http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia-pacific/2012/10/2012103195627473385.html
UN hands full police powers to East Timor
Asia's youngest nation announced that its police are now "assuming full
responsibility for maintaining law and order".
Last Modified: 31 Oct 2012 10:29
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Finn Reske-Nielsen, left, shakes hands with Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao
during a handover ceremony [EPA]
United Nations peacekeepers in East Timor have handed full responsibility
for policing to Asia's youngest nation, according to the prime minister.
The National Police of East Timor "are assuming full responsibility for
maintaining law and order", Xanana Gusmao said in a statement on Wednesday.
In March last year the United Nations Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste
handed some responsibilities to the Timorese police and has since focused on
training instead of frontline duties.
The head of the UN mission, Finn Reske-Nielsen, said that under the
peacekeepers' guidance the Timorese police had "made significant progress" in
many areas.
The force provided security during this year's peaceful presidential and
general elections.
The current UN deployment, which arrived in 2006 after a political crisis
in which dozens were killed and hundreds of thousands displaced, began
withdrawing in earnest this month in line with a timetable to leave by the end
of the year.
The largest batch will leave in November with the last of the
peacekeepers due to depart in December, Reske-Nielsen has said. At its peak,
the mission had 1,600 peacekeepers.
The only major violence since the arrival of the UN force was a 2008
failed assassination attempt against then-president Jose Ramos-Horta.
East Timor, an impoverished half-island nation of 1.1 million despite
bountiful oil and gas reserves off its coasts, in May celebrated a decade of
formal independence after a 24-year occupation by Indonesia.
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