| Subject: AFP: Hundreds more Indonesian police arrive
in East Timor Date: Sun, 01 Aug 1999 11:12:05 -0400 From: "John M. Miller" <fbp@igc.apc.org> Received from Joyo Indonesian News: Hundreds more Indonesian police arrive in East Timor DILI, East Timor, July 26 (AFP) - Hundreds of Indonesian police reinforcements landed here Monday as the East Timorese awaited a UN decision on whether a vote on the troubled territory's future will go ahead next month as planned. The six companies or almost 900 tough mobile brigade police troopers disembarked from a military troop transport ship which arrived at Dili port from Indonesian Borneo shortly after sunrise. "These police will help bring more intensive security" to East Timor, police spokesman Captain Widodo (eds: one name), said. Another 400 were to arrive Tuesday to reinforce police on the ground responsible for providing security for the ballot in which East Timorese will vote on accepting or rejecting an Indonesian offer of integration with autonomy. Indonesia has said it may let go of the former Portuguese colony that it annexed in 1976 if the autonomy offer is rejected. But Monday it was unsure whether the vote would go ahead as scheduled in the third week of August, with a decision expected later Monday from UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in New York. Annan, under the terms of an agreement reached between Portugal and Indonesia at the United Nations in May, must decide whether the right security conditions are in place to allow the ballot to go ahead. He has already postponed the start of the 20-day registration period by two weeks, citing pro-Indonesian militia intimidation and violence against the pro-independence factions. On Monday Hiro Ueki, a spokesman for the UN Mission in East Timor, said two of the 200 voter registration centers in the territory had to close down Sunday because of problems with pro-Indonesian militia. He said some 20 to 30 militia arrived at the two centers in Balibo, and tried to force the UN officials to register them with one document each instead of two as required. "The district electoral officers refused and the militias threatened to return with additional men and destroy the registration center. As a result of this threat, the registration closed at midday." Ueki said. But there was no violence and the militia were unarmed, he added. Ueki said UNAMET chief Ian Martin was finalizing his assessment report on the security situation, which was expected to be sent to New York later in the day. He reconfirmed that Annan was expected to submit the report to the UN Security Council. Separately the independent three-person election commission assigned to UNAMET said it was sending its own report directly to Annan. The members of the commission are Patrick Bradley, the chief electoral officer from Northern Ireland, South African human rights lawyer Johann Kriegler and South Korean political scientist Bong-Scuk Sohn. Back to July Menu |