East Timor president takes emergency powers

The president of East Timor took direct control of the country's armed forces on May 30 after a week of looting, arson and killing which has forced the intervention of international peacekeepers. Xanana Gusmao, a former guerrilla leader, said he was taking responsibility for the nation's security and would coordinate with the 2,500 Australian-led force that arrived last week. The country was in a "state of grave crisis," he told reporters. The unrest began last month when Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri sacked nearly 600 soldiers, or about 40 percent of the armed forces, after they protested over alleged discrimination against soldiers from the west of the country. When the armed forces were created, the senior officers were appointed from the guerrilla movement that had battled the Indonesian military for 24 years. Most of them were from the easternmost part of the country, where the insurgency had been strongest. For balance, recruits were drawn from the western portion of East Timor, but they went largely into the lower ranks. Complaints of discrimination soon surfaced. In January, about 400 westerners in the armed forces signed a petition alleging discrimination and poor treatment. When they were ignored, they took their complaints to the streets the next month, demonstrating outside the office of President Xanana Gusmao. "We asked the military institution to solve our problem and pay attention to our complaints. They did not listen," Lt. Gastao Salsinha, leader of the dissident soldiers, said in a telephone interview from the remote district where he is now in hiding. "Instead, they gave weapons to people in order to eliminate those of us who brought the petition." Rather than addressing the grievances, which included discontent over pay, living conditions and the deployment of troops far from their families in the west, the military in March dismissed nearly 600 western soldiers. "We decided they were deserters," a senior army officer said as he sat under a tree at a base outside Dili. He asked not be identified out of fear for his family's safety. "If there was discrimination, they should resolve it within the military institution and not jump and go straight to the president and foreign embassies. We felt so ashamed." The dismissed soldiers and their supporters staged a second demonstration in late April that culminated in clashes outside the Palácio do Governo. The police fled, and the army was called in. By the end of the day, at least five from the dissident camp had been killed and rumors of a far larger number of killings swept the capital. Sporadic attacks between the two sides descended into all-out street violence as gangs clashed with whatever weapons they had–including machetes, slingshots and bows and arrows. This past week, gangs burned buildings near the airport in East Timor's capital despite patrols by foreign peacekeepers, while residents pleaded for a permanent police presence in their neighborhoods to stop the violence. Foreign peacekeepers arrived last week after the government realized it was unable to end the violence. Most of the gun battles have been halted but arson, gang fights and looting continue. The latest attacks exposed the limits on what the peacekeepers can do to curb the unrest. Malaysian soldiers kicked down doors in the search for suspects who tried to burn a building. Minutes after the troops left, a gang set fire to an adjacent row of houses. The fire spread to power lines and a tree, and armored personnel carriers rumbled back. Peacekeepers have confiscated hundreds of weapons and temporarily detained people involved in the violence. Yet they have refrained from firing their weapons and have often driven by scenes of looting or vandalism without intervening. "If they come, it's OK," resident Zeca Godinho said of the peacekeepers as a building burned nearby. "But then they leave, and it starts again." Attempts to halt the rioting in East Timor suffered a blow on June 1 when the leader of the rebel soldiers demanded that the prime minister, Mari Alkatiri, be put on trial for ordering troops to fire on civilians. Alkatiri, who commands little support outside the political elite, refused to quit, saying he was the person needed to pull the country out of lawlessness. He can be ousted only by parliament, which is dominated by his Fretilin party. The international effort to create this new nation of about 900,000 people was unprecedented. Since 1999, the UN and foreign governments have rebuilt a country where about three-quarters of the houses, schools and other buildings had been destroyed in militia violence. International agencies extended basic health care, education, electricity and other services across remote districts. The United Nations took the lead in building government ministries and agencies from scratch, including the courts and national police, by providing training, equipment and advice. East Timor had been the model for UN nation-building, hailed as an example of a modern state raised literally from ashes with the help of international cash and expertise. The island had been left devastated by Indonesian-backed militias, which went on a rampage of burning and looting after the East Timorese voted to break away.