List members might find the following interesting, and perhaps worthy of further circulation. -----Original Message----- From: Taylor-Hunt Dominic [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, 8 October 1999 19:10 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Fwd: W. Timor Situation From: "free easttimor" <[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: W. Timor Situation Date: Fri, 08 Oct 1999 17:50:37 JAYT Please forward this email to everyone in your address book. It is impoortant that as many people as possible get to know the truth!! I was recently in W. Timor (last week), and I saw some things that need to be shared. I spent most of the time in Kefamenanu, a small town 220km NE of Kupang. I went to the E. Timorese refugee camp in Naen, which has about 10,000 refugees. This is the most peaceful refugee camp in W. Timor, and as a result the only place that foreigners are allowed in to work, except for UNICEF staff. Even there, militia trucks were visiting, looking for E. Timorese people. At least one shooting incident has occurred to my knowledge, with one fatality, about 2km from the camp. An E. Timorese family was attacked by militia, and the father was killed. Conditions in this camp are reasonably good but there is malnutrition amongst the children, and some people have gunshot wounds and burns. There is an Indonesian businessmasn living in Kefamenanu who has lived in Dili for 10 years, and has many E. Timorese friends. He was attacked by Militia in Kefamenanu because of his friendships. Some other guests at the hotel I was staying at were Indonesian Army - reguarly and openly having meetings with Militia. I heard that in another camp called Wini the situation is very tense. Humanitarian organisations cannot go there. On the 26th Sept, TNI (Indonesian National Military) troops massacred many people, the number of casualties unknown. In Atambua, a town close to the border with E. Timor, the situation is even worse. There are twice as many refugees as normal citizens. Officially there are 6000 TNI troops deployed in Atambua ready to defend Indonesia from an Australian invasion, which is expected by Indonesians and W. Timorese - more about this below. It can be assumed that there are more troops than that, and many Militia too. I saw about 10 trucks full of refugees, under Militia gunpoint (three trucks worth), being escorted somewhere. Refugee camps are everywhere in Atambua, but some are very like what I imagine concentration camps to be like: barbed wire enclosures, locked gates, 20 - 30 TNI soldiers guarding them.....Only UNICEF staff could approach, but could not distribute food. The best they could do was leave the food and then escape to relative safety. During an operation on a known pro-independence person in Atambua hospital, who was cut very badly on his back, TNI soldiers forced the doctor to stop and release the patient to the TNI. The doctor called the police, who prevented the release of the man to the TNI. The man is now hidden. Anyone who helps E. Timorese people is in danger. This prevents adequate help getting to the people in need. If a foreigner contacts an E. Timorese person, the E. Timorese person is also placed in extreme danger, just from communicating with a foreigner. This makes any humanitarian assistance extremely difficult to achieve. The press in Indonesia, especially National TV and radio, gives a very distorted picture of events. It is widely reported that Australia is in total command of INTERFET troops, and will imminently invade W. Timor. General Wiranto, chief of TNI, openly declared on TV that Indonesia should be ready for the fight against Australia. It is also widely reported that UN did not bring about a fair referendum in E. Timor, indeed deliberately tipped the scales in favour of independence. They also say that there were no Indonesian observers in the referendum (which there were - maybe as many as half of them!). They also claim that the refugees in W. Timor have escaped from E. Timor not from fear, but because they do not agree with the referendum results and desire to stay with Indonesia. It was declared on National TV that E. Timorese refugees will be moved to populate regions of Kalimantan, in about 3 months time. Please spread this information to your friends and contacts. It is important that there is a huge amount of International support for the plight of the Timorese people. If you want to help, please do so in an informed way. It can put people in danger too. end of message __________________ Rod Hagen [EMAIL PROTECTED] Hurstbridge, Victoria, Australia WWW http://www.netspace.net.au/~rodhagen ------------------------------------------------------- RecOzNet2 has a page @ http://www.green.net.au/recoznet2 and is archived at http://www.mail-archive.com/ To unsubscribe from this list, mail [EMAIL PROTECTED], and in the body of the message, include the words: unsubscribe announce or click here mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20announce This posting is provided to the individual members of this group without permission from the copyright owner for purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship and research under the "fair use" provisions of the Federal copyright laws and it may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner, except for "fair use." RecOzNet2 is archived for members @ http://www.mail-archive.com/
