US backs sustained UN presence in East Timor

WASHINGTON - The United States supports an extended United Nations mission in East Timor to help the three-year-old South-East Asian state recover from violent protests, a senior US diplomat said today.

Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Eric John told a Congressional hearing that the United States was working to shape a UN response to the political turmoil in the former Portuguese colony, annexed by neighbouring Indonesia in 1976.

"We believe a UN successor mission should include a robust electoral assistance programme, a strong police component and civilian and human rights advisors," he told the Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific of the House of Representatives International Relations Committee.

The current UN mission has been extended until August 20 and Washington was working with a "core group" comprising Australia, Brazil, Britain, Malaysia, New Zealand and Portugal to build a plan for the turbulent country.

"All of these members see a need for United Nations' work there. We're going to help shape that," John said.

An Australian-led multinational force of about 2500 intervened in East Timor last month to quell fighting between military factions that threatened the stability of the country, which became independent from Indonesia in 2002.

"How we move forward with the UN in the future needs to build on the these terrible lessons that we've learned in the last few months," said John, the senior US diplomat responsible for South-East Asia policy.

He said East Timor remained viable as a state, and could draw on strengths including its people's strong belief in self-governance and democracy and considerable oil resources.

"For everybody to just look at what's happened in the last two or three months and throw up their hands and think that there's been a massive failure here and it's not going to get any better is the wrong view," he told the subcommittee.

East Timor Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri resigned on Monday after weeks of protests, arson and looting.

- REUTERS