DILI (East Timor), May 18: A surprise deployment of Indonesian naval ships in East Timor’s waters to guard a visit by President Megawati Sukarnoputri has cast a cloud over the territory’s independence celebrations on Sunday.

East Timor’s Foreign Minister Jose Ramos-Horta chided Indonesia on Saturday for sending six naval vessels to the territory’s waters, calling it an “ostentatious display” of military might.

Indonesia said on Friday it had dispatched the ships ahead of Megawati’s fleeting attendance at events marking East Timor’s independence at midnight on Sunday, and that UN authorities running the territory had approved the plan.

One of the ships docked here on Friday, startling ordinary Timorese. That transport vessel unloaded Megawati’s motorcade on Saturday in front of several hundred people kept under watchful eye by scores of police.

“We did not agree for Indonesia to bring in six warships. We had discussions with Indonesia and said we would allow one medical vessel to dock,” Ramos-Horta told Reuters.

“We are not angry, just puzzled with this ostentatious display of navy hardware that obviously is not a good public relations exercise for Indonesia in the eyes of the Timorese and major powers such as the U.S.”

“We have asked Indonesia to move its ships to international waters and we are allowing the medical vessel to stay in our territorial waters as a matter of courtesy,” the minister added.

Ramos-Horta later told reporters the six ships entered East Timor waters on Friday and that he believed four had since left.—Reuters