2006 East Timorese Crisis - Violence

Violence

On 24 April, the former soldiers and their civilian supporters, mostly unemployed youths, marched through the streets of the capital Dili in protest. The initially peaceful march turned violent when the soldiers attacked a market run by people from the east of the country. The protests continued over the next several days, until on 28 April the former soldiers clashed with FDTL forces, who fired on the crowd. In the resultant violence, five people were killed, more than 100 buildings were destroyed and an estimated 21,000 Dili residents fled the city.

On 4 May, Major Alfredo Reinado, along with 20 military police from a platoon under his command and four other riot police defected and joined the rebel soldiers, taking with them two trucks full of weapons and ammunition. After joining the soldiers, Reinado made his base in the town of Aileu in the hills south-west of Dili. There he and the military police guarded the road leading into the mountains.

In the evening of 5 May, the former soldiers under Salsinha's leadership drafted a declaration calling for President Xanana Gusmão to sack the Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri and abolish the FDTL within 48 hours. When Gusmão contacted Salsinha earlier that day in an attempt to prevent the issuing of the declaration, Salsinha told him that it was "too late".

The rebel soldiers remained in the hills above the capital, where they engaged in sporadic combat with FDTL forces over the next several weeks. Violent gangs also roamed the streets of Dili, burning down houses and torching cars. The civilians who fled Dili camped in tent cities nearby or in churches on the outskirts of the capital. One Catholic convent alone was providing Red Cross assistance to up to 7000 people.

On 8 May a police officer was killed as a crowd of 1000 surrounded a government complex, the office of a regional state secretary, in a town outside Dili. On 9 May, Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri described the violence since 28 April as a coup, with "the aim of blocking the democratic institutions, preventing them to function in a way that the only solution would be for national parliament to be dissolved by the President... which would provoke the fall of the Government." However on 10 May Alkatiri announced that government officials had held negotiations with the rebel soldiers, in which it was agreed that the rebel soldiers would be paid a subsidy equal to their former military wage to assist their families.

The United Nations peacekeeping forces left East Timor on 20 May 2005, and the remaining administrative staff and police at the United Nations Office in Timor Leste (UNOTIL) were scheduled to leave on 20 May 2006, but on 11 May their deadline was extended at least until June. The decision came alongside Foreign Minister Ramos-Horta's request to the UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights to investigate allegations of human rights violations by the East Timorese police forces, as alleged by Human Rights Watch and the United States Department of State. On 12 May, Prime Minister of Australia John Howard announced that although there had not been any formal requests for assistance from the Government of East Timor, Australian forces were standing by in readiness to provide assistance, with the amphibious transport ships HMAS Kanimbla and HMAS Manoora moving to northern waters in preparation.

The violence escalated late in May, as one FDTL soldier was killed and five wounded in a skirmish on 23 May. Foreign Minister Ramos-Horta sent out an official request for military assistance on 24 May, to the governments of Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia and Portugal. On 25 May, as the first international forces were arriving, some renegade soldiers were moving into Dili and engaging in heavy combat with FDTL and police forces, with up to 20 people believed to have been killed.