Rory Callinan, Time correspondent in Dili – East Timor's former ruling Fretilin party warned last night it had lost control of its supporters, who in a second day of rioting in the capital burned down government buildings, wounded an Australian policemen and ambushed a patrol of Diggers.
Fretilin vice-president Arsenio Bano delivered the warning yesterday as rumours spread that rioters – enraged at the elevation of former president Xanana Gusmao to the prime ministership – had threatened to attack Australian businesses in Dili.
"We can appeal but we are not in control," Mr Bano said last night of the supporters, who mostly come from the country's east and yesterday spread the violence outside the capital to the towns of Bacau and Viqueque.
"We have been telling the supporters to avoid violence, but I think in that situation they will not trust us any longer, because some of them are saying that we vote for you and we win the election, and you don't take up the position."
Staff at Tiger Fuel, a petrol station in Dili's eastern suburbs, reported a man dropping off a letter containing a threat – written in the local Tetum – to burn any businesses that were owned by Australians.
The threat was delivered as international police were last night expecting an upswing of violence as Fretilin supporters escalated their protests to mark Mr Gusmao's inauguration as prime minister today.
The former ruling Marxist-based party won 21 seats in the 65-seat National Assembly in the June elections, leaving it unable to compete with a 37-member coalition put together by Mr Gusmao's National Congress for Timorese Reconstruction.
Mr Bano said Fretilin would not recognise the Government, and the party's assembly members walked out of parliament in protest yesterday. The assembly went on to decide the makeup of key government committees with the parliament's largest party.
Mr Gusmao will be sworn in before lunch, having been appointed to the job on Monday by President Jose Ramos Horta, despite pleas from former Fretilin prime minister Mari Alkatiri to include his organisation in the new government.
The three men were meeting last night to draft a statement to be broadcast appealing for calm across the political divide.
The rioting began just minutes after the announcement by Mr Ramos Horta on Monday, and continued yesterday around strongholds of the easterners in refugee camps around the city and in two districts.
In one of the worst attacks, Australian soldiers from the International Stabilisation Force driving a 4WD were ambushed by youths manning burning tyre barricades on the main entrance road to Dili airport.
The youths bombarded the car with rocks. The driver was forced to swerve on to the side of the road, puncturing the vehicle's front tyres, in order to escape. An ISF spokesman said the patrol got through unscathed.
In a similar attack, an Australian UN policeman suffered a fractured arm after his vehicle was hit in the side window as it was driven down a Dili street.
Despite the regular howl of police sirens across the city and heavily-armed Australian and New Zealand soldiers patrolling the streets, UN officials said they were able to contain the violence.
A spokeswoman said the UN had received reports of a government building being burnt in Bacau. Fretilin supporters were reported to have destroyed another three non-residential buildings in the town 50km east of Dili, as well as three private buildings in Viqueque, 150km to the southeast. On Monday night, the Customs House was torched in Dili's central business dictrict.
Police have arrested 16 men since the violence started and UN authorities yesterday lifted a ban on the use of rubber-bullet-firing shotguns in a bid to minimise civilians being affected by tear gas.
UN police Dili district commander Murray Lewis said the shotguns would allow his officers to specifically target rioters.
"They get about 30 to 40 metres away and throw stones. The only way we have been able to deal with them is to fire tear gas. But the gas is indiscriminate. It can affect babies and mothers," he said.