East Timor in flames after five die in student riots

East Timor was placed under a virtual state of emergency yesterday, witha curfew in the capital, Dili, after student riots in which up to five people were killed and the Prime Minister's house was burnt down.

The anger erupted after police shot dead a demonstrator, according to witnesses. Hundreds of protesters looted shops and set fire to buildings, leaving part of the city in smouldering ruins.

Witnesses said police fired into the crowd, but the number of deaths was unclear. One person said he saw five people killed, while another put the figure at three.

The United Nations, which administered the country for two years until it became fully independent in May, said it had confirmed one death but the number could rise. One victim was reported to be a 16-year-old student who was shot in the head. UN peace-keeping troops and local police struggledto halt the rioting, but the streets were said to be under control by nightfall.

There has been sporadic civil unrest in East Timor, but yesterday's clashes were the most violent. The country won its independence from Indonesia in a bloody UN-backed ballot in 1999 after 24 years of iron rule by Indonesia, but it faces crisis levels of poverty and unemployment.

Five hundred students gathered in front of the national police headquarters yesterday, after police arrested a student during unrest on Tuesday. The protest began peacefully, but the mood swiftly changed and demonstrators began throwing stones.

According to witnesses, some officers – not uniformed police – began firing into the crowd and one student was killed. The others refused to surrender his body to the police. The demonstrators then went on the rampage and a supermarket and a hotel were burnt to the ground.

The properties belonged to Australians, whose countryplayed a leading role in East Timor's independence after it tempered its support for Muslim-dominated Indonesia, which had annexed the Catholic Portuguese territory in 1976. The Hello Mister supermarket, near the parliament, was guarded by a dozen armed peace-keepers to prevent further looting last night.

The protest moved to the parliament building, two blocks away, where further shots were fired. A journalist at the scene said police opened fire. "At least five were killed and I saw another six people in a minivan being taken to the hospital with really bad injuries," he said. "Some had gunshot wounds and some were beaten."

Gangs of men broke into an office building and dragged out furniture and computers, which they torched on the street. Televisions and motorbikes were stolen from shops.

Two hundred people gathered outside the house of the Prime Minister, Mari Alkatiri, and set it alight. His brother's house was also burnt down, while a senior member of parliament was injured by stone-throwing demonstrators. President Xanana Gusmao declared the state of emergency so that security forces could clear the streets. Mr Gusmao, whose car was caught in the riots, broadcast a national appeal for the violence to be halted. He went to police headquarters, but was unable to restore calm and had to be escorted inside.

Jose Ramos-Horta, the Foreign Minister, who is visiting Spain, called the violence "a very serious turn of events".

He said the East Timorese were stunned by the mayhem. "We have been used to having a very stable [country] here for the last two and a half years," he said.

The shaken Prime Minister, Mr Alkatiri, appealed for calm, saying: "Today's events mark a very sad note during our country's first days of independence."

One local resident said that the trouble had been brewing because of the Gusmao government's failure to keep its promises. "My impression of what happened here today is that is was due to a lot of things that have been building up over the past month but mostly, people are not happy with the government – it seems the government has promised too much and hasn't delivered," he added.

The current unrest underlines that the honeymoon period is over in East Timor. Western diplomats agree that the riots were fuelled by frus-tration at the government's failure to fulfil high expectations after independence.

One cabinet minister said last night: "Things have quietened down, but the situation remains tense and there is a heavy [security force] presence on the streets."

Vic Josey, acting deputy commissioner of the UN peacekeeping force, said the state of alert would be reviewed daily. "The situation is still very fluid," he said.