07 Jan 02 19:40
East Timor: Return of Mahidi Militia Chief Canceled for ´Technical
Reasons`
A former leading anti-idependence militia leader has canceled
his planned return to East Timor. Cancio Lopes de Carvalho told the UN
transition administration Monday he had canceled the trip for
"technical reasons".
A spokesman in the UN administration told Lusa that Lopes de
Carvalho had also informed them that his homecoming to the territory
would be postponed "for an unspecified period".
Senior East Timorese and United Nations administration
officials had been preparing earlier Monday in Dili to welcome home
Lopes de Carvalho in one of the most dramatic steps yet taken at
reconciliation with former backers of Indonesian rule.
Officials had announced at the weekend that the Mahidi militia
chief would return from Indonesian West Timor Tuesday morning at
Salele, where he was to have been met by independence leader Xanana
Gusmao and UN transition administrator Sergio Vieira de Mello, among
others.
Lopes de Carvalho had said he was ready to face charges of
crimes against humanity and to cooperate in providing evidence against
Indonesian security forces in the wave of violence that shattered East
Timor at the time of its UN-sponsored independence plebiscite in 1999.
Court sources in Dili said that witnesses have accused Lopes
de Carvalho and his Mahidi paramilitaries of atrocities, especially in
the area of Ainaro, south of the territory´s capital.
East Timorese and Indonesian officials had hoped that Lopes de
Carvalho´s high-profile return would encourage tens of thousands
of
refugees remaining in West Timor to follow suit.
Jakarta has given the refugees, estimated by relief agencies
at about 70,000, an ultimatum to either return to East Timor or face
resettlement to other parts of Indonesia.
The UN High Commission for Refugees said that by last month
nearly 193,000 had returned home.