Closure of voter registration marred by more violence

Closure of voter registration marred by more violence

DILI, East Timor (JP): Minister of Foreign Affairs Ali Alatas
and several other ministers are scheduled to meet the United
Nations Mission in East Timor (UNAMET) on Saturday following the
end of voter registration for the direct ballot.

Despite requests to extend the registration period,
registration centers closed on Friday with 439,580 people
registering, 427,190 of whom live in East Timor.

Sporadic violence has colored the run-up to the ballot planned
for Aug. 30, with the last incident revealed on Friday by UNAMET
spokesman Yasuhiro Ueki.

He said a UNAMET official was slightly wounded by a chunk of
concrete when some 20 prointegration militias attacked a house in
Ainaro regency on Thursday morning, where 50 students had invited
the official to explain the registration process to them.

Also on Thursday at 2:30 p.m. a registration post at the state
Batugade high school was attacked by at least 50 militiamen. Two
other registration posts in the vicinity immediately closed.

The assault in Batugade was triggered by a misunderstanding
following the rejection of a number of people attempting to
register for the ballot. The people apparently lacked documents.

"They still have one day," Ueki said.

Ueki said the attackers in Ainaro were led by an elderly man.
Police arrived five minutes later but were slow to act, he said.

In Jakarta, coordinator of the Committee of Peace and
Stability, BN Marbun, who is also a member of the National
Commission on Human Rights, said the security situation ahead of
the ballot was improving.

He implied that UN officials in East Timor contributed to some
of the misunderstanding resulting in tension, saying "they (some
officials) think they are the only institution with the authority
to conduct the ballot."

"They think the situation in East Timor is like Cambodia when
there was no ruling government," Marbun told a one-day discussion
during which a book was launched on militias in East Timor.

Amid continuing reports of sporadic violence, more
international security advisors may be deployed to the province,
Australian media reported on Friday.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported from New York that "after
weeks of private talks, Australia has gained crucial support from
the United States and other UN members for a confidential
proposal to send in an extra 200 to 300 police," and had "also
won full UN backing to boost the international military presence
from the present 50 advisers to between 250 and 350."

Security concerns in East Timor led to the proposal.

Reuters reported on Friday from the United Nations that
proindependence campaigner Jose Ramos-Horta was considering
taking legal action against four generals who he accused of being
most directly responsible for killings in East Timor and for
arming militias. The news agency did not name the officers.

He told the media that hard-liners in the Indonesian Army were
trying to undermine a UN-sponsored vote on the future of the
territory by recruiting criminals and drug dealers and
"unleashing a vicious war" against independence supporters.

The 1996 Nobel Peace Prize co-laureate said the aim was to
send a signal that some Indonesian officials might "end up with
the same fate as Augusto Pinochet", the former Chilean dictator
now under house arrest in Britain pending possible extradition to
Spain to stand trial on charges of human rights abuses.

"I have begun to assemble a very large group of attorneys ...
in Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States (and) Spain
to look into national legislation, national courts, where we
might be able to have these people ... put on a wanted list of
Interpol," Ramos-Horta said.

The involvement of the Indonesian Military in backing
prointegration militia in East Timor was reported in the book
launched on Friday by the Solidarity for Peace in East Timor
organization.

The book, Pasukan Pembunuh Indonesia, Membunuh Tanpa Dihukum,
is a translation of Indonesia's Death Squads, Getting Away with
Murder originally published by the East Timor International
Support Center in May 1999.

The military has said it provided arms to civilians for self-
protection against proindependence fighters in the past.

Suara Bangsa afternoon daily on Tuesday quoted a
prointegration militia leader, Herminio Da Costa, as telling a
seminar in April that it had acquired 15,000 weapons from the
Indonesian Military while the proindependence militia, the
Falintil, only had 400 weapons.

Antara reported on Friday that UN officials led by special
representative for East Timor Jamsheed Marker would meet
government authorities in Jakarta next week, including the police
and military, to discuss the ballot. (33/05/anr)