Two big burial sites found in East Timor

Two big burial sites found in East Timor

MAUBARA, East Timor (Agencies): Peacekeepers in East Timor
found 26 bodies at two separate burial sites on Monday they fear
might contain more than 100 victims massacred by anti-
independence militiamen and Indonesian troops.

Australian navy divers recovered the body parts of a dozen
victims that had been dumped in a lake at Maubara, some 11
kilometers west of the coastal town of Liquica. More were feared
to be beneath the water.

They are believed to be the victims of a bloody April 6 attack
on a group of parishioners at Liquica's main Roman Catholic
church. Yayasan Hak, a Timorese human rights group, claimed a
total of 67 people were shot or hacked to death by soldiers and
thugs belonging to a local militia gang.

"We have been asked to search the lake to see if we can find
anything else to connect the atrocity to the (Indonesian army) or
the militia in the area at the time," said Lt. Com. Jonathan
Peacock, who commanded the naval detachment.

The divers, who started pulling bones and other body pieces
from the small lake Monday, said they were guided to the location
by a villager who claimed he had driven a truckload of corpses to
the site after the massacre.

"He said he wasn't a willing participant and he was held at
gunpoint to make sure he drove the truck and completed the task,"
Peacock said.

The divers will continue to search to bottom of the lake,
which is 12 meters deep.

Bones were scattered around the shoreline which has receded
about 200 meters since last April. Clothing was hanging in
branches that were submerged before the water level dropped.

Separately, peacekeepers found a mass grave with up to 52
bodies in the enclave of Oecussi, said Capt. Andrew Plunkett, an
intelligence officer in the region.

If the body counts from both sites are confirmed, they would
be the largest found in East Timor since Indonesian troops and
the militias went on a rampage of violence following an Aug. 30
independence referendum. Four-fifths of the territory's people
voted to break away from Indonesia in the UN-supervised ballot.

Plunkett told visiting Australian Defense Minister John Moore
that 14 bodies had been exhumed from a field near Oecussi's
border with Indonesian-held West Timor.

International troops believe about 170 people were killed in
and around Oecussi, a district that is part of East Timor, but is
separated and surrounded by West Timor. It was the last part to
be secured by the peacekeepers, who landed in East Timor on Sept.
20.

The United Nations, which is administering East Timor during
its current transition to independence, is now investigating
allegations that the Indonesian military organized the violence.

The UN Security Council is considering whether to establish a
war crimes tribunal to try those responsible.

Indonesia's new reformist government has separately set up its
own human rights inquiry, which has already blamed top generals
for the bloodshed. The military has denied that it took part in
organized killings.

Before Monday's grisly discovery, about 200 bodies had been
recovered from various sites.

Meanwhile, Portuguese President Jorge Sampaio said in Bangkok
on Monday that Portugal wants to mend fences with Asian nations,
particularly Indonesia, after handing back its last colony in the
region.

Sampaio arrived in Bangkok from Macau early Monday morning
after overseeing its return to China after more than four
centuries of colonial rule.

Sampaio met with Thai Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai. He was due
to travel on to the former Portuguese territory, East Timor which
endured a much more bloody emergence from colonialism, on Tuesday
night.

Sampaio will be the first Portuguese head of state to visit
East Timor since Portugal abruptly left it, paving the way for
the Indonesian invasion in 1975.