Baucau still tense after rioting

Baucau still tense after rioting

DILI, East Timor: Baucau was still tense yesterday, a week
after a riot in which 20 shops were destroyed and three people
were injured.

The July 20 incident at Kota Baru reportedly broke out after
an East Timorese native was murdered by a Javanese migrant in a
brawl.

Eyewitnesses said yesterday that members of the Armed Forces
deployed at the town's entrance roads stopped and demanded ID
cards from everyone going in and out of Baucau. Anyone failing to
produce an ID card was not allowed to continue their journey.

Baucau regent Virgilio Maria Diaz Marcal said required the
security authorities to check on travelers after learning that
many of the rioters were not local residents.

Virgilio said he believed the rioters were "outsiders" brought
in to incite unrest in Baucau, which is about 130 kilometers east
the capital.

Maria Vernanda, a Dili resident who was taking her son back to
school in Baucau, said she was denied entry yesterday. "Our bus
was stopped and everyone on board was asked to produce their IDs.
After that we were asked to return to Dili without clear
reasons," she told The Jakarta Post. (yac)