East Timor force starts fanning out
DILI, East Timor (Agencies): The United Nations International Force for East Timor (Interfet) began cautiously moving out of Dili on Wednesday after Sander Thoenes, the Jakarta-based journalist for the Financial Times of London was shot dead on the city's outskirts on Tuesday night.
A government warehouse was looted by hundreds of hungry refugees back from nearby hills, while an officer in the UN force said it had confiscated hundreds of crude weapons.
The body of journalist Thoenes, a Dutch citizen, was found behind an abandoned house in Dili's Becora subdistrict on Wednesday.
"It has been quite a dangerous 24 hours," the multinational force's commander, Maj. Gen. Peter Cosgrove, told Reuters.
Australian Brigadier Mark Evans said 150 soldiers had landed in Baucau in the first major deployment outside Dili since the UN multinational force arrived in East Timor on Monday. But he acknowledged that much work remained to be done.
"We have certainly made a difference but there are still some very dangerous people out there," said Evans, the commander of the UN land forces.
More than 2,000 of an anticipated 7,500 foreign troops have been deployed in East Timor to end a wave of bloodshed unleashed by pro-Jakarta militiamen.
Major Marcus Fielding, the operations officer for the force's land component, said hundreds of homemade guns, machetes and knives were seized.
"We have lost count of the number of weapons we have confiscated from the militias and others," he was quoted as saying.
Separately on Tuesday, AFP reported that a British reporter and an American photographer were ambushed on the outskirts of Dili, allegedly by men in Indonesian Army uniforms.
Veteran Sunday Times reporter Jon Swain and a colleague, U.S photographer Chip Hires, fled into the bush, took refuge in a nearby village and managed to phone their office in London, who conveyed a message to Interfet in Dili.
Australia's Major Chip Henriss-Anderssen said a rescue operation was mounted involving a light armored vehicle, 100 troops and an undisclosed number of Black Hawk helicopters.
"As of this morning, they are in safe hands," he said.
Meanwhile, AP reported that Australia's military would stop flying journalists to East Timor because resources were too limited.
The Australian military, which is leading the UN peacekeeping force in East Timor, said the decision was not related to the slaying of Thoenes.
The news agency also said that aid flights carried emergency rations to East Timor's hungry refugees on Wednesday for the first time this week, picking up again after a three-day halt forced by the multinational peacekeeping force's deployment.
Three foreign military planes were to drop a total of 18 to 30 tons of daily rations to spots where high numbers of refugees were known to have fled.
Eighteen representatives of international aid groups were flown into Dili on Wednesday to start assessing the region's overall needs.
In the border town of Atambua in the western half of Timor island, a pro-Jakarta militia member said one of his colleagues was killed and five others injured in an ambush by proindependence militias in Zumalai, Ainaro regency in East Timor early on Wednesday.
Miguel, 30, from the Do or Die for Integration (Mahidi), survived the ambush, and told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday that the prointegration militias were attacked when they were escorting a convoy of refugees fleeing to East Nusa Tenggara.
A doctor at a local hospital told the Post that George Gomes, 36, died of bullet wounds and said eight bullets were pumped into his body.
Reuters reported that prointegration militias vowed to fight to regain control of East Timor at a ceremony on Monday to set up a new umbrella body and denounced the dispatch of UN peacekeeping forces to the former Portuguese colony.
Thousands of militiamen bearing guns, machetes and rifles gathered in Atambua, crying "Viva Integration" as their leaders signed the establishment of the Front of Nation Unity.
In Jakarta, Indonesian Military (TNI) chief Gen. Wiranto said he expected martial law in the troubled territory to be lifted soon.
Wiranto said the situation in the territory was calm.
Violence erupted after the result of the Aug. 30 referendum was announced, showing an overwhelming majority voted against autonomy within Indonesia.
Independence supporters say thousands have been killed. Wiranto has said the confirmed death toll is under 100.
"In a short time we are going to cancel the state of military emergency in East Timor," Coordinating Minister for Political Affairs and Security Feisal Tanjung said. "We will go back to civil order in which the police are responsible for security, because according to reports, the situation has improved." (27/byg/prb)