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)