Subject: The Age: E. Timor 'totally destroyed' - far
worse than feared
Date: Sat, 02 Oct 1999 08:12:21 -0400also: Convoy's grim survey [The Australian]
THE AGE [Melbourne] 26 September 1999
Timor 'totally destroyed'
By MARTIN CHULOV and SIMON MANN
The devastation across East Timor is far worse than feared - on a scale similar to
Rwanda and Kosovo - with up to 75per cent of key regional towns totally destroyed,
according to a United Nations assessment.
Reconnaissance flights outside the capital, Dili, have revealed towns and villages laid
waste by a month of destruction unleashed by anti-independence forces.
``When we flew over the eastern part of the territory and saw the extent of the damage
from the air, it was very clear there were very few people left in the towns,'' said a
spokesman for the UN mission in East Timor, Mr David Wimhurst, in Dili.
As the UN uncovered the extent of the devastation in East Timor, the death toll from
street riots in Jakarta over the Indonesian Government's new security bill climbed to six
with the death of a nine-year-old boy last night. An Australian embassy officer today
confirmed that unidentified gunmen had last night fired on the Australian embassy in
Jakarta for the second time in a week.
Mr Wimhurst said the task facing the relief agencies is huge, with almost the entire
East Timor population of 800,000 people scattered by the violence since they voted last
month to throw off Indonesian rule.
Between 400,000 and 500,000 people are estimated to have fled their towns and villages
for other parts of the territory, and many are camped in mountains, going hungry.
Mr Wimhurst said about three-quarters of the houses in the eastern towns of Delor and
Los Palos were destroyed. Louro was ``almost totally destroyed'' and Manatuto was also
devastated.
The UN believes at least 150,000 East Timorese have either fled or been forcibly
removed to West Timor and many of those refugees have been transmigrated to the Indonesian
mainland.
A humanitarian team is expected to return from Baucau today with an assessment of the
plight of thousands of refugees still taking shelter in the hills.
Dili was mostly calm today and InterFET commanders said the security situation had
improved. But the build-up of the multi-national force continued overnight with the
arrival of 800 troops and a French medical unit.
Meanwhile, a special session in Geneva of the UN's Commission on Human Rights had to be
extended to a third day after a European Commission resolution calling for an
international investigation of human rights atrocities in East Timor was re-drafted in a
bid to placate Asian opponents, including China, Japan, India and the Philippines.
The last-minute manoeuvring came as East Timor resistance leader and Nobel Prize
laureate Mr Jose Ramos Horta made an impassioned plea to delegates. ``I hope every one of
you at least has the courage to look yourself in the mirror tonight and ask whether you
have not become an accomplice to impunity, genocide and war crimes,'' he said.
The Australian 26sep99
Convoy's grim survey
By PETER ALFORD in Dili
A UN convoy yesterday raced to the isolated eastern districts of East Timor to assess
what is shaping as a humanitarian disaster.
A helicopter flight over the towns of Manatuto and Baucau on Friday showed the
settlements burned to the ground, with only small, scattered groups of people visible.
The convoy left as some Australian peacekeepers took their first break from action to
watch the AFL grand final, beamed live from Melbourne.
"All we need are a few meat pies and a slab of beer, and we'd be set," said
one soldier, who was making do with coffee and shortbread from his ration pack.
But outside the security of the Australian compound, UN officials were fearing that the
East Timor disaster may be far worse than initial estimates.
Since the outbreak of savage militia violence immediately after the August 30
pro-independence vote, more than 1000 East Timorese have been murdered and more than
250,000 people driven from their homes.
UN and aid-agency officials are warning that destruction and looting of food and crops
in the eastern districts raises the danger of severe famine within weeks.
UN spokesman David Wimhurst, who returned to Dili from Darwin yesterday, said Manatuto
and Leuro appeared to have been burned to the ground, and Lospalos and Dilor were at least
75 per cent ruined.
Commander Lere, chief of the pro-independence Falantil guerillas in the Manatuto/Bacau
region, told aid officials on Friday that Indonesian soldiers, not militias, had carried
out the widespread destruction and killings in that area.
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