Andrew West – An Australian Federal Police officer could face charges after revealing the truth about the bloodbath in East Timor to Australia's Parliament.

Annie White: A top East Timorese official has accused Australian aid groups and businesses of profiteering in East Timor. The secretary-general of Timor's socialist party Avelino De Silva sits alongside Xanana Gusmao and Jose Ramos Horta at the National Consultative Council, Timor's de facto government.

Sam de Silva, Dili – About 400 people marched Wednesday from the office of protest organsier, the Socialist Party of Timor (PST) to the gates of the UNTAET headquarters to protest for the rights of the East Timorese people. The PST are linked to and supported by the Australian-based Democratic Socialist Party.

Joanne Collins, Dili – East Timor is likely to count Indonesia, its old and often brutal master, as its top trade partner as the devastated fledgling nation strives to rebuild, the United Nations and World Bank say.

Jakarta – Human rights activists have slammed the latest testimony made by Major General Zacky Anwar Makarim on the violence that destroyed about 70% of East Timor's infrastructure last year after the territory in August voted overwhelmingly to split from Indonesia.

Dili – In the first serious protest against the UN administration running East Timor, some 200 unemployed laborers demonstrated Wednesday against the use of Indonesian workers by companies contracted by the world body.

Keith B. Richburg, Dili – At one of the two new floating hotels in Dili last week, it was standing room only at the upper-deck bar.

Agencies in Jakarta and Dili – A senior Indonesian army general admitted yesterday that pro-Jakarta militias and some disgruntled Indonesian soldiers had committed murder and arson in East Timor.

John Martinkus, Memo – Local residents here on the East-West Timor border remain terrified of an Indonesian attack following this week's shooting incident between Indonesian troops and Australian Interfet soldiers.

Terry Townsend – The streets of what is left of Dili, the capital of East Timor, were packed on October 31, 1999, as tens of thousands of people joined a procession led by Catholic Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo.

[Source: Sydney Morning Herald - January 2, 2000]

Table of contents

Introduction

General background

International Commission of Inquiry On East Timor

Jakarta – A former battalion commander in East Timor admitted on Thursday that his troops ambushed two foreign journalists in the territory's capital of Dili on September 21.

Keith B. Richburg, Tuapukan Refugee Camp – Zelia Soares and her family had decided to go home, to leave this refugee camp in western Timor and take their chances in the newly independent East Timor.

Dili – East Timor's leader Xanana Gusmao said here Friday that he foresaw the territory obtaining full independence in at most two years – a year less than currently envisaged.

Dili – East Timor's independence leader Jose Alexandre "Xanana" Gusmao said Friday that East Timor will be the first new independent nation of the new millennium, but not with him as president.

Gusmao has been widely regarded as the main contender for the presidency when East Timor, now under UN administration, becomes independent.

Dili – Several dozen Muslims who fled the recent violence in East Timor returned home to a protest by East Timorese who said they are not welcome, a UN official said Friday.

Jakarta – Efforts to bring to justice those behind the violence in East Timor received a double blow this week with the former armed forces chief rebuffing a domestic inquiry and the government again rejecting an international tribunal.

Jakarta – Former Indonesian armed forces chief General Wiranto on Friday told a human rights commission there had been no plan or policy for either a genocide or crimes against humanity in East Timor.

Railako – There was not much left of body number 258, but a team of UN civilian police officers and soldiers from the International Force for East Timor (Interfet) set out Thursday to find as much as they could.

Dili – Seven people were wounded after a suspected member of a pro-Indonesian militia threw a hand grenade in the border area between East and West Timor, a spokesman for the international peace force here said.

Canberra – More than 100,000 refugees in West Timor were trapped in makeshift camps and living in a state of constant fear under the rule of the militia groups that destroyed East Timor, an Amnesty International report said today.

Keith B. Richburg, Dili – Australian troops in East Timor are examining a newly discovered grave site in the Oe-Cussi enclave that may contain the remains of as many as 50 victims of last September's bloody rampage by Indonesian army troops and allied militias, which followed the territory's overwhelming vote to secede from Indonesia.

Geneva – More than 119,000 East Timorese have now returned to the territory – most of them from Indonesian West Timor, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said here Tuesday. With the exception of three minor incidents since Friday, UNHCR staff had also reported an easing of conditions in some militia-controlled camps in West Timor, spokesman Paul Stromberg said.

Kupang – A pro-Jakarta East Timor militia chief accused the Indonesian government on Friday of abandoning its own supporters, but said he would not disband his group, which is accused of terror in the territory.

Atambua – One week after the commander of pro-Indonesian militias ordered his forces to disband, militias remain present here but their power is fading, aid workers say.

Jakarta – The commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) yesterday in Jakarta revealed it's new investigation results from East Timor, concerning the violence which was conducted before and after the UN sponsored plebiscite. The results show evidence that the militia were paid by local administrators and the military.

