WB must set priorities in Timor says adviser

WB must set priorities in Timor says adviser

DARWIN, Australia (Reuters): A World Bank team which will soon begin assessing the damage done by pro-Indonesia militias in East Timor must set clear emergency priorities, the territory's former governor said on Monday.

Mario Carrascalao, the Jakarta-appointed former East Timor governor now a key adviser to independence leader Xanana Gusmao, said the shattered territory would be in need of emergency aid for at least another year.

This meant a World Bank assessment mission gathering in the northern Australian city of Darwin had to make clear priorities before it went back to the international community with a shopping lost for the reconstruction of East Timor.

"The mission will assess what is needed in quantity and in priority in the emergency period and...sustainable planning is needed," Carrascalao told Reuters.

East Timorese economist Helder da Costa has estimated East Timor will need about US$170 million a year for the next 10 years to rebuild basic infrastructure and set up water, power, transport and telecommunications services.

Carrascalao said it was far too early to put a price on the extent of the damage.

"I believe that any figure would be speculation now...because we don't know how extensive the damage has been," said Carrascalao, who has been appointed by Gusmao to lead an East Timorese delegation to work with the World Bank team.

"We need everything, because East Timor has been completely destroyed," he said.

The World Bank assessment mission began assembling in Darwin on Monday and will have a series of briefings before leaving for East Timor, most likely on Friday.

It will spend up to two weeks there before gathering again for more discussions with East Timorese leaders in Darwin and to compile a report for its board of governors.

A donors' conference is then likely to be called. The World Bank is leading what it calls an inter-agency mission which also includes the Asian Development Bank, the United Nations and agencies from donor countries like Australia and Portugal, East Timor's former colonial ruler.

"We need to get an early blueprint of what is needed," World Bank spokesman Graham Barrett told Reuters.

"We are very keen to get going as soon as the security situation allows because of the obvious humanitarian needs," said Melbourne-based Barrett before leaving for Darwin.

Much of East Timor was destroyed when militias went on a rampage of violence, arson and looting after an August 30 vote for independence from Indonesia.

Gusmao said in the East Timor capital of Dili at the weekend that the level of devastation had left him speechless. Indonesia invaded East Timor in 1975 and annexed the following year in a move never recognised by the United Nations.

The Indonesian parliament last week rescinded its annexation of the territory, clearing the way for a U.N. transitional administration to take over and guide East Timor along the path to independence.