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DILI: Troops and police enforced a state of emergency across East
Timor on Tuesday as President Jose Ramos-Horta recuperated from an
assassination bid that doctors said he was lucky to survive.
Acting president Vicente Guterres issued a
decree at Gusmao’s request saying the state of emergency had come
into force from 10 p.m. (1300 GMT) Monday evening and would last for
an initial 48 hours. Under the decree, a curfew will be in place
from 8:00 pm to 6 a.m. while all gatherings and rallies were banned.
But residents in the seaside capital Dili went
seemingly oblivious to the emergency imposed after audacious attacks
by renegade soldiers on the president, who was hit in the chest and
back, and Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao, who escaped unscathed.
Australian soldiers and police left for East
Timor to bolster those already on patrol at Gusmao’s request,
officials in Canberra said. An Australian frigate, with a company of
150, steamed into Dili Harbor to support the troops’ mission, with
a further nearly 200 troops and police arriving by plane later.
Japan’s transport minister also said that Tokyo was considering
sending coast guard personnel to help the stability effort.
Gusmao told a meeting of communities from
Portuguese-speaking nations at a hotel here that the situation in
the fledgling nation was “normal, and all is stable.”
Ramos-Horta was in a serious but stable
condition after emergency overnight surgery for bullet wounds,
according to his doctors in the Australian city of Darwin where he
was airlifted Monday.
The 58-year-old Ramos-Horta underwent
two-and-a-half hours of surgery late Monday and was in intensive
care after his second operation in 24 hours, the doctor told AFP.
He said the doctors were treating three bullet
wounds and Ramos-Horta would need a further operation within 36
hours.
The president was sedated and on a ventilator
but not on life support, and would remain unconscious until at least
Thursday, Notaras said, adding that he expected him to make a full
recovery barring any unforeseen complications.
East Timor’s military chief demanded an
explanation Tuesday as to how the renegade soldiers were able to
reach the homes of the nation’s two top leaders given the big
number of international forces present in Timor-Leste, particularly
Dili. Rebel leader Alfredo Reinado was killed at Ramos-Horta’s
residence during the firefight there, along with a second rebel. But
Reinado was believed to have a core support base of about 20 to 30
men.
“We know where they are and I am sure that
sooner or later we will get close to them,” East Timorese Foreign
Minister Zacharias da Costa told a joint press conference with his
Australian counterpart Stephen Smith in Darwin.
The world community voiced outrage over the
attack on Nobel peace laureate Ramos-Horta, who had campaigned for
East Timor’s independence. Indonesia invaded East Timor in 1975
and ruled the former Portuguese colony with a brutal grip until
1999, when the United Nations took charge. The half-island nation
eventually won independence in 2002.
-- AFP
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