More than 60 Pinoys evacuated from troubled East Timor

More than 60 Filipinos were evacuated yesterday by a Philippine Air Force (PAF) C-130 plane from East Timor’s violence-wracked capital, officials said.

Those left behind have decided to stay to continue their work despite recent chaos in the fledgling country, said Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) spokesman Gilbert Asuque.

There are about 200 Filipinos working in East Timor as engineers, non-government organization volunteers and Christian missionaries.

Those airlifted from Dili included children, women and ailing people. They arrived yesterday at the Villamor Air Base in Pasay City, according to Asuque and the PAF.

The DFA has also issued an advisory urging Filipinos not to travel to East Timor now "due to the unstable security situation there," Asuque said.

The travel advisory was issued Friday, a day after a Philippine police officer, Chief Inspector Edgar Layon, was wounded in Dili when East Timorese soldiers opened fire on unarmed policemen, killing nine people and wounding 27 others, Philippine and United Nations officials said.

Layon, 45, is one of five Philippine police officers serving as advisers with the UN office in East Timor. He was in stable condition after being hit by a bullet in the stomach and has been airlifted to nearby Darwin, Australia for medical treatment, according to Asuque.

Yesterday, hundreds of UN employees were also evacuated as rival gangs roamed the streets, torching homes and battling with machetes in defiance of foreign peacekeepers sent to quell the violence.

Thousands of residents also fled Dili, leaving many city streets deserted and neighborhoods abandoned.

At least 27 people have been killed and dozens wounded since open fighting began this past week.

Members of the small nation’s 1,400-strong army suspected the policemen of allying themselves with a band of about 600 dismissed soldiers who have engaged in days of deadly clashes with the army.

The chaos is the most serious crisis East Timor has faced since it broke from Indonesian rule in 1999.

Clashes and arson continued throughout the night Saturday. Four people were killed, one of them burned to death while he was trying to defend his home and the others shot, witnesses and hospital officials said.

Yesterday, smoke billowed from several areas of the city where attacks were taking place, and gunfire erupted in the distance.

Australian troops patrolled in armored personnel carriers, but seemed to only briefly scatter combatants.

"It’s a trickier operation than some people think," Australian Prime Minister John Howard told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. yesterday. "Nobody should assume that it’s just a simple walk-in-the-park military operation — it’s quite challenging."

On the brink of civil war?

Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri described the violence Saturday as "an attempt to stage a coup d’etat," but could not say who was behind the alleged plot.

The violence is raising concerns that the world’s youngest nation is plunging into a civil war, seven years after its traumatic break for independence from 24 years of repressive occupation by the regional giant, Indonesia.

The unrest was triggered by the March firing of 600 disgruntled soldiers.

After staging deadly riots last month, the sacked troops fled the seaside capital, setting up positions in the surrounding hills and threatening guerrilla war if they were not reinstated.

What began as a break within the armed forces has spilled over to the general population, which is finding itself dividing down geographical lines of east and west, or those perceived to have been pro-Indonesian against those who wanted independence.

Yesterday morning, a group severely beat a man they accused of hiding guns. His life was spared after foreign reporters intervened and he was rushed bleeding to the hospital by aid workers.

Shortly after sunrise, hundreds flocked to church to pray and sing for an end to the violence, which continued just blocks away.

Julita Abuk, 30, escaped with her four children as her home was being destroyed and sat weeping at the airport. Her husband, a police commander, has been missing since a deadly shooting earlier in the week, which killed 10 and wounded 29.

"Just a few minutes ago they burned down my house. My cousin was there making breakfast and there were men in military uniforms with guns setting the house on fire," she said.

"We lost everything we have. I haven’t seen my husband since the incident."

UN special representative Sukehiro Hasegawa, speaking to reporters at the airport as he saw off around 300 of his staff members, said more peacekeepers were needed to halt the escalating unrest in the tiny nation of around a million.

"I believe their presence will stabilize the situation, but at the same time I believe they will perhaps need more security forces here to make sure that the process of democratization and free and fair elections can take place here next year," Hasegawa said.

He said the current situation is a chance for the international community "to show that we indeed can help the people of this country" and that the UN is not abandoning East Timor.

The UN will keep more than 100 international staff in East Timor while others work from Australia, Hasegawa said.

Australia said it would send up to 50 federal police officers to help contain marauding gangs, probably within the next 24 hours.

Around 2,000 Australian troops were either on the ground or in transit to East Timor, the defense department said yesterday. Seven ships and four Black Hawk helicopters were also assisting the deployment, it said.

New Zealand and Malaysia also sent smaller numbers of troops and Portugal agreed to help.

Impoverished East Timor, a Portuguese colony for about four centuries until it was occupied by Indonesia in 1976, has received millions of dollars in international aid over the last seven years, much of it focused on building up the military. — AP, Rainier Allan Ronda