International peacekeepers yesterday tightened their grip on East Timor's western districts as hopes rose that East Timorese refugees and hostages outside the territory may soon return home.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees said Indonesia had agreed to allow the first of almost 250,000 refugees in Indonesian-controlled West Timor to be airlifted back to Dili within days.
"If the return actually happens, it will bring an end to the ordeal of thousands of miserable people, many of whom have been taken to West Timor against their will," the UNHCR chief, Ms Sadako Ogata, said.
But doubts about Jakarta's intentions persisted as the Indonesian army was reported to be stopping refugees making their way back to East Timor by road.
Three days after about 1,000 Australian troops from the International Force for East Timor (Interfet) were deployed along the frontier, the town of Balibo, 10 km from the border, and the surrounding area remained deserted.
One refugee who made it across the frontier from a camp in the town of Atambua said Indonesian soldiers were blocking anyone who tried to return.
"The TNI [Indonesian armed forces] are stopping vehicles going back across the border and are threatening to kill the people in them," Mr Domingos Dos Santos (24), said after being picked up by Australian troops near the crossing at Batugade.
"They are saying there is going to be a war in East Timor and we cannot go back." Mr Dos Santos sneaked across the border late on Saturday just as the UNHCR was completing an agreement with Indonesian officials in West Timor's main town, Kupang.
He said he had left Atambua because the camps there were riddled with police, soldiers and members of anti-independence militias who were hunting down male refugees. "They want to kill them all," he said.
The UNHCR spokesman, Mr Fernando del Mundo, said the Indonesian government had given a green light to begin repatriation of refugees, starting with the "most vulnerable" within days. When this was announced to some 12,000 refugees crammed into a stadium in Atambua on Saturday, they burst into cheers, he added.
Many of the East Timorese who have crossed into West Timor since September 4th, when violence erupted in reaction to the territory's vote for independence, have said they were forcibly deported by the Indonesian military.
Mr Del Mundo said authorities in West Timor told him they believed at least 60 per cent of refugees in the squalid camps planned to return. The UNHCR and aid workers say the refugees live in fear of the militia, who control many of the camps. Reports of disappearances and killings are rife.
The decision to allow the refugees to return, which appeared to be a major breakthrough, came after intense negotiations between the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Indonesian government and military officials.
Australian troops based at Balibo yesterday began fanning out throughout the border area, a stronghold of the militias. The Interfet spokesman, Col Mark Kelly, said the Australian troops had yet to encounter any resistance. "It's still progressing well," Col Kelly said.
However, he cautioned that it was too early to say that the bulk of the militia fighters had fled across the border.
Indonesia's new national assembly yesterday elected the Muslim reformist leader, Mr Amien Rais, as its chairman in a tight vote against another Muslim leader, Mr Matori Abdul Jalil. Mr Rais won 307 votes compared to Mr Jalil's 279 to take the chair of the nation's highest legislative body, the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR).
The date to elect Indonesia's next president has been brought forward to October 20th and a vote on approval of the independence of East Timor is expected soon afterwards.