Interfet and Indonesia to discuss Montael shooting

JAKARTA (JP): Chief of the International Force for East Timor (Interfet) Maj. Gen. Peter Cosgrove will meet with the Udayana Regional Military commander later this week to discuss the fatal Oct. 10 shooting in Montael, Antara reported.

Interfet spokesman Col. Mark Kelly said in East Timor's capital of Dili on Tuesday that the Indonesian Police and Interfet were awaiting the results of the investigation into the incident in which an Indonesian Police officer was killed and two others wounded at the East Nusa Tenggara border post. Cosgrove is scheduled to meet Maj. Gen. Adam Damiri who oversees Bali and West and East Nusa Tenggara.

The incident occurred when a company of Interfet soldiers and five tanks approached the border of East Nusa Tenggara in the Montael area and fired shots at the Indonesian Police post, thinking that the post belonged to prointegration forces, an Indonesian Military statement said.

Cosgrove previously said he welcomed the offer of Indonesian Military Commander Gen. Wiranto to conduct joint border patrols along East Timor and East Nusa Tenggara.

Kelly also said Interfet troops in East Timor found at least 20 bodies in the town of Liquica, the largest find so far following the violence that engulfed the territory last month.

"In Liquica yesterday (Monday) a large number of bodies were found," Kelly told a news conference as quoted by Reuters.

"We're certainly looking at approximately 20 bodies, at least, in this site."

The grave site is in a patch of scrub near a beach in the coastal town, some 30 km west of Dili.

The town was a stronghold of pro-Indonesia militias which waged a campaign of intimidation ahead of East Timor's overwhelming vote rejecting an autonomy package within Indonesia on Aug. 30. A wave of murder and arson after the ballot left much of the territory in ruins.

Kelly said he did not know when the bodies were dumped at the site. Interfet said last week it received reports that militiamen were still active around Liquica.

Meanwhile, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has returned at least 2,505 East Timorese refugees from Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara, to Dili, a local social affairs official said on Tuesday.

The refugees had been sheltered in a number of camps in East Nusa Tenggara for more than a month.

"We only made an inventory list of those wishing to go home and let the UNHCR take care of the further evacuation process," Bambang Subroto, head of the Kupang social affairs office, said as quoted by Antara.

UNHCR began the return of East Timorese to their homeland this week despite a continuing exodus from the territory.

According to data collected by the East Nusa Tenggara Emergency Coordinating Body (Satkorlak) the total number of East Timorese refugees in East Nusa Tenggara was now 271,599 people from 55,000 families.

"Thousands of people are still trapped in Lospalos, Manatuto and Maubesi due to a lack of transportation. They want to enter East Nusa Tenggara," East Timor Governor Abilio Jose Osorio Soares said.

Abilio requested that the UNHCR help the people by evacuating them to East Nusa Tenggara as it did for East Timorese refugees in East Nusa Tenggara who wished to return to East Timor.

Separately, UNHCR spokesman Fernando told the media in Kupang that the mandate the UNHCR received from the UN was to evacuate East Timorese people in East Nusa Tenggara to East Timor.

"Concerning East Timorese who are still in East Timor and want to leave, well, we don't have that authority," he added.(edt/imn)