East Timor leader pleads for peace
The situation was tense but calm in the capital, Dili, where at least 20 people were killed last week in violence.
Mr Gusmao urged people to stay at home overnight, his spokesman Agio Pereira said, but denied the call amounted to a curfew.
Mr Gusmao, a hero in East Timor for leading the guerrilla campaign that won independence from Indonesia, had tears in his eyes as he addressed police with a call for reconciliation between ethnic rivals from the country’s east and west.
“Let us forget what has happened, the violence that has taken place ... These moments are the most critical ones for us all,” he said.
Rival gangs have battled in the past few days, using machetes, slingshots and daggers. Tens of thousands of people have fled their homes.
The prime minister, a minority Muslim in this overwhelmingly Catholic country, has refused to step down.
The political division has heightened fears that the violence could spiral into all-out civil war in a country that has only been independent since 2002.