Michael Richardson, Dili – Now that the East Timorese independence coalition no longer has a common enemy to hold it together, there are signs that it is starting to fracture.

Lindsay Murdoch – Eurico Guterres looks a beaten man. Gone are his thug bodyguards and the copy-cat red beret uniform of Indonesia's elite Kopassus forces. Gone also are his bravado and threats to kill.

Instead, the militia leader – who ordered mass murders and the destruction of East Timor – is living under an assumed name in a seedy hotel in north Jakarta.

David Nason – The Australian consortium behind the failed Dili Lodge hotel venture in East Timor hoped to reap an annual profit of nearly $7 million, while initially operating tax-free and paying wages of less than 60c an hour for local staff.

Jakarta – East Timorese militia supremo Joao da Silva Tavares has officially disbanded an umbrella organization for pro-Indonesian militias ordering them to hand over all arms, a report said here Tuesday.

Dili – A commander of one of East Timor's anti-independence militias has admitted he was behind one of the territory's most horrific massacres and claims he was acting on the orders of Indonesian special forces.

Hamish Mcdonald, Dili – The Australian commander of the United Nations peacekeeping force in East Timor has appealed for the international community to continue to pressure Indonesia to allow the remaining 100,000 displaced people in West Timor to return home.

Joanne Collins, Kupang – Pro-Jakarta militiamen armed with pistols and clubs threatened UN aid officials in Indonesian West Timor on Friday, preventing them from entering camps for East Timorese refugees.

Dili – UN police in East Timor have been overwhelmed by the number of murder cases they must investigate with limited resources after the wave of violence that swept this territory after its August 30 vote for independence.

Michael Ware. Dili – East Timor's political heavyweights and leading lights, now is crunchtime. Real positions of influence and power are up for grabs, and the manoeuvring is under way.

Dili – Eighteen East Timorese freed by Jakarta under a presidential amnesty program arrived in their homeland Saturday to an emotional welcome.

Nora Boustany, East Timor – An American relief worker who arrived Sunday from East Timor described horrific conditions in resettlement camps she visited across the border in western Timor, where she said she saw mass graves of children, and refugees living as the virtual hostages of Indonesian soldiers and local militias.

Dili, Tim Johnson – Timorese Tuesday celebrated East Timor's first free anniversary of Indonesia's invasion of the former Portuguese colony on December 7, 1975.

Veteran independence campaigner Jose Ramos-Horta told Kyodo News his people's hearts are filled with sorrow for the many who died during the initial assault on Dili.

Jon Land – As investigations by both the United Nations and the Indonesian Human Rights Commission continue into the Indonesian military's involvement in the killing and destruction which took place in East Timor, the Howard government remains reluctant to divulge vital intelligence that would aid these investigations.

The Victorian branch of the ALP has voted against a proposal to provide the National Council of Timorese Resistance (CNRT) with $5000 for urgent reconstruction work in East Timor.

Jakarta – Influential security minister General Wiranto on Monday denied allegations of a systematic effort by militias to prevent East Timorese refugees in West Timor from returning to their homeland.

The bodies began to wash ashore about a week after Indonesia invaded East Timor 24 years ago.

"I buried one man over there on the beach," said Joao Pereira, 56, who was a waiter at the seafront hotel Turismo when Indonesian troops landed on December 7, 1975.

Jakarta – The militia have been haunting the East Timorese refugees currently residing in camps in East Nusa Tenggara (NTT). Militia are still emotionally charged over not succeeding in their "mission" and have been terrorising and threatening the refugees...

Geneva – Conditions in refugee camps in West Timor are deteriorating, with provincial authorities reporting that at least 35 people, mostly children, died in one camp over a 10-day period, the UN refugee agency said at the weekend. Thirty-two of the victims were children under five.

Dili – A five member UN mission Friday wound up nine days of investigation into allegations of atrocities in East Timor but it declined to say whether an international tribunal to try those responsible would be necessary.

Mark Dodd, Dili – As East Timor struggles to rebuild, a United Nations decision to introduce the Portuguese escudo into the fragile economy has caused mass confusion among an impoverished population now faced with a choice of four currencies, none of them freely convertible.

Max Lane – A formal administration of East Timor by the United Nations was established on November 27 when the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) issued its first regulation.

Karen Fredericks, Brisbane – The spokesperson for the Brisbane East Timorese community has hit out at the refusal by federal immigration minister Philip Ruddock to grant the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) access to refugees in safe haven facilities.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Jose Ramos Horta has returned to East Timor after almost 24 years in exile. He writes of the task of rebuilding a nation.

I left East Timor on December 4, 1975, three days before the Indonesian invasion. A private plane took me from Dili to Darwin. I have been abroad ever since, representing the cause of East Timorese independence.

Dili – The number of East Timorese refugees returning from Indonesia has dropped despite Indonesian promises to help speed up their passage, the UN refugee said on Wednesday.

"We are very shocked," said Ariane Quentier of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). "If you look at the figures, they have even got worse."