• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

International Troops Arrive in East Timor

Posted on: Thursday, 25 May 2006, 06:00 CDT

By GUIDO GUILLIARD

DILI, East Timor - Fierce gunbattles raged in East Timor's capital Thursday, killing at least three people and wounding more than a dozen, as international troops started arriving in the tiny nation to help quell a rebellion by disgruntled ex-soldiers.

Hundreds of cheering East Timorese citizens, some crying and shouting "Thank God," welcomed the first planeload of 130 Australian commandos at Dili's international airport.

"Welcome Aussie soldiers, please help us once again," said Judit Isaac, a 47-year-old housewife as the troops fanned out to secure the airport.

Meanwhile, firefights between the country's 800-member army and a band of about 600 dismissed soldiers erupted for a third day in several areas around Dili - including near President Xanana Gusmao's office and the United Nations compound where scores of residents sought refuge.

Homes and business were torched, with plumes of smoke rising over virtually deserted streets.

Two former soldiers and an army captain were killed in the latest round of fighting, said the military and Letnan Gastao Salsinha, a spokesman for the ex-soldiers. Fourteen ex-soldiers were wounded, as was a South Korean bystander who was shot in the neck.

The death toll in this week's unrest stood at five.

East Timor, the world's youngest nation, has been plagued by unrest since March when more than 40 percent of its armed forces were fired after going on strike to protest alleged discrimination in the military. Some hard-liners fled the capital last month after participating in deadly riots, threatening guerrilla warfare from surrounding hillsides if they were not reinstated.

The fighting - the worst to hit East Timor since the violence surrounding its bloody break with Indonesia in 1999 - prompted the government to ask for international troops earlier this week.

Australia, which led a U.N.-military force into East Timor after Indonesian troops and their militia proxies went on a rampage six years ago killing 1,500 people, said it will send up to 1,300 troops, ships, helicopters and armored personnel carriers to the country.

"Given the deterioration, we will go ahead without any conditionality with the full deployment and the 1,300 will be in place in a very short order," Australian Prime Minister John Howard told reporters in Canberra, Australia. "I have little doubt that once all of our forces are there, there will be significant return of stability and normality."

New Zealand said it was sending 60 police and soldiers Thursday. Portugal - which colonized East Timor for four centuries, until 1975 - also agreed to send troops, as did Malaysia.

The commander of the renegade forces - whom East Timor's top military chief said he wants captured dead or alive - said bringing in peacekeepers was the only way to prevent civil war.

"This is the only solution," Maj. Alfredo Reinado, commander of the 600-strong breakaway force, said in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp. "There is no other way, or it will be war forever. The government has taken too long. It is not capable of resolving this."

Preparing for the worst, dozens of foreigners fled the country, including 40 Australian embassy staff and their families. The U.S. Embassy has also ordered the evacuation of all nonessential personal and advised American citizens in the country to leave.

"I feel horrible, like a rat deserting a sinking ship," said Australian Margaret Hall, who arrived several months ago with an organization that is helping provide maternal and child health care and was waiting for a flight out Thursday. "But I'm confident we'll be back."

At the heart of the conflict are the former soldiers' claims they were being discriminated against because they came from the west of the small country, while the military leadership hails from the east.

Indonesia ruled East Timor with an iron fist for 24 years. Human rights groups say as many as 200,000 were killed under its occupation.

---

Associated Press Writer Rod McGuirk contributed to this report from Canberra, Australia.

Source: Associated Press/AP Online

More News in this Category