East Timor's army joined the hunt for rebels blamed for attacks against the country's top two leaders, the army chief said yesterday.
Meanwhile, President Jose Ramos-Horta, who won the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize for decades of peaceful resistance to Indonesian occupation, was recovering from gunshot wounds at an Australian hospital.
Rebels on Monday shot Ramos-Horta outside his home. His guards killed wanted militant leader Alfredo Reinado during the attack. An hour later, gunmen opened fire on Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao, but he escaped unhurt.
The East Timor Defense Force joined Australian-led foreign troops in the search for more than 30 militants hiding out in the hillside jungle outside the capital, national army chief Taur Matan Ruak told reporters yesterday.
"Some people are sheltering the rebels in their homes; we have asked for permission to search them," Ruak told reporters at a Navy base. "We don't have the intention to kill them. The only way is to cooperate with us."
"We know that residents are hiding them [rebels]. We call on the people to stop protecting them because by doing so they put their lives at risk," he said.
"We call on the people to contribute to a peaceful solution to the problem. For two years they supported Alfredo, but what have they got?"
Arrest warrants for 17 suspects in the attacks were issued on Friday and prosecutors said that number was expected to increase.
Monday's events were part of an ongoing dispute between the government and a group of several hundred rebels who were fired from the army in 2006 after going on strike to protest alleged discrimination. They also underscored the challenges facing East Timor's young democracy six years after independence.
With the risk of escalating violence, Australia this week reinforced its presence in East Timor to more than 1,000 army and military personnel and sent a warship to waters off the coast. UN police patrolled the streets and cars were being searched for weapons under a state of emergency declared through Feb. 23.
East Timor, a former Portuguese colony, broke from 24 years of Indonesian occupation in 1999, when 1,500 people were killed by militias and departing Indonesian troops. After three years of UN governance, it declared independence in 2002.
The tiny Southeast Asian nation of a million people descended into chaos again in April 2006 when the security forces disintegrated into warring factions and the government collapsed amid widespread looting and arson.
Gunbattles and gang warfare killed 37 people and more than 150,000 were forced to leave their homes. Tens of thousands still live in squalid camps.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘BODIES EVERYWHERE’: The incident occurred at a Filipino festival celebrating an anti-colonial leader, with the driver described as a ‘lone suspect’ known to police Canadian police arrested a man on Saturday after a car plowed into a street party in the western Canadian city of Vancouver, killing a number of people. Authorities said the incident happened shortly after 8pm in Vancouver’s Sunset on Fraser neighborhood as members of the Filipino community gathered to celebrate Lapu Lapu Day. The festival, which commemorates a Filipino anti-colonial leader from the 16th century, falls this year on the weekend before Canada’s election. A 30-year-old local man was arrested at the scene, Vancouver police wrote on X. The driver was a “lone suspect” known to police, a police spokesperson told journalists at the
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has unveiled a new naval destroyer, claiming it as a significant advancement toward his goal of expanding the operational range and preemptive strike capabilities of his nuclear-armed military, state media said yesterday. North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim attended the launching ceremony for the 5,000-tonne warship on Friday at the western port of Nampo. Kim framed the arms buildup as a response to perceived threats from the US and its allies in Asia, who have been expanding joint military exercises amid rising tensions over the North’s nuclear program. He added that the acquisition
RSS