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.