East Timor/Timor-Leste

The East Timor and Indonesia/Action Network reports on the situation in East Timor, now known as Timor-Leste:

East Timor’s foreign minister Jose Ramos Horta formally requested to a special session of the United Nations Security Council on June 14 that the UN Office In East Timor be extended by at least one month to August 22. The Security Council is expected to discuss within the next few weeks extending this further as well as revising the UN’s mandate and function in East Timor.

UN general-secretary Kofi Annan said a new and upgraded UN presence was needed in East Timor to help restore order in the wake of the political and social crisis of the last month. Annan told the Security Council that the scaling down of the UN in East Timor had happened too quickly and that “The sad events of recent weeks reflect shortcomings not only on the part of the Timorese leadership but also on the part of the international community in inadequately sustaining Timor-Leste’s nation-building process”.

You can take action to help the Timorese here.