Bishop Belo reports rights violations to President<\/p>\n
DILI, East Timor (JP): Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo has
\nreported to President Soeharto on what he sees as widespread
\nviolations of human rights in the territory.<\/p>\n
Belo said a spate of violence that led to human right abuses
\nin the former Portuguese colony has been particularly worrying
\nover the past three months.<\/p>\n
\"If there is no reply from the President, I may lodge a
\ncomplaint with the UN Secretary General Boutros-Boutros Ghali,\"
\nhe told The Jakarta Post.<\/p>\n
The East Timorese top Roman Catholic leader said violence has
\nbeen worsening since the murder of an East Timorese trader by a
\nSouth Sulawesi migrant on the eve of the Asia-Pacific Economic
\nCooperation summit in Jakarta in November.<\/p>\n
The highly politicized incident sparked several days of
\nrioting and demonstrations in the town, which provoked strong
\nreactions from the security authorities.<\/p>\n
A similar incident occurred again on Jan. 1 in Baucau, 180
\nkilometers east of here, when an East Timorese was killed in a
\nbrawl with a South Sulawesi migrant in a minor feud.<\/p>\n
Belo said the latest distressing incident is the killing of
\nsix people that the Armed Forces (ABRI) believed were members of
\nthe Fretelin separatist movement in the Liquica regency on Jan.
\n12.<\/p>\n
The National Commission on Human Rights will probe the
\nincident, which has received wide press coverage in the foreign
\nmedia.<\/p>\n
Belo said he decided to write President Soeharto after he
\nheard news about the killing of another five people, whose bodies
\nwere recently found in a western outskirt town.<\/p>\n
On a separate occasion, local military commandant Col. Kiki
\nSyahnakri said ABRI was certain that the six people killed in the
\nJan. 12 clash were Fretelin rebels.<\/p>\n
He told visiting Japanese diplomats on Wednesday that from
\nthose killed, troops confiscated classified documents belonging
\nto Coni Santa, 45, who succeeded fretelin leader Jose Alexandre
\n\"Xanana\" Gusmao, now in a Jakarta jail.<\/p>\n
According to Syahnakri, a soldier was wounded in the clash and
\nis now in the hospital. (yac\/pan)<\/p>",
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