RI cracks down on militia, but danger remains, UN says

RI cracks down on militia, but danger remains, UN says

SYDNEY, Australia (AFP): Squads of up to 30 militia fighters
have slipped across the border into East Timor to conduct long-
range patrols, threatening the stability of the territory, a
senior UN official warned on Monday.

Militiamen based in Indonesian West Timor appeared to be under
renewed pressure from Jakarta to disarm but still posed a
"hypothetical" threat to the fledgling state, UN special
representative in East Timor, Sergio Vieira de Mello, told
reporters here.

The absence of humanitarian agencies from the border areas of
West Timor has undermined the UN's ability to gauge the
effectiveness of Jakarta's attempts to reign in its former
allies, said de Mello, who also heads the United Nations
Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET).

He said policing the border against militia infiltration from
West Timor remained a problem. "We need more help," de Mello
said.

"We have indications the TNI (Indonesian army) and police are
actively looking for weapons. "How successful they are is
impossible for me to say."

De Mello stressed that the militias were well-armed and had
changed tactics in July, abandoning hit-and-run cross-border
raids in favor of long-range patrols inside East Timor.

He said militiamen had infiltrated East Timor during the past
two-and-a-half months and probed as far as Ainaro in the
territory's UN-designated sector central. "So we must be ready
for the hypothesis of new infiltration to take place in the
coming weeks."

"When I say disarming the militias, I am not referring to
shotguns," he said.

He said groups of between five and 30 men had crossed the
border recently in rugged terrain armed with "combat weapons"
such as the Chinese-made SKS automatic rifle, M16s and rocket-
propelled grenades.

De Mello's schedule in Australia includes meetings with
Australian Prime Minister John Howard and other government
ministers as well as defense force chief Admiral Chris Barrie.

The renegotiation of the Timor Gap treaty, which governs vast
undersea oil and gas reserves lying between Australia's north and
the fledgling state, will also be on the agenda.

"The resources of the Timor Sea are vital to the future of
East Timor," de Mello said.

After more than three-quarters of East Timor's population
voted in favor of independence from Indonesia in last year's
August 30 referendum, pro-Jakarta militias embarked upon a
scorched earth rampage.

Up to 120,000 refugees remain in camps in West Timor under the
fist of militiamen armed by renegade sections of the Indonesian
military.

"Their situation is likely to be appalling right now," de
Mello said.

An attack on a UN office in Atambua in West Timor on Sept. 6,
during which three aid workers were murdered, forced the
evacuation of aid agency staff, effectively denying the UN a
vital source of intelligence.

In other developments, a 36-member National Council will be
sworn in during a ceremony in East Timor's capital, Dili, late
Monday.

The council, drawn exclusively from the ranks of East
Timorese, will become the forerunner to an independent parliament
in East Timor.

"There will be elections next year. There isn't a date yet,
but it isn't far away," UN spokesman Fred Eckhard said late last
week.

Indonesia invaded East Timor in 1975 after the departure of
colonial rulers Portugal, annexing the territory a year later in
a move never recognized by the UN.