Indonesia Australia Seeks to Downplay Violence on East Timor Border

Canberra, 20 Oct. (AKI) - Australia's foreign minister, Alexander Downer, has played down reports of increasing violence on the border between East Timor and Indonesia saying there is no evidence that the Indonesian
military (TNI) is involved. A cable sent by the UN chief in East Timor, Sukehiro Hasegawa, to UN headquarters in New York accuses the Indonesian military of provoking multiple border violations in the tense Oecussi enclave area, The Australian newspaper reported.

The report in The Australian said that a mob of about 200 people attacked East Timor police in the area on Saturday as Indonesian soldiers looked on. "Seven TNI soldiers were seen at the rear of the group, clearly
condoning, if not encouraging, this action," Hasegawa's cable reportedly said.

The UN representative reportedly warned that Dili had threatened to pull out of the East Timor-Indonesia Truth and Friendship Commission, following the collapse of tense border talks because of Jakarta's failure to
stop incursions by the feared Okto militia. He said he was very concerned about a possible escalation in violence in the area.

"This is not a resumption of the militia activity that we saw in 1999," Australia's foreign minister said. "These are land disputes as a result of the delineation of the border, nothing more or nothing less than that" he was quoted as saying.

However East Timor's foreign minister Jose Ramos-Horta has also been seeking to minimise the incidents. He told Australian radio that the Indonesian side obviously is acting in good faith. He said if the border of the Oecussi enclave, a piece of East Timor surrounded by Indonesian territory, had been peaceful for several years, "it has to be credited to the Indonesian military leadership."

END