Thousands in East Timor demand PM's ouster

Gusmao, revered as a national hero after leading East Timor's guerrilla resistance against Indonesia for most of its 24-year occupation, threatened Thursday to resign unless Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri did instead.

The president wants Alkatiri to take responsibility for the crisis that enveloped East Timor last month when rival security forces battled on the streets and gangs rampaged, leading to at least 21 deaths.

More than 2,200 foreign peacekeepers were called in to restore calm but East Timor's political leaders have failed to agree on how to move forward, and the embattled Alkatiri -- whose sacking of 600 soldiers touched off the violence -- has refused demands to step down.

In the late afternoon, about 2,000 protestors reconverged outside the government palace.

Some cruised Dili's streets in trucks urging people to join the protest.

Catholic nuns on a jeep with Gusmao's poster taped to the windscreen passed by to show support, while rock music blared from two huge speakers on a makeshift stage outside the palace.

"The president should not step down," said one of the protest organisers, Agosto Junio. "Mari Alkatiri is the one to blame for the trouble. He is a communist, a criminal."

"We want to take back the people's parliament," Junio added.

One protestor among the crowd, many of whom were singing and dancing, carried a banner proclaiming: "We are ready to die in this place if Xanana resigns!"

Fernando Araujo, leader of the Democratic Party -- which holds seven seats in the 88-seat parliament, the highest of the opposition parties -- told Portugal's news agency that people wanted to give "all the power" to Gusmao.