U.N.'s East Timor chief quits

Datuk N. Parameswaran, the chief of staff for transitional administration in East Timor, said he had problems in his position with the U.N.

DILI, East Timor -- The United Nations chief of staff in East Timor has quit citing bad morale, a lack of Asian colleagues and internal strife.

Malaysian diplomat Datuk N.Parameswaran outlined his reasons in a letter to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, four months before East Timor attains full independence.

Malaysia's Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Syed Hamid has stood behind Parameswaran, telling local media that the U.N. should take the allegations seriously.

Neither the United Nations Transitional Administration (UNTAET) or the world body has responded to the allegations.

UNTAET has passed articles on the fledgling nation's first-ever constitution, dealing with the powers of a new parliament, which will administer East Timor from May 20.

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UNTAET became the transitional administration in East Timor after its successful vote for independence from Indonesia in August 1999, when pro-Jakarta militias backed by the Indonesian military went on a bloody rampage.

Relations between UNTAET and the East Timorese have at times been strained with western-style development consultants and international affluence flanked by the intense poverty of a nation devastated by years of conflict.

Damaging

As the United Nations wraps up its administration in East Timor the accusations are likely to raise questions as to how the U.N. operates in the future.

Parameswaran complained that a senior figure hampered his efforts to bring home East Timorese refugees, according to news reports.

The same reports say that his job functions changed constantly and he was often sidelined from key policy decisions made by the mission and that UNAET, "had become very much a white mission, an Eastern mission with a western face."

The allegations have come after the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, made a number of new year recommendations aimed at strengthening and clarifying human rights aspects of East Timor's constitution.

The constitution is still under debate in East Timor by the U.N. Transitional Administration.

Parameswaran has over 30 years of experience as a diplomat and has been the Malaysian Foreign Ministry's Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) director-general in the past.