UN uses riot police to quell E. Timor protest

UN uses riot police to quell E. Timor protest

DILI (Reuters): The UN had to send riot police into East
Timor's second city of Baucau to disperse stone throwing
demonstrators who had burnt a mosque and attacked vehicles, a
senior UN official said on Thursday.

Wednesday's violence followed the arrest earlier in the day of
three men in connection with a possible assassination attempt on
independence leader Xanana Gusmao and has shaken the United
Nations administration in Dili.

"There have been lots of problems in Baucau. The GNR (riot
police) were called after road blocks were set up and tires
burnt," Barbara Reis, spokeswoman for the UN Transitional
Authority in East Timor, said.

She said the UN was investigating the violence, much of it
directed against its staff and property.

Earlier, a mob threw stones and broke the windows of a UN
vehicle driven by the Timorese district administrator for Baucau.

The official and several passengers were forced to flee amid a
hail of rocks, Reis said. UN police later recovered the vehicle
which had been burnt out.

Heavily armed riot police fired tear gas later that evening to
disperse the mob who were burning tires at a road block set up
near the central market, she said.

There were no reports of injuries or details of any arrests.
It was not immediately clear what triggered the violence and if
it was linked to the arrests on Wednesday. But there have been
strains building between the UN mission and disaffected sections
of East Timor society.

In January, hundreds of students stoned riot police and the
headquarters of the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor
in the capital Dili after the arrest of a local taxi driver.

Police in Dili continued to question the three men arrested on
Wednesday morning following a tip-off that they were involved in
a plot to kill Gusmao, head of the National Council of Timorese
Resistance (CNTR).

The three suspects, all members of the RDTL (Democratic
Republic of East Timor) party, can be held for up to 72 hours.
Two of them, including party secretary Gil Fernandes, will be
charged with setting fire to two UN vehicles in Dili last month,
UN Police Commissioner Jose Luis da Costa e Sousa said.
East Timor is under UN administration until elections later this
year.