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)