Jakarta – East Timor's President Xanana Gusmao urged his people on Friday to focus on the task of nation-building as the territory marked its first 100 days of independence.

The former guerrilla leader said in an address to the nation the tiny country was suffering growing pains and warned against the threat of corruption.

Gusmao said there were still no laws on immigration and citizenship or public prosecution and there was no way to resolve the issue of overcrowded jails.

"If we continue to roam, with no strength to enforce the law right at the beginning of our independence, by the time corruption develops deep roots it will be most difficult to combat it," Gusmao said on a live television broadcast from the capital Dili.

Speaking in the nation's mother tongue of Tetum, he also urged the police against the use of violence to enforce the law.

"We should all remember that we have just come out of 25 years of a situation where violence became part of our way of being and that the reaction of the people is still pronouncedly aggressive." The half island territory was declared formally independent on May 20, nearly three years after a landslide vote to break away from 24 years of often brutal Indonesian rule.

The result unleashed a fury of violence by gangs of pro-Jakarta militia backed by elements of the Indonesian military, in which the United Nations estimates more than 1,000 people were killed.

The UN ran East Timor during its transition to full nationhood, helping physically rebuild the territory and install institutions from scratch.

Gusmao said the hard work had only just begun and lamented the lack of laws and the need to strengthen democracy in the former Portuguese colony. Gusmao, a former teacher, also spoke of the lack of professionalism among schoolteachers, saying they often arrived late and spent their time in idle chatter. "And I appeal to the population not to destroy what we are painfully building," he said, referring to recent acts of vandalism on state property.

Gusmao – who had been reluctant to be president, saying he would prefer tending vegetables and taking photos to leading the world's newest nation – won a thumping victory in elections in April and vowed to be a voice for the concerns of the people.