E. Timor capital back to normal, 120 detained

E. Timor capital back to normal, 120 detained

DILI, East Timor (JP): The East Timor capital returned to
normal yesterday after four days of rioting in which two people
were killed and 12 people injured.

Chief of the Udayana Regional Military Command Maj. Gen. Abdul
Rivai, who oversees security in Bali, Nusa Tenggara and East
Timor, said more than 120 people had been arrested.

Offices, schools, shops reopened yesterday as tension from the
bloody street brawls that flared through the city from Monday
through Thursday receded.

Rivai said four of the 12 people injured in the flurry of
incidents were members of the Armed Forces (ABRI).

Those arrested were mostly youths with crimes ranging from
burning tires in the streets to extorting money from pedestrians,
he said.

"We will determine the role that each of the arrested played,
whether they were planners, rioters or anything else," Rivai said
in a media briefing, where he was accompanied by chief of the
East Timor military command, Col. Muhidin Simbolon.

Rivai denied the accusations that the military was slow in
quelling the latest wave of violence. "We mean to act carefully
in line with standard procedures," he said.

Separately, prominent legislator Manuel Viegas Carrascalao
criticized the way the military handled the riots. He said that
some military officers "intimidated" him for no reasons after he
was trying to intervene in the fighting.

Carrascalao, who represents the ruling Golkar party, said he
had received complaints that security officers messed up the
belongings of suspects they arrested at their homes.

Rivai said the authorities in East Timor were studying the
cause of the latest violence. "We will listen to those
detained... we will tap as much information as possible why they
went on the rampage," he said.

Earlier this week, East Timor Governor Abilio Jose Osorio
Soares said the clashes involved anti-integration activists under
Boby Xavier and a gang under Alexio Cobra.

Carrascalao's version goes that it was sparked by the arrest
of Xavier. His angry supporters were met by pro-government East
Timorese who were backed by the Armed Forces.

Meanwhile, in Yogyakarta, hundreds of the students of the
State Institute of Islamic Studies (IAIN) demonstrated their
anger at East Timor Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo, whom they
charged of having no respect for Moslems in East Timor.

The banner waving protesters branded Belo as "president of
(East Timor's) rebels" and criticized non-governmental
organizations for doing nothing to defend "oppressed" Moslems in
East Timor.

The demonstration held after the Friday mass prayers was
organized in connection with last month's religious and ethnic
violence in Dili, which forced hundreds of mostly Moslem migrants
to flee East Timor.

A number of mosques and Protestant churches were reportedly
burnt down, vehicles vandalized, market places set ablaze and
more than a dozen people arrested in the incidents that took
place between Sept. 2 and 14. (pan/yac/02)