Militias Seize Control of Nation

Monitor Wire Services

Fleeing the area as they did during the 1975 atrocities by Indonesia, roads are choked by families abandoning their homes to hide in the surrounding hills. The streets of Dili are empty, with shops open only briefly or not at all as militia members prowl in trucks and on motorcycles, often firing their new guns in the air. Other residents are seeking shelter in schools and churches as rumors spread that militias are using roadblocks to stop -- and sometimes kill -- refugees.

Meanwhile, the U.S. rejected calls for a UN peacekeeping force to be sent to the region, calling instead on the Indonesian President B.J. Habibie to keep his promise to protect Timorese citizens in the aftermath of Monday's vote for independence. Under an agreement signed in May, Indonesia is responsible for security until the E Timor legislature meets in November.

But in Washington, Pentagon officials said the ammunition supply ship USNS Kilauea is standing by to provide emergency evacuations by helicopter if needed.

Jailed East Timorese separatist leader Xanana Gusmao warned of "genocide" unless the UN quickly intervened. "I appeal to [the] secretary general of the UN to convene an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to decide on the sending of multinational forces to save the Maubere (East Timorese) people from a new genocide," Gusmao said from his house detention in Jakarta.

"They are burning everything. They don't respect anything. They are out of control. They are crazy," said one of 54 UN workers returning to Dili from Maliana.

According to Agence France Presse, truckloads of Besi Merah Putih (Red and White) militiamen were entering Dili to join another militia group that has terrorized the capitol city for months.

At least four UN workers are among seven people killed in East Timor since Monday. Many UN workers fled neighboring cities for Dili to seek protection from the rampaging militias, UN officials said Friday.

Indonesian defense minister Gen. Wiranto promised that he would send 1,400 more soldiers to the violence-wracked region to support the 400 specially- trained police officers who will be transported to Dili this weekend. Originally, only 350 police officers were promised.

Some 400 people had taken refuge in the UN headquarters building in Dili on Tuesday as an anti-independence militia rampage began. Reports said the militias instead had attacked cars and individuals trying to enter it, killing five.

Many observers reported that Indonesian troops merely stood by and watched as the militias openly used illegal weapons, beat people in the street, shot at passing cars, and mounted other attacks on facilities and individuals.

In addition to the two UN drivers killed Thursday night, five others are unaccounted for. At least 33 UN workers fled the UN headquarters for a police station as hundreds of armed gang members surrounded the compound.

"It is very clear that the militia are in control," UN spokesman David Wimhurst told the Associated Press. "The militias are running rampant through the town [of Maliana] and no effort was made to stop them."

"Indonesian police are doing nothing to stop the violence," American UN worker David Peace told the AP as he arrived in Dili from Maliana Friday. The UN has 4,000 workers in East Timor cities and towns, most of them devoted to mounting the plebiscite.

"I haven't seen one ounce of police work since I got into this country," one of those evacuated told the South China Morning Post. "They have got to have an international [peacekeeping] force in here. The Timorese people are at their [the militias'] mercy."

Another UN officer told the newspaper that Maliana was under mob rule. "It is just surrounded by fire and smoke. The militia just roam free with their weapons."

Meanwhile, Nobel Peace Prize winner Jose Ramos-Horta is flying to Washington to request a cut-off of financial aid to Indonesia from donor nations to punish it for not stopping the militia violence. He has said a UN force should police E Timor for a three-year transition period.

During the most recent incident, on Thursday two British journalists were abducted by police and held for some hours before being released. Indonesian armed forces members were implicated in the cold-blooded execution of a group of seven Australian journalists at a dock in Dili in 1975.

The U.S., Australian, Japanese and other governments have expressed concern about the fate of journalists reporting in E Timor, and some news organizations are currently evacuating reporters. About 75 journalists --including Indonesians working for Western media-- left E Timor aboard a BBC-chartered aircraft on Friday.

Shortly after taking over from Suharto, President Habibie offered to allow Timor to determine its own future with the plebiscite, which was delayed several times by anti-independence violence.

However, that decision was widely opposed by pro-Indonesian interests in East Timor and in the Indonesian armed forces, or ABRI, which have been repeatedly accused of ignoring or abetting attacks on pro-independence figures and of arming the anti-independence militias.

Analysts say that Indonesia has a tradition of using thugs to enforce national policy that dates back to before WWII. Such militia groups were set up by the Japanese occupying forces, and some members of those gangs later became leaders in the Indonesian military. The Suharto regime used militias several times in Indonesia to intimidate voters, most famously during the 1982 elections.

A similar pattern appeared in E Timor, as Indonesia claimed that the militias were a grassroots political group that wanted to the island nation to remain part of Indonesia. But, as South China Morning Post noted on Friday, "the mushrooming of up to a dozen different groups of men with guns, matching T-shirts, berets, government-issue M-16 rifles and plans of campaign suggests more organization is involved than merely a spontaneous growth of neighborhood protection units would provide."