| Subject: Last Indonesian
Soldiers Pulling Out From East Timor Associated
Press October 21, 1999
Last Indonesian Soldiers Pulling Out From East Timor
DILI, East Timor (AP)--A quarter-century after storming
ashore in a massive invasion, the last Indonesian troops are quietly packing up and
trickling out of East Timor.
Though blamed by the United Nations for inciting last
month's orgy of violence that prompted the U.N. Security Council to sanction a
peacekeeping force, the departing soldiers claim they are sorry to go.
"We are human beings; we have feelings, too,"
declared Col. Willem Rampangilei, spokesman for the dwindling force. "You can't avoid
feeling sorry that East Timor is no longer part of Indonesia, but we have to carry out the
orders of our government and international community."
Closing a chapter of history that resulted in the deaths of
up to 200,000 East Timorese since the invasion on Dec. 7, 1975, the remaining soldiers are
busy loading up equipment and furniture from their headquarters in the capital Dili.
"This is obviously leading to the eventual withdrawal
of the entire garrison," said Col. Mark Kelly, chief of staff of the peacekeeping
force known as Interfet. "But at this stage, we have no confirmed time frame when
that will occur."
Although crowds earlier stoned soldiers driving trucks and
containers onto Indonesian Navy ships in Dili harbor, onlookers milling around the gate
Thursday appeared more curious than hostile.
About 900 Men Remain, Awaiting Final Pullout Orders Only
about 900 men remain of a force that at its peak in the mid-1980s numbered 40,000. They
are awaiting orders from Jakarta for the final pullout, Rampangilei said.
"See you in Aceh!" a youth bicycling past the
main gate shouted at two dejected-looking paratroopers guarding the post. Aceh,
Indonesia's westernmost province, is the site of a separatist rebellion in which thousands
of civilians and soldiers have died over the years.
Tuesday, Indonesia's highest legislative body voted to
annul a law incorporating East Timor into Indonesia as its 27th province, ending an
attempt to integrate the overwhelmingly Roman Catholic region into the world's biggest
Muslim nation.
The revocation came after four-fifths of East Timor's
850,000 citizens opted for independence in a U.N.-supervised plebiscite on Aug. 30. That
sparked a rampage by pro-Jakarta militias, backed by Indonesian soldiers, which torched
and looted their way through the territory. Some 250,000 people were forced to flee to the
western, Indonesian-held part of Timor island.
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