East Timor prone to unrest: UN

East Timor prone to unrest: UN

UNITED NATIONS (AP): The United Nations raised alarm Friday at
the potential for social unrest in East Timor because of
widespread unemployment, high food prices and frayed social
services in the aftermath of the territory's vote for
independence.

To try to counter the risk, Secretary-General Kofi Annan
recommended that the UN transitional administration in East
Timor, or UNTAET, make creating jobs and beefing up East Timor's
destroyed infrastructure a priority.

"The East Timorese have received UNTAET with a great deal of
goodwill and very high expectations as the embodiment of the
international community's promise of support," Annan wrote in a
report to the Security Council. "However, they are in desperate
straits and are understandably impatient for UNTAET to deliver on
this promise."

East Timor's people voted overwhelmingly in a UN-organized
ballot Aug. 30 to separate from Indonesia, which invaded the
former Portuguese colony in 1975 and annexed it a year later.

Indonesian-backed militias went on a weeks-long killing and
looting rampage to protest the results, destroying large parts of
the territory and driving tens of thousands of East Timorese into
neighboring, Indonesian-controlled West Timor.

The United Nations estimates there are still nearly 100,000
people in refugee camps set up in West Timor, where the pro-
Indonesian militias continue to operate, harassing and
intimidating the refugees. While the United Nations has urged the
refugees return home, UN officials privately say they understand
their unwillingness to do so since conditions in East Timor are
scarcely better and in some cases worse than those in the camps.

In his report, Annan said the United Nations mission, which
has been running the territory for three months, had established
the basic elements of an administrative structure in East Timor
and is trying to coordinate humanitarian relief efforts.

But the effects of the systematic destruction of the
territory, particularly in civil and public services, would
continue to be a serious obstacle to progress, he said.

"Moreover, widespread unemployment and the disruption of the
education system and other social and public services, combined
with the very high prices of food and other daily necessities,
bear the potential for serious social problems," he wrote.

In addition to trying to create more jobs, expanding trade
will be an important step in increasing supply and lowering
prices of basic goods, Annan said.