Protesters Press Demand for Removal of Foreign Troops After Raid on Rebel Hideout
Associated Press
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
DILI, East Timor, March 5 -- East Timor's president invoked emergency powers on Monday to quell unrest after hundreds of young men demanding a withdrawal of foreign troops blockaded roads with burning tires and concrete blocks. The United States issued a travel warning, and Australia said it would evacuate nonessential government workers.
Security in the tiny Asian nation deteriorated after international forces backed by helicopters launched a pre-dawn raid Sunday on the mountain hideout of a fugitive rebel leader. Four rebels were killed in the raid, and others fled into the surrounding jungle.
The rebel leader, Alfredo Reinado, a former military police commander wanted on murder charges, was among those who escaped. He is believed to be heavily armed.
"The state will use all legal means, including force, to stop violence and prevent destruction of property and killing, and to restore law and order," President Xanana Gusmao said in a national address. Gusmao gave peacekeepers and police the power to break up public gatherings and carry out arrests and searches without warrants.
Much of the recent anger has been directed at Australian troops, who killed two Timorese men in a clash last month and led the deadly raid against Reinado. Protesters hurling rocks demanded Monday that international forces go home.
"The situation in Dili is tense," said U.N. police spokeswoman Monica Rodrigues. "There are many groups, the majority of them youths, demonstrating in support of Alfredo."
Hundreds of his backers blocked roads across the capital, one holding a banner that said, "We, the young people, are prepared to die alongside Alfredo."
Reinado is not a major player in East Timor politics, but he appears to have gained some popular support recently because he refused to surrender to Australian peacekeepers.
Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said nonessential government staff would be evacuated and that Australians were at a greater risk of being attacked after last month's shootings.
"The security situation is volatile and there is a high risk of violent civil unrest," he said in a statement.
Downer renewed calls for Reinado to surrender, saying that Australian forces would capture him if he did not.
The United States has advised its citizens to avoid the town of Same, about 30 miles south of Dili, where the raid was conducted.
Reinado, an army major who broke ranks last year and led a force of 20 heavily armed dissident soldiers into the hills, escaped from jail in August. He threatened to launch a campaign against the government after Sunday's raid, according to one of his aides, Gastao Salsinha.
East Timor, which broke from Indonesia in 1999 after 24 years of occupation, won formal independence in 2002.
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