East Timor says it will need help for a decade

The UN should help oversee elections in East Timor and stay involved in the violence-scarred nation for at least a decade, the foreign minister said today, noting that restoring order and building a democracy would take time and money.

Jose Ramos-Horta said it was in no one’s interest to see East Timor – where riots, looting arson and gunfire have engulfed the capital Dili just four years after it won independence – turn into a “failed state”.