East Timor pleads for help

A chemistry class in a Suai school

A senior East Timorese leader has criticised the international community for failing to provide sufficient funding for the territory's reconstruction.

His comments were addressed to a United Nations Security Council delegation during a two-day visit.

The UN team appeared not to want to hear the message

Retreating Indonesian troops and pro-Jakarta militia gangs left the territory in ruins last year, causing an estimated $3bn damage.

Infrastructure minister Joao Carrascalao told the UN envoys that it was unacceptable that thousands of people still lacked proper housing and essential amenities more than a year after the UN transitional administration took charge.

He said his budget for reconstruction was just $15m - but he believed five times that amount was required to have any impact.

Rapists released

Mr Carrascalao said that every day, people queued at his office requesting assistance to rebuild their homes.

He told the BBC that hospitals were also closed because of a lack of funds and power cuts.

One UN aid worker told the delegation that self-confessed murderers and rapists had been released in the devastated town of Suai because of a lack of resources to prosecute them in the courts.

Suai community leaders also complained that the people who massacred hundreds of refugees in their cathedral last year were living freely among them.

The BBC's correspondent Richard Galpin said it appeared that this was a message the delegation did not want to hear.

Instead, they simply praised the achievements so far of the UN operation in the territory.

The 21-strong delegation's head, Martin Andjaba, admitted the mission had observed "problems here and there" but said they were not "impediments" to the territory's transition to self-rule.

Refugees' return

Mr Andjaba also urged Indonesia to facilitate the speedy return of the UN refugee agency to the refugee camps in Indonesian West Timor.

120,000 East Timor refugees still remain in West Timor

The delegation is due on Wednesday to visit Atambua, in West Timor, to assess the situation after pro-Jakarta militias butchered three foreign UN workers and several locals there in September.

The killings prompted the evacuation of all foreign aid workers, leaving more than 120,000 East Timorese refugees without outside assistance and at the mercy of the militias.

The militiamen have led a campaign of terror from within the camps and there are reports that they have raped female refugees, forcing some into "sexual slavery".

On Tuesday, Indonesian Defence Minister Mahfud M D denied soldiers were taking money from refugees trying to go return home from the camps, as a UN worker had alleged.

"It is certainly not true. If there is anyone imposing 'levies', I think they are muggers," he said.