Angry paramilitaries ambushed the motorcade of East Timor's Bishop Carlos Belo yesterday with rocks and machetes only an hour after he celebrated Mass in the shaken town of Liquica, where at least 25 people were massacred last Tuesday.
During the open-air Mass a group of pro-Indonesian militias wearing red and white headbands and balaclavas cruised around the outside of the Saint Joao de Brito church grounds on motorbikes, demanding that foreign journalists leave the church grounds and return to Dili, the capital.
An alleged head of the local militia, the local regent, Mr Leoneto Martins, was in the front row of the congregation.
Later, a gang of 30 members of the Red and White Iron militia waiting by the coastal road some five kilometres east of Liquica pounced on the convoy as it slowed down to cross a potholed section of road.
Bishop Belo was unhurt and his vehicle, leading the convoy, was not attacked. He made no comment after the incident. An open police truck with six armed police lead the convoy but failed to stop the ambush.
Following the attack six men wearing red and white balaclavas and with swords strapped to their backs chased the bishop's convoy on motorbikes all the way to the outskirts of Dili, some 30 km away.
The paramilitaries - mainly teenagers - threw large rocks at the dozen cars travelling behind the bishop's white Toyota four-wheel drive. Nuns, priests, church youths, foreign journalists and humanitarian workers were inside.
The militias used swords, pieces of wood and iron bars to pound the cars, forcing the passengers to duck for cover as glass shattered inside at least three vehicles.
The driver of a taxi in the convoy sustained a deep head wound and was later taken under military escort to the Wirahusada military hospital in Dili. A rock the size of a football was tossed through his windscreen.
One English and two Australian journalists narrowly escaped being stabbed by a one-metre length of iron pipe which was thrown like a spear into the car, smashing the side passenger window.
A frightened police officer in a civilian car, bearing a rifle out the window, screamed at drivers to move faster to escape from the pursuing militia members.
Earlier, as the convoy stopped outside the Liquica police station for Bishop Belo to pay a courtesy call on officers, militias armed with home-made guns and swords threatened passengers parked in the middle of the road.
Covering their faces with strips of red material and woollen beanies, the paramilitaries motioned their hands across their necks in a cutting action at foreign journalists and aid workers inside the cars. "You're dead," they yelled as police stood by and watched. One official from the International Committee of the Red Cross was told if he came back he would be "in the cemetery". The ICRC tried three times last week to enter Liquica with medical supplies.
In a brief sermon to the 500 people at Mass Bishop Belo called on Liquica residents to rebuild their lives and return to their schools and offices. "Liquica is in crisis, but we will love again and build a new town," he said.
Many stared blankly into the distance and could not raise their voices to sing.
The traumatised residents only came after much coaxing. The church was deserted when the bishop arrived. His staff had to ring the church bell for half an hour and cruise the town in a car, telling people that it was safe to come out of their homes.
The priest's house where the massacre took place had been repaired by soldiers, making a future investigation difficult and any forensic work impossible.
Bishop Belo said last week that he had suspended his part in the reconciliation process until the fighting stopped.
Witnesses said Indonesian soldiers had murdered 14 people in three unprovoked attacks in East Timor over the weekend. Witnesses to two of the incidents said that the killings, in the Ermera district, a few kilometres from Liquica, were "conducted in cold blood for no reason whatsoever except to cause terror and panic". In the first, on Saturday, soldiers fire on a car killing a local councillor, Antonio da Lima.
