East Timor Leaders Warn UN: Don't Trust Indonesia

"We imagined that there would be some killing, but we never thought it would be so barbarous," Gusmao, the president of the National Council for East Timorese Resistance (CNRT), told the Portuguese daily "Publico," which interviewed him in the British Embassy in Jakarta.

Gusmao was released in the Indonesian capital last week after seven years in prison and house arrest. The guerrilla leader and writer played a key role in the negotiations that led to the May 5 peace accord between Indonesia, Portugal and the United Nations.

The agreement for a referendum in the former Portuguese colony occupied by Indonesia in 1975 left the security of the territory in the hands of Jakarta.

After the results of the ballot -- in which 78.5 percent of voters called for independence -- were released, a wave of violence was unleashed in which the Indonesian police and military have actively taken part, according to witnesses and the press.

"Public opinion should lobby now for the cantonment of Indonesia's troops, and their swift replacement by UN forces," Fernando Reino, former Portuguese ambassador to the UN, said on Sept. 13.

Allowing Indonesian troops to remain in East Timor is like "entrusting the gold to the care of thieves," said Reino, a veteran negotiator on East Timor. "I do not believe in the good faith of the Indonesians, and I concur with Xanana Gusmao when he said that he only believes them when they lie."

Portuguese Foreign Minister Jaime Gama described the multinational force, to be headed by Australia, as "a peace- imposing force," authorized to use all available means to protect the population of East Timor.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard warned that Australia's troops would be going into a tough situation, and urged his fellow citizens to understand that injuries and casualties were a possibility.

According to the resistance movement, observers and human rights groups, the biggest threat to the 7,000 members of the peacekeeping force are the 26,000 Indonesian soldiers stationed in the territory, as well as some 2,000 militia members.

Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas said Indonesia would be playing an "advisory role." But independence leader and Nobel Peace laureate Jose Ramos Horta contended that Jakarta's soldiers "will shoot in front of the multinational force."

After the UN Assistance Mission in East Timor (UNAMET) pulled out of the territory yesterday, the UN compound was immediately looted and torched, even though it was under the "protection" of special Indonesian forces.

Around 100,000 people have sought refuge in the mountains, in areas controlled by Falintil, which received strict orders from Gusmao to not be pulled into the violence.

Former UN ambassador Reino underlined the far-reaching political vision of that decision, which held firm despite the carnage and destruction of towns and cities. In his view, the calm maintained by the independence forces provided a legal basis for the UN resolution.

Minister Alatas "wants the world to believe that there are two forces facing off," said Reino, who added that the UN resolution was atypical, because in East Timor there was neither civil war nor armed clashes, but unilateral aggression.

According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), some 200,000 displaced persons could die of hunger if they do not receive provisions immediately. FAO puts the number of people killed by the militias and Indonesian troops at around 7,000.

Australia and other countries have announced urgent air drops of humanitarian aid to the displaced in the mountains of East Timor. Silva said on Sept. 13 that they were in a desperate situation, with the hunger and thirst compounded by fears of attack by Indonesian troops and the paramilitaries.

From the mountains of East Timor, independence leader David Ximenes told the Portuguese press agency Lusa that he had buried five people who died due to lack of medical attention, and that the displaced were eating leaves and roots.