TITLE: Mob Burns Mosque and Attacks UN Staff

AUTHOR:

PUB: Sydney Morning Herald

DATE: March 9, 2001

Riot police fired tear gas to quell violent protests against the United Nations east of Dili following the arrests of three men over an alleged plot o kill the independence leader Mr Xanana Gusmao. The UN spokeswoman in Dili, Ms Barbara Reis, said that late on Wednesday a mob in the town of Baucau torched a mosque, stoned two UN vehicles, burnt a third one and set up barricades of burning tyres before stoning UN riot police near the central market. She said it was too early to tell if the Baucau violence was linked to the arrests of the three men, members of the fringe political party RDTL - Democratic Republic of Timor Leste (East Timor) - over threats to Mr Gusmao. But a spokeswoman for East Timor's National Council of Timorese Resistance (CNRT), Ms Ines Almeida, said there was strong evidence linking the Baucau violence to RDTL activists. "From what we've heard, this is the same group," she said. Mr Gusmao has claimed that the men arrested on Wednesday had links with Indonesia's Kopassus special forces. None of those arrested was armed or has been charged over the alleged plot to assassinate him. Two had outstanding arrest warrants over the burning of two UN vehicles last month. The RDTL's name comes from the short-lived republic established by the left-leaning Fretilin party on November 28, 1975, just weeks before the Indonesian invasion of East Timor. It has strong roots in Baucau, and has been linked to a string of violent incidents including recent mob violence in Dili directed against Portuguese riot police and ugly clashes involving knife fights against political rivals near Suai last year. RDTL leaders are vehemently opposed to restructuring the former Falintil guerilla group into the new East Timor Defence Force. Mr Gusmao and other East Timorese leaders have questioned the nationalist credentials of several key members of RDTL, including Mr Christiano da Costa , an Australian-educated Timorese alleged by CNRT to have worked for Indonesian army intelligence. Mr da Costa denied the allegations yesterday. "It's completely unfair, it's unacceptable, it's baseless," he said. "I was put in jail from 1983 to 1985 ... by Indonesian soldiers. There's no way I'd have any links with the Indonesian Army." He said Mr Gusmao viewed his party as a threat. "It's a card played by Xanana to discredit me ... Xanana is doing the wrong thing by playing that card." END top