May 29 (Bloomberg) -- Australia sent an extra 45 police
officers to East Timor today to deal with lawlessness by gangs,
as international peacekeeping forces try to calm unrest by former
soldiers that has claimed 12 lives.
More than 2,200 international troops, including 1,300
Australian soldiers, are in the capital, Dili, Australian Defense
Minister Brendan Nelson said. New Zealand, Malaysia and Portugal
have also sent troops.
``The situation is still very dangerous,'' Nelson told the
Australian Broadcasting Corp. ``We have sent an extra 45
officers.'' Australian soldiers will disarm gang members and
former soldiers today, Nelson said.
East Timor's Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri asked for
international help last week in the wake of riots by former
soldiers, angry at the dismissal of about 600 servicemen for
desertion. The riots were sparked by alleged discrimination
against soldiers from the western region by officers from the
east of the country.
Rival ethnic gangs, armed with daggers, machetes and
slingshots, rioted in Dili May 26, setting cars and homes on fire.
As many as 50,000 people have lost their homes and are
living in makeshift camps across East Timor, the Australian Red
Cross said in an e-mailed statement yesterday.
``This is quite a dangerous operation,'' Prime Minister John
Howard told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. ``There are a whole
lot of disparate, uncontrolled gangs.''
A mob broke into a warehouse run by the United Nations World
Food Program in Dili today, looting supplies of rice, Agence
France-Presse reported, citing unidentified witnesses.
The UN is evacuating 390 officials to the northern
Australian city of Darwin, keeping about 50 people in East Timor.
East Timor, or Timor-Leste, a country of about 1 million
people, voted for independence in a 1999 referendum after a 24-
year occupation by Indonesia, which invaded the territory when it
was a Portuguese colony in 1975. The country, which became
independent in May 2002, lies about 500 kilometers (310 miles)
north of Australia.