# Gangs run riot as Dili burns

By Jill Jolliffe in Dili
29-05-2006
From: AAP
Anarchy rules ... a knife-wielding Timorese youth shows his form.

ARSONISTS and looters attacked targets in central Dili throughout yesterday despite the presence of Australian, Malaysian and New Zealand peacekeepers.

The house of a leading anti-government figure was burned to the ground in mid afternoon at Balide, a kilometre from the city centre, after being surrounded by men with automatic rifles.

Mr Antonio Matak of the Committee To Defend The Republic said the building was encircled first by a crowd of youths then by Timorese men whom he thought were police or army officers in plain clothes.

"They had M16 and FNC guns and fired rounds into the house before burning it," he said.

He said the men may have descended from hills behind Dili.

An Indonesian-owned shop in the Audian commercial district was also burning at dusk yesterday, while a recently deserted army barracks in the Caicoli suburb was being looted and destroyed.

An Australia-led peacekeeping force has arrived in East Timor to stem the violence as the world's newest - and one of its poorest - nations descends into chaos with rival ethnic gangs fighting in the streets with machetes, slingshots and bows and arrows.

In a four hour period yesterday, looters smashed the padlocks of a warehouse in the central suburb of Bebora then made off with 300 tonnes of rice in trucks, cars and motorbikes.

Australian troops arrived at the warehouse with East Timor's Foreign Minister Jose Ramos Horta too late to save the rice, which had been intended for refugee relief.

"We had asked for protection earlier," Labour and Solidarity Minister Arsenio Bano said.

"But we realise it's taking a while for them to set up.

"Stores have been closed for several days due to the violence and people are getting desperate.

"We hope we will be protected and there will be no more looting."

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