Pinoy to head UN police force in Timor

Former Quezon City police chief Director Rodolfo Tor has been named police commissioner of the newly established UN Integrated Mission in Timor Leste or East Timor (UNMIT), Ambassador to the United Nations Lauro Baja said yesterday.

In a report to Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo, Baja said the Philippine Mission has formally informed the UN that the Philippines has accepted the appointment of Tor.

"General Tor’s designation as UNMIT police commissioner reaffirms the positive contribution of Filipino peacekeepers who have been in East Timor as part of the UN missions there since 1999," he said.

Baja said Tor is expected to assume his post before the end of the month in East Timor’s capital Dili.

Tor will oversee a force of more than 1,600 UN police officers from 11 countries, including the Philippines, he added.

Tor, 55, is the second Filipino to command a UN peacekeeping force in East Timor.

In 2000, retired Philippine Army chief Lt. Gen. Jaime de los Santos was named commander of UN Transitional Administration in East Timor.

UNMIT, the fifth UN mission in East Timor since 1999, was created in August in response to violent clashes between rival factions in the East Timorese armed forces and national police earlier this year.

The UN police, or UNPol, will provide interim law enforcement and support to East Timor’s police force while it is being reconstituted.

Tor has more than 36 years of police and military service in the fields of administration and management.

His expertise is largely on human resource management, police operation, logistics allocation, intelligence processing and utilization, investigation and international liaison and collaboration. — Pia Lee-Brago, AP