Australian spy plane crashes into Timorese home

From Stephen Fitzpatrick in Dili
May 10, 2007 07:20am
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,21707094-912,00.html?from=public_rss

AN Australian unmanned spy plane has crashed into a house while on operations in East Timor, narrowly avoiding causing injuries in a densely populated part of Dili.

The accident, in the eastern suburb of Becora, is sure to put pressure on the Australian-led International Stabilisation Force, which has already been accused by the ruling Fretilin party of interference in presidential elections.

Voters went to the polls yesterday to choose between current Prime Minister Jose Ramos Horta and parliamentary speaker Francisco "Lu Olo" Guterres, the ruling Fretilin party's candidate.

Investigation expected

An investigation is expected to determine as soon as tomorrow whether the spy plane crash was due to technical failure or operator error, with charges likely should it prove to be the latter.

Repairs are also due to begin today to the house, which was unoccupied at the time of the incident last Thursday.

"ISF engineers visited the scene and assured the owners that the appropriate repairs would be made, to the same or better standard as before," military spokesman Squadron Leader Ivan Benitez-Aguirre said yesterday.

Military helicopters were scrambled immediately after the crash, to locate the wreckage.

'Perhaps it was a UFO'

Mr Ramos Horta is understood to have been briefed on the incident but, when asked by The Australian to comment, denied knowledge and said only: "Perhaps it was a UFO."

Squadron Leader Benitez-Aguirre could not confirm whether the same type of spy craft was being used in the operation against renegade former military policeman Alfredo Alves Reinado. The military and the UN have strongly denied Fretilin's claims of interference in campaigning.

Mr Ramos Horta, showing a keen understanding of local symbolism, cast his vote yesterday in the town of Baucau at the aptly named Peace Prize School.

He has long played strongly on his status, along with former Dili Bishop Carlos Ximines Belo, as a Nobel Peace Prize laureate for the part he played in East Timor's arduous road to independence.

Mr Guterres voted at the same booth he used in the first round of the election - a school in the waterside Dili suburb of Farol, near his home and those of other key members of Fretilin.

Election results expected tomorrow

An informal result is not expected before tomorrow, with formal declaration of the winner likely early next week.

A little over 522,000 East Timorese are registered to vote and about 426,000 of them did so last month in the first round. Of these, only 22,000 votes were deemed invalid. Expectations are that most supporters of the six first-round losers will vote for Mr Ramos Horta this time.

At Fatumean village, high in the mountains near the border with Indonesia, a slow-moving group of elderly men yesterday told UN mission deputy chief Finn Reske-Nielsen that all they really hoped for from the election was a better life.

"And improved security, and better roads," one added.

The village had seen almost all its residents vote by mid-morning; the remaining few, explained one official, were waiting to be relieved by those who had already cast a vote and had a finger inked for security and verification.