Australian troops fired teargas at rampaging gangs in East Timor on Monday, trying to keep a lid on violence as the tiny nation’s Parliament met for the first time since peacekeepers were deployed.
Youths attacked each other with rocks and spanners and used petrol bombs to set houses ablaze in clashes near Dili’s Comoro Bridge, an area surrounded by slums, which has been a flashpoint during weeks of unrest in the city.
Australian troops moved in with armoured personnel carriers and fired volleys of teargas as Black Hawk helicopters hovered in the air, causing the fighters to scatter.
One man was beaten in the face with a rock when he was set upon by a mob as he was cycling to his home. His jaw swollen and his shirt spattered with blood.
”They asked me ‘where do you come from?’,” Paulino Bianco said, as he was treated by an Australian medic. ”When I told them, they attacked me.”
As the violence simmered, parliamentary official Fransisco Guterres revealed that only 50 of the country’s 87 MPs had arrived at the building for the legislature’s crisis meetings.
”Those who did not attend said they could not because of security reasons,” Guterres told Agence France-Presse.
Guterres said the politicians who did turn up had discussed the nation’s crisis and endorsed President Xanana Gusmao’s decision last week to exercise emergency powers giving him sole control of the military for 30 days.
They also considered the 2006-07 budget, which Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri said last week would include spending to improve conditions in Asia’s poorest nation.
An estimated 100, 00 people have fled their homes to makeshift refugee camps to escape the violence, which has heightened tensions between Timorese from the east and west of the country and raised fears of civil war.
The violence began two months ago after Alkatiri sacked 600 of the country’s 1 400-strong army after they went on strike to protest what they said was discrimination against those from the west of the country.
Westerners are generally seen as more pro-Indonesia, a sensitive issue in a country that fought a long and bloody guerrilla campaign, led by Gusmao, to win independence from its much larger neighbour.
Alkatiri has been blamed for much of the chaos but has resisted calls to resign, and Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer on Sunday warned against moves to try to topple him.
Australia is leading an international force of around 2 250 troops trying to restore order to the country, but more Asian nations are expected to join efforts to quell the violence, Australia’s Defence Minister Brendan Nelson said on Monday.
”I would be reasonably confident that we will see other nations choosing to join the coalition of support,” Nelson told national radio.
He declined to name any of the countries that might send troops.
”I don’t think it’s appropriate. It’s entirely a matter for the East Timorese government.”
Australian commander on the ground, Brigadier Mick Slater, said the level of violence was steady and that more police were needed.
”If we look at the number of lootings and burnings and gang fights, the numbers are not going up,” Slater said.
”What we need are police who know how to get these people off the streets and lock them up.”
The first-aid flights since the crisis began started touching down on Monday, bringing tents, tarpaulins and jerry-cans for those who have taken refuge in the camps.
The United Nations World Food Programme also began distributing rice, sugar and other essential goods.
Ariane Rummery, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, said her agency was in contact with the international force over concerns about the camps, including worries that the violence on the streets could spread to them.
”We’re trying to relieve the congestion in the camps, they’re just too crowded. People are living cheek to jowl,” she told AFP.
”These conditions just exacerbate tensions and hopefully we can relieve them with these supplies.” — AFP
