East Timorese raid warehouses

Published Friday, June 2, 2006

DILI, East Timor (AP) - A mob raided government warehouses in East Timor’s capital today, stealing computers, furniture and anything else they could find. In another suburb, fighting erupted between machete-wielding gangs.

A political solution to the crisis that has engulfed the country appeared no closer as widespread lawlessness entered its second week despite the presence of a foreign peacekeeping force numbering some 2,000.

Dozens of fighters battled it out with clubs and machetes near a bridge today in the troubled suburb of Comoro as a building burned in the background. Australian soldiers rushed to the scene and tried to break up the clash.

Earlier, about 1,000 people who had been waiting for hours outside a food warehouse rioted on discovering the building was empty.

They turned on nearby government storage buildings, smashing doors and windows and carrying out office supplies, car parts - even musical instruments and a saddle.

People loaded booty onto trucks or dragged it away, some of them laughing. Others rode off on motorcycles carrying computer printers and chairs still wrapped in plastic.

The looting lasted for more than an hour before Portuguese and Australian peacekeepers armed with automatic rifles and unarmed East Timorese security forces arrived and dispersed the crowd.

The attack added a new element to the unrest in Dili, which to date has involved rival factions of the security forces or gangs fighting each other and targeting houses for looting or arson.

Elsewhere in the city, gangs roamed the streets with machetes, bottles of gasoline and clubs.

While gang warfare has eased since the foreign troops started arriving last week, it has continued to flare up sporadically.

Much of the antagonism on the streets is between East Timorese from the "east" - perceived to be pro-independence - and those from the "west," believed to be sympathetic to Indonesia, its former occupier.

Observers today welcomed the resignation of the country’s defense and interior security ministers, while Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri again refused to step down and accused unnamed rivals of fomenting the unrest.

"There is someone really behind the scenes, it is not clear who it is," Australian Associated Press quoted Alkatiri as saying today in Dili. He insisted he still has popular support.

President Xanana Gusmao, who is revered by most East Timorese, has appealed for unity. Earlier this week, he took control of the government’s security powers in a bid to defuse the political deadlock. Two senior ministers in Alkatiri’s government have quit.

In Canberra, Prime Minister John Howard of Australia, whose troops comprise most of the peacekeeping force, said East Timor needed a stronger government and welcomed the ministers’ resignations.

"Many East Timorese hold the existing government responsible for the breakdown in law and order," he said on Southern Cross radio. "And the resignation of two of those ministers ... is a very good development."

Australia’s contingent of 1,300 front-line troops and several hundred support personnel began arriving in East Timor last week. New Zealand, Malaysia and Portugal have also sent soldiers. Unrest has cooled somewhat but continues to flare up.

"I’m hungry and the shops are closed. Where are we going to buy something to eat? The government rations are finished," said Cornelio Moniz Barreto, who was in the streets of Dili looking for food but did not take part in today’s riot.

"We are simple people," Barreto said. "We don’t know what politics is. Now we are thinking about our stomach, not politics."

Dili has been unstable for weeks, after Alkatiri fired 600 soldiers from the 1,400-member army.