AP News, July 23rd, 2007
East Timor's president appealed for calm and international troops patrolled the streets of Dili on Monday, a day after troops fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse rampaging youths.
Several houses were torched and a fire was set at the main compound of Australian-led troops Sunday night, said Lt. Col. Robert Barnes, a spokesman for the International Stabilization Force, which was investigating.
The unrest came days after East Timor's ruling elite failed to decide who should lead a new coalition government. Leaders remain bitterly divided a year after factional fighting killed 37 people and sent tens of thousands fleeing before international troops arrived to restore order.
"I appeal to youths in Dili to end the violence and create stability in East Timor," said President Jose Ramos-Horta, as Australian and New Zealand troops patrolled the streets and a surveillance helicopter took to the skies.
The gangs Sunday were apparently supporters of renegade soldier Alfredo Reinado. They want the former ruling Fretilin party _ which got the most votes in last month's parliamentarian polls, but not the majority needed to govern outright _ to have limited power.
They also oppose international troops who have tried to capture Reinado.
Rival political forces have until July 30 to decide who should lead a new coalition government, but talks headed by Ramos-Horta in the last week have yielded no results.
East Timor, a former Portuguese colony of less than a million people, faces major security, humanitarian and economic challenges just five years after it became Asia's newest state in a U.N.-backed independence vote.
Unemployment hovers at around 50 percent, and aid agencies have warned that a fifth of the population is threatened by food shortages after crop failures.
