Threatened Timorese town seeks troops
Sydney Morning Herald 1 February 2003
By Jill Jolliffe in Hatolia
Border zone ... angry East Timorese confront a UN representative.
The United Nations is in a quandary after insecure border villagers
demanded that it extend a controversial military operation that has
resulted in mass arrests.
The UN deputy administrator in East Timor, Sukehiro Hasegawa, visited
the
town of Hatolia on Thursday in response to residents' letters asking for
the newly formed East Timor Defence Force to remain in the area to protect
them. Their operation was due to end yesterday, but is under review.
Seven people died in attacks at nearby Atsabe in early January, apparently
by militia infiltrators from West Timor.
Angry townsfolk confronted Mr Hasegawa. A former guerrilla, Afonso Martins,
told him: "I was a resistance commander and can mobilise my men again
if
you don't protect us."
Others said they would dump bodies outside government buildings in Dili
if
their demands were not met.
Human rights organisations have criticised a January6 agreement between
the
UN and the Dili Government after the Atsabe attacks, allowing East Timorese
soldiers to take over security from UN peacekeepers.
The agreement has allowed the East Timor Defence Force to question and
arrest civilians, and has thrown East Timor's fledgling judiciary into
turmoil, creating a tug-of-war between the army and human rights activists.
Members of the Colimau 2000 sect have been accused of involvement in
the
Atsabe attacks and arrested en masse. The courts later freed them.
Mr Hasegawa stood his ground with the villagers. He insisted that law
and
order was a police matter in the new democracy, and no one should be
arrested without evidence.
"Do not make the same mistakes of the past 24 years, when the Indonesians
set up their administration," he said. "They used their forces
to round up
anyone against it."
At the centre of the conflict is the hamlet of Leimea Kraik, where up
to
two-thirds of residents support Colimau 2000, one of many cults springing
up in rural areas as a result of poverty and unrealistic hopes for
independence.
Their mainly illiterate followers believe that certain dead resistance
heroes will be reborn and emerge from the jungle.
Colimau 2000 members have been imprisoned in the past for terrorising
their
neighbours to extort money. The main difference between it and other sects
is its proximity to the border and its support in refugee camps on the
Indonesian side, making it more vulnerable to manipulation by third parties.
Civil war ignited in this area in 1975, paving the way for Indonesia's
invasion.