East Timor: Radicals ThreatenTo Kill Gusmao, UN Administrator 13 Mar-12:26

A radical political group has issued death threats against East Timor leader Xanana Gusmao, UN administrator Sergio Vieira de Mello and other officials and demanded the withdrawal of UN peacekeepers who arrested three of their men last week.

In a communique sent to Lusa in Dili Tuesday, the People's Defense Committee-Democratic Republic of East Timor (CDP-RDTL) said Gusmao and Vieira de Mello risked "signing their own tomb stones" if they continued acting like "the owners and gods" of East Timor's "destiny".

The CDP-RDTL also demanded the "immediate expulsion" of peacekeepers, including the Portuguese chief of UN police forces, Jose Luis Costa e Sousa, who acted in "a savage and animal like way" last week in arresting three group members on suspicion of plotting the assassination of Gusmao and defense forces commander Taur Matan Ruak.

The group threatened to "act without pity" against "the lives of those UNTAET tin soldiers and their little boss" Vieira de Mello, if their demand was not met.

In comments to Lusa, Gusmao downplayed the threat, saying he was "little worried" by such "stupid actions".

"They can start digging the grave to bury me", he said.

Purportedly signed by the "Deliberative Organ of the CDP- RDTL/Fretilin, the communique was dated March 10 and drafted through an email address belonging to a fanatical religious cult known as The Sacred Family.

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