Leaked documents prepared by the United Nations mission in East Timor (UNAMET) have given substance to a widespread conviction in the international community that a high-level conspiracy exists between Indonesian police and military officers to use anti-independence militia in an orchestrated scorched-earth campaign in East Timor.
The documents, published in the Melbourne Age, said there had been "a deliberate strategy to force UNAMET to withdraw from certain regions back to Dili".
If true, yesterday saw the completion of this policy with the withdrawal of 138 United Nations and NGO workers from the town of Bacau, the last UNAMET post outside the East Timor capital.
A senior UNAMET official, Mr Brian Kelly, told The Irish Times yesterday by telephone from Dili - before the land lines to the outside world were cut in mid-afternoon - that the Bacau compound came under automatic fire from militias at 10 a.m. and the militias continued to patrol threateningly.
All personnel had been taken to Dili airport and flown to Darwin in an Australian military aircraft yesterday afternoon. Bishop Carlos Belo, evacuated on the same flight, also accused the Indonesian army of planning the destruction.
So did the resistance leader, Mr Xanana Gusmao, who said the Indonesian military were killing the people of East Timor. "TNI [the military] is killing the population [of East Timor]," he told reporters in Jakarta after his release from custody by Indonesian authorities. "I urge Indonesia to put an end to the killings the TNI is carrying out." The UN documents allegedly found that in some cases during the past few days there had been "joint operations", including the burning of houses and attacks on civilians and UN personnel.
"Civpol [UN civilian police] strongly believe. . .that the militias acted with precise instructions as to their targets and the types of actions to conduct," one of the leaked reports says.
In the western towns of Aileu, Ainaro, Maliana, Liquica and Same there were accounts of specific abuses, including a threat to burn down a UN compound by a militia leader who said he was acting on instructions from the local major. In Liquica, Indonesian police and military personnel themselves shot at UN vehicles and passengers. An American member of Civpol was wounded.
The UN also suggested that Indonesian army officers were linked to the killing of two local UN staff in Maliana. Five other UN staff in the area are missing, feared dead. A former district military commander, Col Sighian, had been seen in Maliana, after being moved some weeks ago after international complaints about his activities.
"The reappearance coincided with reports, which could not be confirmed, of recent distribution of weapons to the militias," the Melbourne Age quoted the documents as saying. "After studying the reports of the above incidents UNAMET concludes that the operations' modalities demonstrate an intention to create an impression of a conflict between East Timorese, with the Indonesian authorities hopelessly caught between two warring factions. All the evidence available to UNAMET suggests that what in fact happened was the implementation of an unprovoked attack strategy put into action by the authorities."
A baby was born in the UNAMET compound yesterday morning, Mr Kelly said. It was named Pedro Unamet Rodriguez and baptised by a Jesuit priest among the refugees.
Mr Kelly said there were 1,500 civilians sheltering in the UNAMET compound and living on water and emergency ration packs. He said they were very dignified in their distress and intent on keeping the compound clean.
Agencies add: The British government is to withdraw an invitation to senior Indonesian military personnel to attend Britain's biggest arms fair. The decision by the Ministry of Defence, which last night had yet to be formally announced, follows discreet pressure from the Foreign Office.
The Foreign Office is understood to have persuaded a reluctant Ministry of Defence that the presence of senior Indonesian defence officials at an arms fair would have been so embarrassing as to be untenable, given what was happening in East Timor.