LEAD: E. Timor leaders hold crisis talks amid looting, violence

0 Comments | Asian Political News, May 30, 2006

SYDNEY, May 29 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING)

An emergency meeting of East Timor's Council of State began Monday to tackle the fledging nation's security meltdown as beatings, looting and torching of houses, shops and cars continued overnight, according to reports from Dili.

The meeting was being held at the office of President Xanana Gusmao, head of state and supreme commander of the army, who is known to have deep differences with Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri, according to the Australian Associated Press.

Under the country's Constitution, the president must convene the Council of State before dissolving parliament, dismissing the government or declaring a state of emergency or marshal law.

Dissident East Timorese army commanders have called on Gusmao to sack Alkatiri's government and to use international peacekeepers to disarm all sides in the conflict that broke out earlier this month with clashes between the army and rebel soldiers in the hills surrounding the capital.

The violence, which now mostly involves street gangs, has forced thousands of refugees to seek shelter in churches, religious missions, aid camps and at Dili airport.

During a break in the meeting, Gusmao called on the rival gangs to end their rampage and return to their homes, according to AAP.

''Stop the conflict between easterners and westerners...We are all Timorese,'' he was quoted as saying. ''Stop this fighting that is dividing us.''

Promising to restore national unity, he said, ''There is no resolution yet. But I promise there will be...maybe today, maybe tomorrow or after that.''

On Friday morning, a day after a mob smashed into a government rice warehouse, a mob broke into a rice warehouse run by the U.N. World Food Program and took away sacks of rice, AAP reported. Australian soldiers in armored personnel carriers arrived on the scene and forced looters out at gunpoint.

Some 1,300 Australian soldiers are now in Dili, backed by smaller contingents of Malaysian and New Zealand peacekeepers.

AAP reported that columns of Australian troops in trucks and armored personnel carriers moved into strife-torn parts of Dili on Monday morning to quell the ongoing ethnic gang violence.

The report said troops have confiscated a growing number of weapons including small firearms, machetes, swords and handmade knives.

Australian Air Chief Marshal Houston was quoted as saying East Timor Defense Force soldiers had returned to their barracks while police were heading back to their headquarters and training center, where they were being disarmed on arrival.

''What we are seeing now on the streets of Dili are gangs of criminals seizing the opportunity to create unrest and act in a violent manner,'' he said, according to the report. ''What we have got to do is get these criminal gangs off the streets, reduce the level of violence and get people back to their homes.''

Australian Prime Minister John Howard rejected criticism that Australian troops are not acting quickly enough to quell violence, saying the situation in East Timor now is potentially more dangerous than during its bloody separation from Indonesia in 1999.

''You're dealing with a whole lot of disparate uncontrolled gangs and in a way it's more dangerous than what it was in 1999, because in 1999 you had in effect an ordered retreat, not the disparate disorganized number of gangs that you're dealing with (now),'' Howard told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.

The violence began after the government sacked hundreds of soldiers, most those from western districts, for protesting alleged racial discrimination by commanders from eastern districts.

Meanwhile, the chief executive of World Vision Australia, Rev. Tim Costello, was quoted by the Australian Broadcasting Corp. as saying 25,000 people have been displaced in East Timor and the country is facing a humanitarian crisis.

''Initially, we thought this was a security situation, not a humanitarian one. Now it's become a humanitarian one,'' he was quoted as saying from Dili.