From Monsters and Critics.com Asia-Pacific News East Timor gangs run rings round foreign troops (Roundup) By Michael J Coren Jun 5, 2006, 19:00 GMT Dili - Gangs looting and burning in Dili are running rings around foreign troops now into the second week of their mission to restore order in the East Timor capital. \'About 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. is looting time, after their afternoon rest,\' a New Zealand army lieutenant said Monday while manning a checkpoint at Behora on the city fringe. \'It happens so often, we can\'t even respond to them all.\' Australians form the bulk of the peacekeepers invited in last month when a mutiny by sections of the East Timorese army and police force spilled over into the civilian community with rival ethnic gangs from the east and the west of the country battling for control of suburbs. Australia is urging East Timor\'s Asian neighbours to follow the example of Malaysia and join a peacekeeping force that also includes New Zealanders and Portuguese. Canberra also wants the United Nations to take over the leadership of the international effort to save the foundering 4-year-old nation. \'It\'s important that the region demonstrates a commitment to East Timor,\' Australian Defence Minister Brendan Nelson said at a security conference in Singapore at the weekend. \'It\'s the youngest independent nation in the region, it\'s in trouble, and it needs the help of its neighbours.\' Singapore and South Korea have been touted as possible contributors, but television pictures of heavily armed troops being bamboozled by gangs of youths are deterring volunteers. The New Zealand soldier spoke of the spotters and the tick-tack men the gangs use to evade the armoured personnel carriers the Australians use. \'They\'re tapping on power pole lines,\' he said. \'They\'ve got a code: Two is for danger. Three is all-clear. The vibrations carry down the wires. Every time the Aussies leave their barracks, they hear all this tapping.\' Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer admitted that gang raids were well-coordinated and that \'nailing all that down is proving quite difficult at this stage.\' Hugh White, a former Australian Defence Ministry official and now a professor at the Australian National University, said riot police were needed, not the Australian Defence Force (ADF). \'There was a strong view in Canberra that once the ADF turned up in Dili, by its very presence, it would help to suppress the kind of law-and-order problem we\'ve seen,\' White said. \'I think that has proved to be a miscalculation.\' For the first time since the violence began last month, the East Timor Parliament convened Monday, but half the 88 members failed to appear. \'Many parliamentarians did not come here because of the security situation,\' Agosto Mausiri said of his colleagues. \'Who will secure them if they come?\' The two-day session was not expected to break a stalemate in the power struggle between President Xanana Gusmao and Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri. Alkatiri\'s Fretilin Party holds 55 of the 88 legislative seats and has vowed to use its numbers to block attempts to unseat him. Last week, Gusmao, who is not affiliated with any political party, forced Alkatiri to ditch two cabinet ministers and hand the crucial defence portfolio to his ally, Foreign Minister Jose Ramos Horta. As parliament met, a Russian-built Antonov transport plane landed carrying tents, emergency rations and other supplies for those who fled to camps. Australian Prime Minister John Howard voiced the growing frustration of donor countries over a political paralysis that had cost the lives of dozens, made thousands homeless and sent 100,000 to the camps. \'It came to this path because of poor governance,\' Howard said, \'and I have a right as prime minister of Australia, given the commitment we have made, to say to the political leadership that it carries a very heavy responsibility and it\'s in their hands to deliver a better future for their people.\' East Timor sank into turmoil in March when Alkatiri sacked 600 soldiers who went on strike claiming they had been passed over for promotion in favour of colleagues from the east of the country. The rebel soldiers, who are loyal to Gusmao, have been joined by renegade elements in the police force who are also clamouring for the resignation of Alkatiri. The violence mirrors the upheaval that followed the United Nations-supervised independence referendum in 1999 that ended 24 years of Indonesian occupation. East Timor, which became independent in 2002, had previously been a Portuguese colony for more than 400 years. But a new element is the hatred evident between easterners, who reckon they fought the hardest for independence, and westerners who claim jobs and opportunities are denied them. Luiz Vieira, who leads the Geneva-based International Organization for Migration mission in Dili, said racial hatreds were setting neighbour against neighbour. \'You have children now talking about the east-west divide where it didn\'t happen before,\' Vieira said. © 2006 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur © Copyright 2003 - 2005 by monstersandcritics.com. This notice cannot be removed without permission.