---------------------------------------------------------- FREE for JOIN Indonesia Daily News Online via EMAIL: go to: http://www.indo-news.com/subscribe.html - FREE - FREE - FREE - FREE - FREE - FREE - Please Visit Our Sponsor http://www.indo-news.com/cgi-bin/ads1 ---------------------------------------------------------- ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 00:12:20 EDT From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: undisclosed-recipients:;@melati.com Subject: Pro-Indonesia militia group threatens vote boycott Pro-Indonesia militia group threatens vote boycott CASSA, East Timor, July 23 (AFP) - A pro-Indonesia militia leader here is threatening to boycott next month's vote on East Timor's future. Nemezio Carvalho, deputy commander of Mahidi, said if pro-independence Falantil guerrillas did not hand in their weapons over the weekend, the militia would boycott registration for the vote and ignore its result. "If nothing happens during 24 or 25 July, we will boycott," Carvalho said in an interview at his house in this town south of the district capital of Ainaro. A source close to Falantil commander Xanana Gusmao said there was agreement in principle to lay down arms. But "as far as I know.....the authorities to whom they will hand over the weapons has not been decided. So how can they disarm?" Carvalho said he was trying to contact Besi Merah Putih (Red and White Iron) and Lak Saur, two other strong militia groups, about joining the boycott. "We don't want to accept the results of the popular consultation if we boycott the popular consultation," the bearded Carvalho said. "I think that the international community will not protest or criticize us." He says he had many guns and 7,000 members in Ainaro district. The United Nations Mission in East Timor (UNAMET) and a local source say a Mahidi attack on the village of Selasa late last week left four villagers wounded by gunfire. One Mahidi member was killed by a rock, the local source said. The next day in the village of Nagidal, militia members burned a house and fired their guns into the air, the source said. UNAMET closed four voter registration centres in the area for two days after the attack. Carvalho blamed the incident on Falintil and said it partly explained his wish not to participate in registration for the late-August ballot, in which East Timorese will decide whether they want autonomy within Indonesia, or independence for the territory. He said last week's violence violated agreements governing the popular consultation. "So I think it's better for me to decide for my people not to register," said Carvalho, who is also the local village chief. He said he had asked his local followers not to register because UNAMET requires people to produce two documents. "Our people here only have identity cards. The majority do not have second documents like baptismal certificates or birth certificates. So I asked them not to register because the people do not have the necessary documents," he said. UNAMET says one document is needed to prove a person's identity. The second proves their eligibility to vote. The voter registration centre a short distance from Carvalho's house in Cassa was forced to close last Sunday after militia members visited. "We'd been asked to close and told that no one would be registering. No one was here. No one was coming," a UNAMET worker said. That incident led to an emergency meeting in Cassa on Monday between Carvalho and Alan Mills, commissioner of the UNAMET civilian police. Since then, registration has resumed at the Cassa centre where UNAMET workers reported a steady flow of people on Wednesday and Thursday wanting to get on the voters' list. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Didistribusikan tgl. 23 Jul 1999 jam 09:54:59 GMT+1 oleh: Indonesia Daily News Online <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.Indo-News.com/ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
