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| Southeast Asia |
| Security fears as UN reduces role in East Timor |
| 2004-05-21 |
| East Timor has warned that the withdrawal of United Nations peacekeepers could give rise to a new threat of armed militia gangs returning from Indonesia. The UN has handed over security and administrative responsibility to coincide with Thursday’s second anniversary of East Timor’s independence. The UN has renewed its mandate in East Timor for a final 12 months, but is cutting its peacekeeping presence by two thirds. Australia will provide one quarter of the remaining force, contributing 100 troops and 16 police. The troop presence along the border with West Timor will be scaled back - a move that East Timor’s foreign minister, Jose Ramos-Horta, fears will encourage the return of the armed militia that caused so much bloodshed in 1999. |
| Posted by:TS(vice girl) |