Subject: Reuters: 100s of heads on poles, mutilated
corpses -reports
Date: Mon, 6 Sep 1999 03:42:49 EDT
From: Joyo@aol.comE.Timorese say reports of mutilated bodies
SYDNEY, Sept 6 (Reuters) - Australian-based East Timorese resistance leaders said on
Monday they had received reports from the terror-stricken territory of mutilated bodies
and hundreds of heads on poles along the roadside.
``I've been told they could count at least 145 dead bodies on the outskirts of Dili,''
Alfredo Ferreira, the National Council for Timorese Resistance representative in Darwin,
told Reuters.
Joao Carrascalao, Australia's senior East Timorese resistance officer, told Australian
Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) radio he had received a report of mutilated bodies along
the road to Dili.
``One person who travelled from Dili to Atambua reported that alongside the road there
were hundreds of heads on stick and bodies everywhere,'' Carrascalao said.
There has been an upsurge in violence by pro-Jakarta militias in East Timor since
Saturday, when the United Nations declared 78.5 percent of voters in an August 30 poll
opted for independence from Indonesia. No independent confirmation was available of the
reports of mass killing.
Australia on Monday launched an evacuation of non-essential U.N. staff and Australians
from East Timor's capital Dili, saying Jakarta had failed to maintain law and order in the
territory since the independence vote.
Indonesia invaded East Timor in 1975 and annexed it the following year in a move not
recognised by the United Nations. Since then an estimated 200,000 people have died of
starvation or in fighting.
Resistance leaders also warned that if Xanana Gusmao, the Fretilin leader under house
arrest in Jakarta, was freed and returned to the bloodied territory he would be killed and
called on Australia to offer Gusmao safe haven. On Saturday Jakarta announced his imminent
release, probably on Wednesday.
East Timorese independence leader Agio Pereira told ABC he had received reports of mass
killings in the village of Mentiau and in a Catholic nun's college at Balidi.
``One of the worst events was in Mentiau where many people were indiscriminately
killed. The report that I received was that possibly hundreds of people were killed in
these widespread killings,'' Pereira said.
``Another attack, we cannot say how many dead, but possibly hundreds, was the attack on
the college of Balidi, because more than 1,000 people ran into that college of Catholic
nuns.''
Australian aid worker Paul Toon, awaiting evacuation from Dili, also told Australian
radio he had heard reports of mass killings in Dili.
``There has been a very large level of automatic gunfire at various times through the
night, at a scale that goes far beyond anything that we have experienced recently,'' Toon
said.
``Through yesterday (Sunday) there was gunfire and there was notification that one
series of gunfire was 30 people being massacred at the fort in Dili,'' he said.
East Timorese leaders in Australia said pro-Jakarta militias and Indonesian military
were involved in the mass killings and that East Timorese were being rounded up to be
deported out of the territory.
``People are being rounded up and taken by (Indonesian) police to an area in Comoro,
west of Dili, on the way to the airport, in order that later on they will be sent to
islands in Indonesia and to West Timor,'' Ferreira told Reuters.
``They are pushing everybody out, they are trying to clear the city and all towns. If
people refuse to go with them, they kill them and burn the house,'' he said. ``The army
and police force are working with the militia, they are seen laughing and doing everything
together.
``Many many East Timorese here (in Darwin) are getting calls from their relatives in
East Timor, the message is all the same. We are going to have a repetition of the late
1970s when more than 200,000 people were killed.''
23:32 09-05-99
Back to September Menu
Human Rights Violations in East Timor
World Leaders Contact List
Main Postings Menu |
