Over 378,000 register for East Timor ballot

DILI, East Timor (JP): The United Nations Mission in East Timor (UNAMET) said on Monday the registration process for the Aug. 30 self-determination vote in the territory was a success with almost all projected voters signed up.

UNAMET spokesman David Wimhurst said a total of 378,302 people had registered with poll officials as of Saturday, the 16th day of the 20-day registration period.

"We are on target with the numbers. Given our initial estimates, and given that we are now three days away from the end of the process, I think we can say that it has been a successful exercise," Wimhurst said at a regular media briefing.

An estimated 400,000 East Timorese are expected to go to the polls on Aug. 30, where they will decide whether to accept or reject Jakarta's offer of autonomy under Indonesia.

Wimhurst said additional registration officials had been deployed across the provincial capital of Dili and to Maliana and the East Timor enclave Ambeno. The move was in anticipation of the many internally displaced persons facing problems registering for the vote.

A UN High Commissioner for Refugees representative here, Luis Varese, said some 70,000 people had fled their villages as violence flared up in the run-up to the vote.

In a statement released on Monday, the UNHCR said both prointegration militia groups and their proindependence counterparts were responsible for the exodus.

It added that the displaced persons lacked adequate food, medical care, shelter and protection. Since January, some 100 refugees have died of various illnesses and malnutrition.

The UNHCR emergency program in the troubled province will initially run for six months. The mission includes assisting the displaced people to return to their own villages, so that they can register and vote there.

A six-day appeal period will follow the registration stage before campaigning starts on Aug. 11 and runs through Aug. 27. A two-day cooling-off period will precede the vote.

Wimhurst also expressed his concern at the ongoing violence. In the latest, which took place in Balide subdistrict here on Sunday, bank employee, Angelino Amaral, was shot dead by alleged prointegration militias.

UNAMET civilian police officers met with local police on Monday to discuss the shooting.

Antara reported from Ambeno that many East Timorese had complained about the slow registration process.

Coordinator of East Timor descendants in East Nusa Tenggara Efer Manafe said only 10 people had registered with UNAMET staff. The registration site is a state elementary school building in Oesilo.

Efer said 5,000 people across the enclave were eligible to vote on Aug. 30.

"The slow-paced registration is caused by the way UNAMET staff serve prospective voters. The poll officials tend to exaggerate small mistakes," Efer said, adding that the behavior had caused people to waste a half an hour completing registration procedures.

Another complaint was made to UNAMET from the leader of the prointegration East Timor People's Front (BRTT), Fransisco Lopes da Cruz. He said on Monday the mission's efforts to introduce the concept of wide-ranging autonomy was not effective.

"Many people living in villages still do not understand what autonomy is. UNAMET needs alternative media to socialize the government's offer," da Cruz said after a reconciliation campaign here.

He said the concept of wide-ranging autonomy had not been thoroughly understood by locals, because UNAMET had employed interpreters who did not understand the essence of the package.

In the Bali capital of Denpasar, at one of the registration centers outside East Timor, head of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) there, Mike Montagano, said he was pleased with the way the registration process was running.

"There has been a constant number of East Timorese turning up in the last few days. The turnout figure is not big, but there have always been people registering themselves here," he said.

Chief of Udayana Military Command overseeing Bali, Nusa Tenggara and East Timor, Maj. Gen. Adam Damiri, has estimated the number of East Timorese residing in Bali who are eligible to vote on Aug. 30 at about 350. (33/49/amd)