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DILI,East Timor-Foreign troops sealed off a mountain village outside the capital of tiny East Timor on Thursday in search of rebels implicated in attacks on the country's top two leaders. Two militants, meanwhile, were buried as heroes by more than a thousand supporters.A procession of family and followers of slain rebel commander Alfredo Reinado wove through a poor seaside neighborhood in the capital of Dili ahead of his burial in his front yard. Throngs of people applauded, held joint Roman Catholic prayers and chanted, "Viva! Viva!"Reinado and his bodyguard, who was buried alongside him, were shot dead Monday by a guard during an apparent assassination attempt against President Jose Ramos-Horta.The president is recovering in a hospital in Australia after being shot twice outside his home and evacuated from East Timor in critical condition.East Timor, a tiny former Portuguese colony of less than a million people, remained in a state of emergency Thursday after the latest violent crisis since it broke from Indonesia in 1999. In 2006, fighting between rival security forces and widespread civil unrest killed dozens.Reinado was wanted on murder charges for his role in the bloodshed that toppled the government.Stability was restored by thousands of United Nations police and foreign soldiers who now oversee national security.Just south of Dili, Australian forces set up check points Thursday with armored personnel carriers around a village where several rebels involved in Monday's attacks are believed to be hiding. Soldiers stopped everyone entering or leaving the area.U.N. police were standing by to identify potential suspects for arrest.The foreign forces were criticized Thursday by Ramos-Horta's brother, Arsenio Ramos-Horta, who said the United Nations failed to protect the country's leader."They should have been more careful, had better protection. I believe the United Nations security apparatus failed completely on that side," he told reporters outside the Royal Darwin Hospital in Australia, where many members of Ramos-Horta's family have gathered.He said U.N. forces set up a roadblock about half a mile away when the gunfight started, rather than assisting."Some of them are just cowards," Arsenio Ramos-Horta told Australian Broadcasting Corp. in a separate interview.The United Nations has said President Ramos-Horta didn't want foreign security and had asked to be protected by Timor's army.Doctors said the president would likely come out of an induced coma in the next few days after undergoing several rounds of surgery."At the moment the president is progressing along the expected clinical course in the intensive care unit," said Dianne Stephens, director of the ICU."There have been no complications and we are very pleased with his progress to this point."Reinado has gained folk hero status among some disenchanted youth and people from the west of the country who complain the central government discriminates against them.They flocked to his grave Thursday to light candles and lay flowers."Alfredo was a man of peace who struggled for truth, justice and equality," said Teresinha Soares, 29, a housewife. "He wanted everyone to have equal access to jobs and opportunities."Ramos-Horta-who won the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize for his nonviolent resistance to the Indonesian occupation-has proudly called himself a man of the people who never wanted or needed a heavy security detail.During the 24 years of Jakarta rule, Ramos-Horta was East Timor's voice to the world, taking its struggle for independence to the United Nations and becoming its first foreign minister after it formally proclaimed independence in 2002.In 2006, the firing of nearly 600 mutinous soldiers who said they were being discriminated against-including Reinado and his men-led to gunbattles between police and army forces that left 37 dead and drove 155,000 from their homes. Tens of thousands still live in dirty camps.http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080214/ap_on_re_as/east_timor;_ylt=AjAEyBU701lAGQzADt8vbk9I2ocA
As in the days of Noah....
