Dili – Security concerns forced three European Union (EU) ambassadors to abandon plans Sunday to attend a mass and visit a university in East Timor, protocol officials said. The change in plans followed clashes in the capital Dili on Saturday between pro-and anti-Indonesian East Timorese around the arrival of the visitors in the troubled former Portuguese colony.

They had been scheduled to attend early morning Sunday mass at Dili's Roman Catholic cathedral. But Manuel Isaac, a member of the protocol staff of the governor's office told an AFP reporter the plan was derailed by "security concerns" when hundreds of East Timorese headed for the church.

A subsequent visit to the University of Timor Timur, a separatist stronghold, was also cancelled and the three Jakarta ambassadors instead met student leaders at their hotel on Dili bay, Isaac said. At the university, a huge banner reading "Welcome EU ambassadors" hung over the entrance, as some 800 disappointed demonstrators from the Cathedral poured onto the campus, an AFP reporter said.