Alkatiri, described the violence as ”an attempt to stage a coup d’état” and issued a veiled warning to the president, Xanana Gusmao, to ”respect the Constitution”.
Gusmao, who has near-godlike status within East Timor, is believed to be supporting the more conciliatory line of Alkatiri’s political opponents, who failed to dislodge him as Fretilin leader in a disputed vote last week.
The most prominent of those opponents, the Foreign Minister, Jose Ramos Horta, toured the deserted streets of Dili on Sunday in an attempt to calm the violent factions, accompanied by a bodyguard of Australian troops.
Many of those left behind in Dili crowded into churches where priests called for peace. ”In Jesus’s name, urge your brothers and cousins to stop the fighting,” said Father Antonio Gomez at Santo Carlo church in the city centre.
East Timor is one of the poorest countries in the world, although it is in the process of signing deals for its lucrative offshore natural gas deposits. – Guardian Unlimited Â