Major-General Alfredo Reinado, a swaggering, disaffected East Timorese military policeman, was always big on the talk — and at times was capable of following it up with violent action.

But his Monday morning visit to President Ramos-Horta's villa compound was over the top even by his standards. It ended with the Nobel Prize-winning President being shot three times and Reinado's own death.

Dr Ramos-Horta is in a serious but stable condition after being airlifted to hospital in Darwin, an hour's flight south.

Reinado's father, Victor Alves, was meanwhile conducting a vigil in his backstreets Dili home. The authorities refused to hand over his son's body.

Mr Alves described how his son, a hero to some and menace to others, had taken three bullets from members of Dr Ramos-Horta's military guard: one to his left eye, one to his left upper breast and the other to his neck. He did not know whether his son's intention was to assassinate the President. “We just don't know. We only know what we see on TV.”

Reinado was the source of much of the recent discontent that has been a constant feature of the country since it was liberated from Indonesia by Australian-led forces in 1999. The country was initially governed by the once-heroic Fretilin party, the political arm that kept international pressure on Indonesia through its 24-year occupation. Dr Ramos-Horta was once Fretilin's foreign minister-in-exile. Xanana Gusmão, the current Prime Minister, was the jungle-creeping, freedom-fighting hero of Fretilin's armed wing, Falantil.

They cut their ties with Fretilin years ago in the interests of trying to unite the long-suffering, poverty-wracked East Timorese people along non-party lines. Fretilin's Mari Alkatiri became a powerful president, infuriating his population by refusing to spend the country's oil wealth on improving conditions.

A nasty divide sprang up among the population from the idea that the people from the east were the heroes of the Indonesian resistance while those from the west — closest to the Indonesian-controlled West Timor — were more sympathetic to the Indonesia military that brutalised the country in 1999.

The F-FDTL, East Timor's army, had been formed largely out of the Falantil armed resistance, and the army's senior members were all ex-Falantil leaders. In 2006, western-born F-FDTL soldiers staged a public protest complaining that they had been overlooked for promotions. They were fired upon by their eastern colleagues, who also attacked and murdered a group of unarmed police who were trying to seek the protection of the United Nations compound.

Reinado abandoned his post, took men and arms, and announced he was fighting for the westerners. The country burned and 150,000 people, mostly easterners living in Dili, were displaced. Australia was sent in again.

Reinado was on the run in the west but would sometimes creep down to Dili, and on one occasion got involved in a gun battle with the army that led to charges for murder. He escaped from Dili's prison and a farcical two-year standoff resulted. At one point he humiliated Australia's finest troops by escaping from a hilltop where they had him surrounded. Reinado lost five men in the battle but his legend grew.

Last year, Fretilin's Mari Alkatiri was forced to stand aside. Xanana Gusmão contested the election for prime minister and won. Dr Ramos-Horta wanted to use his diplomatic skills in the presidency, as the country's chief negotiator, both with foreign investors and the likes of the difficult Reinado.

Reinado's 600 former soldiers, who called themselves the petitioners, in the Ermera hills west of Dili were a constant source of angst. Even though he was wanted on murder charges, Reinado won approvals from the Government and the Australian-led International Security Force to move freely in his district. He never surrendered his weapons. He claimed that he wanted to begin talks but insisted the Ermera district be turned into a free-ranging cantonment in which the East Timorese army and foreign peacekeepers could not enter unless by negotiation.

Last week, Australian troops were on patrol in Ermera and encountered Reinado's band. The renegades fired warning shots in the air and the Australians decided to retire gracefully.

Reinado was annoyed that the Australians were patrolling “his” turf; he was also annoyed that Prime Minister Gusmão had undermined his authority by persuading one of his senior soldiers, Major Augusto Tara, to come down to live in a cantonment in Dili, with bedding and all meals supplied — luxuries some of them had not known for two years.

It seems that he decided to take action. It is not known whether Reinado went to the President's villa to kill him, kidnap him, or talk to him. But he had sent another small group - perhaps only six or seven men - up to the Prime Minister's house overlooking Dili to wait in ambush.

Reinado's group, arriving from Ermera in two vehicles just after first light, disarmed two army guards at the entrance to Dr Ramos-Horta's villa. Reinado and a partner, Leopoldino, entered the compound looking for the President. Firing broke out.

Dr Ramos-Horta was jogging with two bodyguards. He returned home upon hearing the shooting and was caught by three bullets near his front gate. Reinado and Leopoldino lay dead. A guard, Lieutenant Selestino Gomes, took a head shot outside the front gate. The surviving four or five of Reinado's men escaped.

Shortly afterwards, the hillside group fired into the Prime Minister's motorcade. No one was injured. They then turned their sights on the Prime Minister's house up the road but guards repelled them. They appear to have lost heart and run into the jungle.

Reinado's second in command, Lieutenant Gastao Salhasino, is widely thought to have staged the motorcade ambush, although he denies it.

Dili is always alive with rumours and a particularly sinister one is gaining currency. It goes that Fretilin, who lost power last year, were remote-controlling the attacks. While Reinado had always considered himself a sworn enemy of Fretilin, they have in recent times been courting Reinado and have drawn the public censure of Mr Gusmao for doing so.

The conspiracy is that only Fretilin had anything to gain by seeing the President and Prime Minister killed. And it is true that if Reinado's aim was to kill both men, and he had succeeded, he would not have automatically become East Timor's leader. The country still has a constitution.

Dili can become tense in rapid time, with roaming gangs of youths always prepared to use dart guns, spears and wooden sticks with nine-inch nails to either protect their own suburbs or launch attacks. But this time, even before the nightly curfews were announced, there seemed to be less tension in the half-ruined little capital. There has been none of the usual gunfire throughout the night; and the Portuguese riot police have been watchful but not busy.

Were he looking down, Reinado, who always fancied himself as a great leader, may be a little disappointed at the lack of public grief. This time, it seems, with a President gravely ill and a Prime Minister who just escaped with his life, the consensus seems to be: enough is enough.

Paul Toohey is a correspondent with The Australian.

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