Clark urges UN to speed up East Timor response

Prime Minister Helen Clark has said the United Nations needs to move faster after renewed unrest in East Timor.

Thousands of supporters of ousted East Timor Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri turned back from a march on the capital yesterday, but several buildings were torched as feuding gangs clashed in the capital Dili.

A Reuters correspondent travelled east of the city and saw the supporters had dispersed and retreated to the town of Metinaro, around 40 km away, where around just 1,500 remained, gathered in the grounds of a school.

But earlier, at least a dozen shops and dwellings -- some no more than modest shacks -- were torched as a simmering east-west divide in Asia's youngest nation threatened to bubble over.

Helen Clark said today a more concerted United Nations effort might be needed to end the crisis.

"The problem is the UN doesn't move fast -- it has to get motions through the Security Council, it has to mobilise a force.

"So at the moment it is Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand and Portugal who are left holding the baby as it were."

She hoped that a new leader could be found that would be acceptable to the population after Alkatiri quit on Monday.

"Certainly the report was that the streets are very very unsettled and the level of fear is up there because of the resumption of communal violence," she told National Radio.

There are 167 New Zealand Defence Force troops in the 2500-strong Australian-led force and Helen Clark announced on Monday up to 25 New Zealand police officers would be heading over within two weeks for a three month stint.

"I suppose the other concern will be whether the frustrations which are being played out on the streets of Dili end up being directed at the international forces and that's something we'll have to watch very, very carefully," she said.

Soldiers who will replace troops already in East Timor (Timor-Leste) are set to leave New Zealand on Saturday morning.

Commander of the New Zealand joint force, Rear Admiral Jack Steer, said: "We will continue the work of assisting the Government of Timor-Leste in stabilising their country and by providing support and protection to the local people", he said.

- NZPA, REUTERS, HERALD ONLINE STAFF