East Timor’s Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri, widely blamed for triggering last month’s bloody unrest, resigned on Monday in a move expected to ease tensions in the impoverished nation.
The announcement sparked jubilation on the streets of the violence-hit capital Dili, where truckloads of protestors cruised the streets waving red, yellow and black East Timorese flags with horns blaring.
The premier had faced demands to quit since late May, when clashes between police and army factions and mob violence killed 21 people and forced nearly 150 000 to flee their homes.
More than 2 200 foreign peacekeepers were deployed to restore order but political leaders have since wrangled over how to move forward.
The pressure was cranked up last week when President Xanana Gusmao, a hero of East Timor’s independence movement, ordered Alkatiri to resign to take responsibility for the crisis. He threatened to resign if Alkatiri would not.
Alkatiri faced the press on Monday, telling reporters: ”I declare I am ready to resign my position as prime minister of the government … so as to avoid the resignation of his excellency the president of the republic”.
”Assuming my own share of responsibility for the crisis affecting our country, I am determined not to contribute to any deepening of the crisis,” he said, adding that he would stay on as a member of Parliament.
”I am ready to dialogue with … the president in order to contribute if necessary to the formation of an interim government,” he said.
Alkatiri did not take questions and it was not immediately clear whether any formal steps needed to be taken to finalise his departure.
On the streets, crowds cheered and sang.
”He had no interest in the people’s suffering,” said 25-year-old Cabut, who carried a shackled monkey bearing the sign ”Alkatiri”.
”Like the monkey, he didn’t have a mind,” Cabut quipped.
Rosario Bragaza (24) a passenger in one of the trucks, was equally pleased.
”We’re so happy that he has stepped down. He gave out weapons to the people to kill others and he divided the country into two halves,” he said, referring to allegations that Alkatiri assented to having a hit squad formed to kill his opponents.
An Australian documentary purporting to show evidence of Alkatiri’s involvement triggered Gusmao’s initial demand that the premier step down.
Alkatiri has denied the accusations and East Timor’s prosecutor-general has said he has no evidence of his involvement.
The former interior minister has been charged over distributing the arms.
The prime minister is also accused of triggering last month’s unrest by dismissing some 600 deserting soldiers in March.
The soldiers — nearly half the fledgling nation’s armed forces — had complained of discrimination against those from the west of the country.
Alkatiri initially rebuffed Gusmao’s demands. His Fretilin party on Sunday refused to withdraw support for him, sparking the resignation of three ministers, including foreign and defence minister Jose Ramos-Horta.
Ramos-Horta, a Nobel peace prize winner, is a respected figure in East Timor and was the international face of its decades-long struggle for independence from Indonesia.
Gusmao led the guerrilla resistance on the ground while Alkatiri’s Fretilin — which still commands an easy majority in Parliament, with 55 of 88 seats — was the political wing of the movement.
Australia, which has nearly 1 500 troops in East Timor, warned before Alkatiri’s resignation was announced that a new wave of violence could hit the young nation if political wrangling continued.
The United Nations also issued an appeal shortly before the announcement to both Alkatiri and Gusmao to ensure their supporters exercised restraint. – Sapa-AFP