The Wall Street Journal-20080213-Politics - Economics- U-N- Boosts Timor Guard As Blame Flies

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Politics & Economics: U.N. Boosts Timor Guard As Blame Flies

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Associated Press

DILI, East Timor -- Armored U.N. vehicles guarded East Timor's leaders yesterday under a state of emergency declared after rebel soldiers critically wounded the Nobel Peace Prize-winning president and fired at the prime minister's convoy.

The army chief blamed the United Nations -- which oversees a 1,400- member international police force -- for failing to protect the country's two top leaders and demanded an outside investigation.

But the U.N. deputy head for East Timor said President Jose Ramos- Horta had wanted his security to be provided by national authorities.

Mr. Ramos-Horta was airlifted to an Australian hospital where surgeons said yesterday he was "extremely lucky to be alive" after they operated for three hours to remove bullet fragments and repair chest wounds. Doctors said his condition was serious but stable.

Mr. Ramos-Horta, who shared the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize for nonviolent resistance during 24 years of Indonesian occupation, was shot in the chest and stomach on the road in front of his house in an apparent coup attempt. His guards returned fire, killing wanted rebel leader Alfredo Reinado.

Gunmen attacked Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao's motorcade an hour later, but he escaped unhurt.

East Timor, a poor Southeast Asian nation of one million people, won independence from Indonesia in 2002 after a U.N.-sponsored ballot. It has struggled to achieve stability since an outbreak of violence in 2006, when 37 people were killed in clashes between rival security forces.

Monday's violence appeared linked to that turmoil, when the sacking of 600 mutinous soldiers, including then-Major Reinado, triggered the unrest. Mr. Reinado was arrested after the 2006 violence, but he later escaped from prison and went into hiding. Mr. Ramos-Horta had met with the rebel leader on several occasions in recent months to try to persuade him to surrender.

The assassination attempts "occurred in part because the rule of law remains weak," said John Miller of the East Timor and Indonesia Action Network, a rights group. "Maj. Reinado, who was indicted for murder for his actions in 2006, should have been brought to justice long before this attack."

The two-day state of emergency bans demonstrations, gives police extended powers and calls for a nighttime curfew.

Australia's troop presence in the tiny country climbed to more than 1,000 yesterday, with the arrival of a Navy warship, and more than 300 police and soldiers. Some patrolled the streets and searched cars at roadblocks in Dili, but the country was generally calm.