Eleven injured, 48 held in Timor demonstration

DILI, East Timor (JP): Eleven people were injured and 48 arrested yesterday when security forces broke up a demonstration that was being held in the lobby of the hotel where visiting United Nations envoy, Jamsheed Marker, was staying.

The clashes broke out in the morning when some 200 anti- integration youths demonstrating inside and in front of Hotel Mahkota Timor to demand a meeting with Marker were turned away by riot police and security personnel.

Police chased the demonstrators out and beat them up with rattan sticks before they could meet with Marker, who is in Indonesia on a two-week "fact-finding mission".

Local Police Chief Col. Yusuf Mucharam told The Jakarta Post in his office later the same day that the 11 were injured after several jumped through glass windows and the others were trampled by fellow protesters.

A source at a church clinic, however, said that 38 demonstrators, including three women, were injured, four seriously. The source did not elaborate on the nature or cause of the injuries.

Witnesses said the youths started gathering in the hotel lobby at 5 a.m. local time, unfurling banners and hanging up posters emblazoned with anti-integration statements.

Almost two hours later, dozens of riot police and security personnel came and chased them away.

"There was at first a group of 75 youths in front of the hotel, while some 200 others were watching, but we managed to disperse them," Mucharam said.

Mucharam denied the fast-spreading rumors of fatalities. No shots were fired by security forces, he insisted.

He said police seized 12 machetes and 19 banners belonging to the demonstrators. "The demonstrators wanted to disrupt public order," he said. "That's why they were so brutal."

Asked if the demonstrators had really wanted to meet Marker, Mucharam said: "That's what I thought in the beginning, but judging from the situation, I doubt it."

Mucharam said he was later told by an assistant of Marker that the United Nations' envoy did not want to meet the demonstrators.

Marker arrived here Saturday to meet senior government officials and community leaders in the former Portuguese colony, a visit which he described as a "fact-finding mission".

Marker told the press on his first day in the country last Thursday that he was here to gather as much information as possible from both sides, Jakarta and Lisbon, which he would take back to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Commenting on the anti-integration demonstration yesterday, Marker told Reuters that he was in his room at the time.

"They came at about 6 a.m. and I heard some slogans being shouted. The demonstration was then dispersed and at least some of them got into the hotel lobby. I didn't actually see the demonstration," he was quoted as saying.

Residents said that a number of tables, chairs and glass panes in the lobby of the Dili's most expensive hotel were smashed after the demonstrators entered the lobby of the hotel.

Annan last month appointed Marker as his special assistant for East Timor after he pledged to renew talks between Indonesia and Portugal on the disputed territory's future which have achieved little in 15 years. (33/aan)