Global Policy Forum

By David Fox

East Timor President Xanana Gusmao appeared on Friday to withdraw a threat to resign over a dispute with the country's premier, promising thousands of supporters at a rally in the capital that he would always serve them.

"I am your big brother," Gusmao told the crowd, which had gathered all day outside the government headquarters in Dili, clamouring for the resignation of Mari Alkatiri, the embattled prime minister blamed for the political crisis. "Because you cried, I made a mistake," Gusmao said, apparently referring to his threat on Thursday to resign unless Alkatiri stood aside to accept responsibility for the crisis.

In an impassioned speech late on Thursday, the popular Gusmao -- a hero of East Timor's decades long struggle for independence from Indonesia -- said he would quit if Alkatiri did not take responsibility for weeks of arson attacks and killings. That prompted several prominent East Timor leaders to visit the president on Friday and urge him to stay in office, and by late afternoon some 5,000 supporters were demonstrating in front of Dili's main government building.

Sukehiro Hasegawa, the U.N. secretary-general's special representative to East Timor, appealed to Gusmao not to resign, saying his continued presence was "indispensable for the maintenance of peace and stability." A U.N statement said the president expressed his appreciation for Hasegawa's appeal and a phone call he received from Kofi Annan, but reiterated his firm intention to submit his message of resignation to parliament unless Alkatiri steps down.

But in extraordinary scenes on Friday, Gusmao climbed a makeshift podium and -- in a hoarse voice, cracking with emotion -- promised to continue to serve the country. "I have opened my ears and I am listening to you," he told the crowd as youths clambered up trees and lamp posts to get a better view.

Good Humour

The crowd chanted "Has Alkatiri stepped down?," but Gusmao -- smiling and in good humor -- refused to respond. Diplomatic sources in the capital told Reuters they expect the prime minister -- who has vowed to stay on as long as he has the support of the ruling Fretilin party in parliament -- will go before the weekend is out.

"He will be hung out to dry," said one on condition of anonymity. "Unless they cut off the head, there is a danger the whole government body will rot."

Alkatiri says he will not resign and rejects the idea he is responsible for the violence, which started after he sacked 600 of the 1,400-strong army for mutiny when they protested about alleged discrimination against troops from the country's west. Weeks of widespread looting and arson followed, and was only brought under control by the arrival of a 2,500-strong Australian-led intervention force, which has disarmed the country's entire army and police.

But a damaging documentary by Australian ABC's Four Corner's television team released this week implicated Alkatiri and former Interior Minister Rogerio Lobato in a plot to arm a secret security force to eliminate rivals. On Friday the leader of the secret force, Reilos Vicente, stood at Gusmao's side. The president gripped him by the chin and playfully slapped him, like a naughty schoolboy, to huge cheers from the crowd.

East Timor was a Portuguese colony for hundreds of years before a revolution in Lisbon in 1975 gave the territory a brief taste of independence. Indonesian troops invaded a few days later and Jakarta annexed East Timor in 1976. After a 1999 vote for independence marked by violence blamed largely on pro-Jakarta militia with ties to the Indonesian army, an international peacekeeping force moved into the territory, ushering in a transitional period of U.N. administration before East Timor became a fully-fledged nation in 2002.

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