E. Timorese rebel leader buried without incident

JAKARTA (JP): David Alex, the separatist rebel who died in hospital Wednesday after a shootout in Baucau, has been buried in Dili without incident, reports said yesterday.

Local military chief Col. Slamat Sidabutar said that Alex was buried at about 4 p.m. Thursday in a public cemetery in an eastern suburb of the capital Dili.

The burial was led by Catholic priest Amandus Biri and attended by Alex's relatives, Antara quoted Sidabutar as saying.

Alex died of blood loss in Dili's Wira Husada Hospital at about 7 p.m. Wednesday after intensive care treatment, Sidabutar said.

Alex was shot and critically wounded Wednesday morning in a raid on his cave hideout near Baucau. Five other separatist rebels in the hideout were captured alive.

The military had identified Alex as the deputy commander of the Fretilin separatist movement's armed wing. He reportedly operated in the rebels' Region II, covering Viqueque, Lautem and Manatuto.

His group is believed responsible for the recent wave of attacks on military and civilian targets in various regencies East Timor.

Sidabutar said the authorities had confiscated the rebels' documents and amulets.

East Timor was integrated into Indonesia in 1976 but the United Nations still recognizes Portugal as the territory's legitimate administrator.

An estimated 200 poorly armed Fretilin separatists are waging a small rebellion.

Still alive?

AFP reported from Sydney yesterday that separatist sources in Australia believed that Alex was still alive despite reports that he had been killed.

Quoting sources at Darwin's East Timor International Support Centre, the news agency said that contrary to Indonesian claims, Alex and three others were captured uninjured and taken in military vehicles to Baucau where they are likely to still be alive.

"We have good reason to believe that the Baucau commander of the East Timor armed resistance, David Alex, is still alive contrary to claims by the Indonesian Armed Forces that he was killed in battle," centre spokesman Donny Inbaraj said.

Inbaraj said his group had spoken to witnesses who said that Alex and three others -- Jose Antonio Belo, Manuel Loke Matan and one identified only as Gil -- had been intercepted by a patrol Wednesday morning while searching for medicine in Kaibada near Baucau. Alex, who was sick, had needed the medicine. (pan)