Timor Leste Backgrounder

For an in depth backgrounder on the ethnic and military/police tensions behind the current anarchy in Timor Leste, go here.

"Major Alfredo Reinado, the commander of the rebel forces that generated the latest crisis, declared that only the presence of foreign troops could prevent a civil war. "There is no other way, or it will be war forever," he told the BBC. "The Government has taken too long. It is not capable of resolving this." Reinado has close links with Australia. He lived in Western Australia for nine years before returning to East Timor after the 1999 referendum. He has spent time at the Australian Defence College in Canberra and is well known to several Australian army officers. The Australians' ability to deal with Reinado could prove the key to ending the bitter conflict that now threatens Mari Alkatiri's Government."

Thanks to Berend de Boer