Team formed to ensure East Timor ballot

Team formed to ensure East Timor ballot

JAKARTA (JP): President B.J. Habibie formed on Tuesday a five-
man government team to monitor and ensure the security of a
direct vote to be held under UN auspices in East Timor on Aug. 8.

Coordinating Minister for Political and Security Affairs Gen.
(ret) Feisal Tanjung was named the team leader.

Minister/State Secretary/Minister of Justice Muladi said the
team was established because the President did not want any
trouble to disrupt the direct vote, in which 800,000 residents in
the province will decide whether to be independent or remain a
part of Indonesia.

"Whatever the result of the direct ballot will be, there
should not be a single fault in its implementation and it must be
absolutely secured. For the sake of Indonesia's reputation, we
should not tolerate any engineering," Muladi said after a meeting
with Habibie at Merdeka Palace.

The team comprises of Muladi himself, Feisal, Minister of
Defense and Security/Indonesian Military (TNI) Chief Gen.
Wiranto, Minister of Foreign Affairs Ali Alatas, Minister of Home
Affairs Syarwan Hamid, National Police Chief Gen. Roesmanhadi,
and Head of National Intelligence Coordinating Board Lt. Gen.
(ret) Z.A. Maulani.

Although Feisal was the formal head of the team, Palace
officials said that Muladi and Alatas would play the central
role.

According to Annex I of the agreement between Indonesia and
Portugal signed in New York last week, Indonesia will be
responsible for maintaining peace and security in East Timor to
ensure that the popular consultation is carried out in a fair and
peaceful way in an atmosphere free of intimidation and violence.

A number of international civilian police will be available to
advise Indonesian police during the popular consultation process.

"The team will ensure the poll is held in the best, most
honest and fairest manner on Aug. 8, and the government will pay
respect to the result," said Muladi.

The government has offered a wide-ranging autonomy for the
former Portuguese colony and the authority there will be called
the Special Autonomous Region of East Timor (SARET).

Hospital sources said five people were killed and a dozen
others were injured when the progovernment militia groups Besi
Merah Putih (Red and White Iron) and Aitarak attacked Quintal
Kiik, Quintal Boot, Santa Cruz and Bemori subdistricts in Dili on
Monday.

Police however insisted that only three were killed. The
bodies of Flavito Carvalho Ribero, 26, Listen Noronha dos Reis,
20, and farmer Jose Ximenes, 20, were found near the famous Santa
Cruz cemetery.

Sobbing mourners attended the burial of the proindependence
activists in Santa Cruz on Tuesdat. The body of Elezer dos Reis,
a 18-year-old student of a junior high school in Quintal Kiik,
was also buried.

"There will be no such incidents happening again in the
future," Dili military chief Lt. Col. Endar Priyanto vowed.

The incident had forced hundreds of people to flee their
homes. They were not only East Timorese but the families of TNI
personnel living near the incident's site. Wearing their uniform,
the soldiers guarded the front of their own houses.

"The TNI families will also be accompanied by security troops
to enable them to return to their homes safely," said Endar.

UN senior official Francesc Vendrell said in New York, the UN
personnel would arrive in the East Timor capital of Dili by mid-
June.

Reuters quoted him as saying the team will comprise about 600
staff, including 400 voter registration and polling officials, 15
to 18 political and civilian advisers, and various logistics,
communications, information and other staff.

In addition, there will be an undetermined number of civilian
police, which the precise number will be determined on Monday,
Vendrell said.

A chief of mission, expected to be named shortly, should be in
East Timor by about May 20, he added.

Om Prakash Rathor, one of the five UN police personnel who
arrived in Dili last week, said on Monday the number of the UN
police personnel would be between 250 to 300 personnel.

In Bandung, West Java, Wiranto reiterated that TNI would
safeguard the voting process and would take a neutral position in
the dispute between pro and anti-independence.

"We want the voting process to run peacefully and smoothly
without any coercion and pressures," said Wiranto. (prb/33/43)