East Timor's PM announces resignation

East Timor’s embattled prime minister announced his resignation today, triggering celebrations in the violence-scarred capital and raising hopes for an end to weeks of political turmoil and unrest.

Prime minister Mari Alkatiri, who is battling allegations that he formed a hit squad to silence opponents, has faced mounting calls to step down, including one from the country’s popular president.

“I declare I am ready to resign from my position as prime minister,” Alkatiri said at his home in Dili.

Many East Timorese say Alkatiri’s dismissal of 600 disgruntled soldiers in March was to blame for street battles and gang warfare that left at least 30 people dead and forced nearly 150,000 others to flee from their homes.

It was the worst violence since the nation voted for independence from Indonesia seven years ago.

Alkatiri read a statement saying he wanted to “share of responsibility for the crisis affecting our country” and to avoid the resignation of President Xanana Gusmao, who had threatened to step down if the prime minister did not.

Gusmao, who led East Timor’s armed resistance against 24 years of Indonesian rule, enjoys near-unanimous support in a country of 800,000 that is divided along political and sometimes ethnic lines.

As news of Alkatiri’s decision spread, thousands of demonstrators drove through the main streets of Dili, banging drums and cans and shouting “Viva Timor Leste!”

At the waterfront site where they have rallied since last Tuesday, young men danced in the street, their arms around each other’s shoulders.

It was not immediately clear who would succeed Alkatiri or whether his decision required the approval of the Fretilin political party, which said over the weekend that it did not want him to stand down.

The country’s Nobel prize-winning foreign minister, Jose Ramos-Horta, resigned yesterday in protest over the party’s failure to endorse Alkatiri’s resignation at the time. The transport minister also resigned in protest, raising concerns the government could collapse.

Ramos-Horta, who has volunteered to lead an interim government until elections next year, was not immediately available for comment.

Violence in Dili, including gun battle between rival security factions and clashes between machete-wielding youths, eased last month with the arrival of a 2,700-member Australian-led peacekeeping force.

Hundreds of houses were burned to the ground and government warehouses were looted.

Though Alkatiri said he knew nothing about the alleged hit squads, a close ally, the former interior minister, is facing charges for allegedly arming civilian militias at his request.

Alkatiri’s resignation will raise hopes for the nearly 150,000 people who remain in tent camps in and around Dili, a normally sleepy seaside city dotted with whitewashed churches, a legacy of four centuries of Portuguese colonial rule.