Global Policy Forum

By Donald Greenlees

Australia rushed troop reinforcements into East Timor on Tuesday to help enforce a security clampdown a day after separate assassination attempts on President José Ramos-Horta and Prime Minister Xanana Gusmí£o prompted fears of a resurgence of unrest.

Following the attacks, which left Ramos-Horta, co-winner of the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize, in "extremely serious" condition with gunshot wounds, East Timor's Parliament agreed to impose a state of emergency and restrict civil freedoms. The East Timorese police and soldiers, backed by United Nations forces, erected roadblocks and searched all vehicles entering or leaving the capital, Dili, as the hunt continued for renegade East Timorese soldiers blamed for the attacks. Under the state of emergency imposed Tuesday, a curfew was put in place from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. and all public gatherings were prohibited.

Dili remained calm Tuesday. Street markets were crowded and residents of the ramshackle seaside city went about their business despite some apprehension over the repercussions from what government officials described as an attempt to derail East Timor's fledgling democracy. Responding to concerns that the assassination attempts could provoke renewed violence in a country that has suffered repeated bouts of bloodshed in the nearly six years since it gained independence, Australia flew an additional 140 troops and 70 police into Dili. An Australian Navy frigate also sailed into the waters off the city.The troops and police will reinforce an international stabilization force of about 1,000 soldiers under a UN mandate and a UN police contingent that were sent to East Timor in 2006 to quell widespread unrest.

The attacks on East Timor's two most senior politicians underscored the huge challenge facing this impoverished country as it tries to overcome a long history of violence, build a sustainable economy and entrench democracy.

Only in May last year, Ramos-Horta won a resounding mandate in presidential elections. He had won respect for leading international diplomatic efforts to end a 24-year occupation of East Timor by Indonesia from 1975 and for his efforts as a peacemaker in numerous internal disputes.

In the dawn attack on Monday, he was shot three times outside his home in the east of Dili by about 10 rebels, according to East Timorese and UN officials. In an exchange of gunfire, the rebel commander, Alfredo Reinado, a former military police officer who deserted in 2006 over a range of internal grievances in the army, was killed. An hour later, the same group of rebels fired on a convoy containing Gusmí£o, East Timor's first president who was chosen as prime minister after parliamentary elections last July. Gusmí£o was unharmed.

Gusmí£o called the attacks a well-planned attempt to "paralyze the government and create instability." "I consider this incident a coup attempt against the state by Reinado, and it failed," Gusmí£o said, The Associated Press reported. "The government won't fall because of this."

Ramos-Horta, 58, underwent surgery for his gunshot wounds at an Australian military base in Dili on Monday morning before being placed on a ventilator in an induced coma and airlifted to a hospital in the northern Australian city of Darwin. A doctor who treated him in Darwin said his condition had stabilized by Tuesday after further surgery, but "his condition remains extremely serious." The wounds were to his chest and abdomen. One bullet pierced the lower part of his right lung. Another fragment was for now being left in his body.

As the hunt continued Tuesday for members of the rebel group who escaped, the shooting sparked some acrimony among security forces over whether protection around Ramos-Horta and Gusmí£o was adequate. UN officials said Ramos-Horta had insisted on being guarded only by members of the national police force. But the chief of the East Timor Defense Force, Brigadier Taur Matan Rusk, demanded to know how such attacks could be mounted in Dili given the "high number of international forces present." "There has been a lack of capacity shown by the international forces, who have primary responsibility for security" within East Timor, he said in a statement. He called on the United Nations to appoint an international investigation team to ensure all the circumstances are clarified.

The UN deputy police commissioner in East Timor, Hermanprit Singh, said Tuesday that the East Timor and UN police working together had identified several individuals involved in the attacks through interviews with witnesses. Once initial enquiries are complete, these names will be passed to prosecutors to issue arrest warrants, he said.

Foreign leaders condemned the violence. President George W. Bush said "those who are responsible must know that they cannot derail democracy" in East Timor. The UN Security Council appealed for calm and urged the government to bring those responsible for the "heinous act" to justice.

The Security Council is due to decide by the end of this month whether to extend the mandate for the two-year-old UN integrated mission in East Timor, which advises the East Timor government.

The special representative of the UN secretary general for East Timor, Atul Khare, rushed back to Dili on Tuesday from New York, where he was preparing to brief the Security Council on an extension of the UN mission's mandate. He praised the response of the government to the attacks, saying it had "reacted in a highly competent manner" and ensured an appropriate security response.