Military

DATE=11/14/00

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=UN / TIMOR - L

NUMBER=2-269199

BYLINE=PATRICIA NUNAN

DATELINE=JAKARTA

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: A UN Security Council delegation is continuing its six day visit to East Timor and Indonesia to assess the problems of militias opposed to East Timor independence and the status of refugees. Patricia Nunan has the details.

TEXT: The leader of the 15-member UN Security Council delegation says he will do his best to pressure Indonesia to let East Timorese refugees

return home. But Martin Andjaba says the delegation did not come to call for the "punishment" of Indonesia.

Both East Timor and Indonesia are still recovering from the two-week campaign of terror launched by anti-independence militias in East Timor in 1999 - in the days surrounding its vote for independence from Indonesia. Hundreds of people were killed, while much of territory was destroyed.

Roughly 300 thousand of the territory's population of 800 thousand were forced to flee their homes - many of them seeking shelter in refugee camps in the Indonesian province of West Timor.

With the arrival of international peacekeepers in East Timor - West Timor has become the headquarters for the anti-independence militias. The issue of the militias once again gained international attention in September - when militia-men murdered three staff from the UN High Commission for Refugees in the border town of Atambua.

The deaths sparked international condemnation of Indonesia's failure to crackdown on the militia groups.

Political Affairs and Security Minister Bambang Yudyhono says the government will assist all efforts to investigate the incident. But he says the UN staff are also partly responsible.

/// ACT: YUDYHONO ///

I have to stress that the 13 UNHCR personnel had in advance been requested by the police to leave the UNHCR compound, but only 10 people went along with police requirement. And most of them secured in the residential housing around the UNHCR compound. Those three [who] refused to do so were finally victimized by mass angry people.

/// END ACT ///

The UN pulled all its personnel out of West Timor in reaction to the incident - leaving the estimated 120 thousand East Timorese refugees still living in camps without any humanitarian assistance.

The high-level mission spent two days in East Timor before departing Tuesday for West Timor - where it intends to visit Atambua before heading

to the Indonesian capital Jakarta later in the week. (signed)

NEB/HK/PN/JO