ETimor president wants UN presence until 2012

30.08.2007

DILI (AFP) — East Timor's President Jose Ramos-Horta wants the United Nations to maintain a presence in the tiny nation until 2012, he told visiting Australian foreign minister Alexander Downer on Thursday.

Ramos-Horta also reiterated an earlier request made to Australian Prime Minister John Howard during his visit here last month for Australian troops to stay in East Timor until the end of next year.

Some 900 Australian troops are currently in East Timor after being deployed in May last year to restore calm after local security force factions clashed on the streets of the capital Dili, leaving at least 37 people dead.

"I told the foreign minister that I want to see the UN presence here extended for up to five years," Ramos-Horta told reporters after meeting with Downer during his lightning stop here on the anniversary of East Timor's 1999 independence vote.

"In terms of the United Nations, both the police and civilians should remain here till 2012, obviously downsizing as the situation in Dili improves and consolidates," Ramos-Horta said.

The UN mission's current mandate expires in February next year. The Australian-led International Stabilisation Force is providing support to some 1,700 UN police patrolling here.

The president said that the "major and profound reforms" required in the police and defence forces would take a significant amount of time.

Downer also announced a boosted aid package worth 214 million Australian dollars (174 million dollars) over four years. It includes a 28 million Australian dollar rural water supply and sanitation project that he signed an agreement for with his East Timorese counterpart, Zacarias Albano.

The two ministers also inked a deal covering a land exchange for the embassies of the two nations.

Downer also attended a speech in parliament by Ramos-Horta in a ceremony to mark the eighth anniversary of the independence vote.

Australia's perceived support for the East Timorese referendum, in which the majority of people voted to break away from occupying Indonesia, damaged Canberra's relations with Jakarta, a rift that took years to repair.

Downer's visit comes amid ongoing sporadic violence and tensions in the oil-and-gas-rich but impoverished nation in the aftermath of the new government of Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao being sworn in earlier this month.

Apparent sympathisers of the former ruling party Fretilin have run amok in Dili and other parts of the country since the announcement of the new government, with dozens of homes burned and intermittent street battles.

Fretilin has been insisting it should have been asked to form a government as it won the most votes in inconclusive June elections. Gusmao however cobbled together a coalition with an absolute majority of parliamentary seats.

Some 850 Australian troops are working within the ISF, while 50 Australian police officers have also been seconded to the UN Police.

The anniversary of the 1999 referendum is a public holiday in East Timor. Violence surrounding the vote, blamed on militias backed by Indonesia's military, saw some 1,400 people killed.

After the vote, East Timor was put under UN administration before it finally achieved independence in May 2002.