Less than two weeks ago, before the razing of Dili, excerpts from Indonesian military radio traffic were passed to UN officials revealing plans to burn down the East Timor capital. These plans were subsequently carried out. The same intelligence sources have now informed the UN of radio messages revealing plans by militias to take young pro-independence men out of refugee camps in West Timor, presumably for execution, a senior UN official told The Irish Times yesterday.
Already there is evidence that armed pro-Jakarta militias backed by Indonesian soldiers are putting such plans into operation. Reports from camps at Kupang and Atambua in West Timor speak of a climate of terror, as militias roam freely among the defenceless refugees at night, picking up young people and taking them away. The reports give added urgency to the mission of a senior UN official sent by the UN Secretary General, Mr Kofi Annan, to assess the situation in East and West Timor.
Mr Ross Mountain arrived in Jakarta yesterday to begin work as humanitarian co-ordinator for the East Timor crisis. His task is to co-operate with the Indonesian government and aid agencies such as the Red Cross to co-ordinate humanitarian assistance operations in East and West Timor and other affected areas of Indonesia to which refugees have fled. However, all aid agencies have been expelled from East Timor and banned from refugee camps in West Timor, where journalists who try to approach are harassed by armed thugs in red-and-white bandanas.
Fears are also growing of thousands of deaths by starvation in the absence of humanitarian help among the people who fled into the mountains of East Timor from gangs wielding machetes and guns. The most recent evidence of atrocities being committed in West Timor, a former Dutch colony which is an integral part of Indonesia, comes from the Uniting Church in Australia, which said yesterday in Sydney that it had information militias were hunting down and executing independence supporters in refugee camps there, and had also killed the head of the Protestant church in East Timor.
The Rev John Barr, spokesman for the Uniting Church, which combines Methodist, Presbyterian and Congregational denominations, said evangelical sources in the West Timor capital, Kupang, claimed militias were targeting refugee camps. "I have spoken to people in Kupang who have been to the camps and said the militias are searching for pro-independence people," he said.
"I asked them, what are they doing with the people, taking them away and killing them? They said yes. I believe the sources are reliable. Pro-independence supporters are being hunted down and executed."
An East Timorese refugee in Atambua refugee camp near the East Timor border called Reuters in Jakarta yesterday and said he spoke to a militiaman on Sunday. "He said the militias plan to search for pro-independence Timorese in the refugee camp in about three days time and kill them," the refugee said. "There are 69,700 refugees officially registered in the camp.
"You cannot really tell who is pro-independence or pro-integration here because the different groups have mixed together." Another report said a member of the East Timor resistance hiding in a house in Kupang telephoned a contact in Macau to say both the Indonesian military and pro-autonomy militias were carrying out nightly raids on the refugee camps in Kupang.
"The situation is very bad. There is so much intimidation," the 47-year-old man, a former village chief in Dili, said. "There's a lot of shooting every night. They take people out of the tents at night, especially young boys, and they disappear. I don't know if they kill them or take them to another place."
The man was reportedly forced out of East Timor on September 3rd and escaped with 23 other East Timorese from the camp. Some 93,000 people have fled or been ejected from East Timor in a form of `political cleansing' since the announcement on September 4th that the people of East Timor had voted to support independence, according to Indonesian authorities.
A total of 55,000 are in one large camp at Atambua and 22,000 in Kupang. Another 20,000 are said to be trapped on the East Timor side. Most were forced by soldiers onto trucks which took them to West Timor. Mr Brian Kelly, spokesman for the UN Mission in East Timor (UNAMET), said yesterday he had reports that refugees were being ordered on to planes and ships in Dili by men wearing UNAMET caps and symbols, which were either looted from a UN warehouse or manufactured by the Indonesians.
Jakarta media predicted yesterday that it was only a matter of time before a social conflict erupted in West Timor between local citizens and armed militia who got drunk and refused to pay for goods at shops.
"We have been flooded with armed refugees. In addition to personnel of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Indonesia, militiamen are carrying arms and have even not hesitated to open fire over very trivial matters," the Belu District chief, Marselus Bere, said.
Col Yusuf Hidayat, chief of police in East Nusa Tenggara district, urged pro-autonomy refugees to hand over their weapons to authorities.
The latest batch of refugees to arrive in Kupang came from Baucau in eastern East Timor in the last two days, according to Media Indonesia. At least three ships with about 3,000 passengers on board arrived at the port on Sunday.
Three ships carrying 740 refugees from Baucau docked on Saturday. The report said that a Baucau militia leader, Virgilio da Costa Guterres, confirmed that a higher official had ordered militias to take refugees away.
He said he was instructed to gather local citizens after the popular consultation ended. "We moved as soon as a higherup ordered us to take refuge somewhere else. It is up to the government to take us anywhere it likes," he said without identifying the official.
Before the UN-supervised referendum, the population of East Timor was estimated at 850,000. Most towns in East Timor are now depopulated, according to refugees, though with access denied to foreign journalists it is impossible to form an accurate picture.
Some reports speak of men, women and children being hacked to death and of bodies decomposing along the roadside.