Negotiations continued Friday to resolve one of East Timor's first labor disputes, which saw a day-long walkout from the two floating hotels housing UN employees.
About 40 East Timorese workers at the Olympia and Amos W. hotels walked off the job on Thursday to protest wages, working hours and alleged discrimination.
[Andrew Fowler reports on the story behind the East Timor crisis and how it plunged Australian-Indonesian relations to an all-time low.]
Andrew Fowler: It was a relationship built on Realpolitik. But Realpolitik ended with the carnage in East Timor. And Australia's 30-year foreign policy investment with Indonesia was in tatters.
Jonathan Head – It was at the beginning of last year that we first started to hear reports of attacks by new pro-Indonesian militia gangs in East Timor. It was not, however, the first time the Indonesian army had used such a tactic.
James Dunn – It seems the Wahid Government has won its fight to ensure General Wiranto and the five other accused generals will face an Indonesian court or tribunal – not one constituted by the UN. The present setting in Jakarta is hardly encouraging, and doesn't deserve the endorsements coming from the US, Europe and Australia.
Peter Clack – The Australian Government sent a police delegation to train the Indonesian Police Force in Jakarta while Australian Federal Police officers were on duty in East Timor in September, it has been confirmed.
Lindsay Murdoch, Jakarta – A pro-Jakarta militia commander has testified that East Timor's former governor, Mr Abilio Soares, told him early last year that all supporters of independence for the territory, including priests and nuns, should be "killed if necessary".
Dili – The UN Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) has been appointed to replace Indonesia as Australia's new partner for oil and gas mining in the Timor Gap which lies between the two countries, a spokesman said here Friday.
Mark Dodd, Dili – A senior East Timorese politician has threatened to resign from a decision-making body in protest over the arrival this week of an Indonesian air force plane delivering humanitarian aid to the devastated territory.
Kuala Lumpur – Indonesia should put on trial those responsible for militia atrocities in East Timor to avoid an international war crimes tribunal, visiting East Timorese independence leader Jose Ramos-Horta said.
Tom Fawthrop, Aileu – In the mountains south of Dili, UN military observers have noticed new, younger faces arriving in the Aileu cantonment of the East Timorese national liberation army, Falintil. After 24 years of fighting the Indonesian army, East Timor is now free. The independence struggle is over.
Jonathan Singer – The Indonesian and United Nations human rights commissions have released their reports on the massive human rights violations that occurred in East Timor in 1999.
Editorial – "I think any comment [beyond "understanding and sympathy"] is really intruding a little into the internal affairs of another country", Prime Minister John Howard opined on the outcome of the Indonesian and United Nations investigations into crimes against humanity in East Timor in 1999.
Nick Fredman, Dili – Floating in this burned-out city's harbour is the bizarre structure of the Hotel Olympia. A large squat vessel that was formerly housing for oil rig workers, it has been towed to East Timor and refurbished to service the new market of well-heeled United Nations and aid agency bureaucrats and business people.
Mark Dodd, Dili – Victims in what could have been East Timor's worst massacre last year were registered by Indonesian officials before being hacked to death, according to UN officials.
[The following is a translation by the British based human rights organisation, Tapol, of the concluding paragraphs of Chapter IV of the Executive Summary entitled "Conclusions and Recommendations" of the Report of the Commission of Investigation of Human Rights Violations in East Timor, KPP HAM.
Richard Lloyd Parry – On the day that the crucial find was made, early in October last year, it was already much too late for East Timor. Its towns and cities, including the capital, Dili, were in ruins. The local militias who had carried out most of the dirty work had fled the country.
Mark Riley, New York – East Timor risks regressing into social turmoil unless the World Bank releases funds for reconstruction projects, the United Nation's administrator in East Timor has warned.
London – Secret military documents implicate Indonesia's top generals in a campaign of coercion and repression in East Timor intended to prevent the territory gaining independence, The Independent daily reported here Saturday.
Ted Bardacke – The umbrella group representing the leadership of East Timor is planning to hold a national congress in August to decide on "major strategic options" for the country, including whether to join the Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean) or the South Pacific Forum.
Joanna Jolly, Dili – The United Nations is searching 29 grave sites in an area of the East Timorese enclave of Oecussi where witnesses say 75 people were massacred. Searchers so far have found 10 bodies in an operation that began on Monday and is expected to last a week.
Mark Riley, New York – The head of the United Nations' human rights probe into East Timor has called for a South African-style truth and reconciliation commission to investigate claims of Indonesian-backed atrocities in the territory.
Max Lane – Jakarta's long war against East Timor may be (officially) over and may now be less of a "foreign policy issue" in formal Australian-Indonesian relations. But justice is still a long way away for the East Timorese; not only for those living in the devastated country itself, but also for those who sought shelter in Australia.
Kupang – Five months after their flight from violence in East Timor, more than 150,000 people are still languishing in West Timorese camps where security is described as "fragile."
Jakarta – The National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) has implicated former Indonesian Military (TNI) chief Gen. Wiranto and four other military and police generals in the violence that swept through East Timor last year, and recommended a formal investigation be held.
Richard Lloyd Parry, Dili – The truth is that it had been brewing for weeks, but the trouble really began at the former school building in the ruined city of Dili. People had been arriving since the early hours, and soon thousands of men were patiently queuing in front of the old gymnasium.
[The following is the full text a secret report for the Indonesian Government which makes it clear that the TNI directed the militia violence against East Timor's independence vote and that top generals approved of some of the worst atrocities. The report was obtained by the Sydney Morning Herald and published on its web site on April 30, 2001.
Marian Wilkinson – Indonesian security forces drew up extensive plans weeks before the United Nations ballot to move 200,000 people from East Timor using thousands of trucks and escort vehicles and marking out road, air and sea routes, Indonesian documents show.
Xanana Gusmao travelled through six Asian nations last week with his colleague in the East Timorese leadership, Jose Ramos Horta, seeking investment and projecting a desire for new diplomatic relationships.
United Nations – UN investigators have recommended that the United Nations establish an international human rights tribunal to prosecute those responsible for atrocities in East Timor, the BBC and people familiar with the investigators' report said on Saturday.
The findings of both UN and Indonesian human rights investigations into the atrocities in East Timor are soon to be made public. Marian Wilkinson reports on the evidence so far.
Darwin – A Dutch journalist shot dead in East Timor was probably killed by Indonesian troops, an Australian coroner said yesterday.
Northern Territory coroner Mr Greg Cavanagh was handing down his findings from an investigation into the killing of Mr Sander Robert Thoenes, 30, whose mutilated body was found in the East Timorese capital Dili on September 22.
Kupang – The real losers in East Timor's tumultuous transition to independence from Indonesia, the pro-Jakarta militias and their supporters, met at a rundown hotel here Wednesday to decide what to do now.
Associated Press in Dili – Gangs of youths wielding machetes and clubs rioted on Tuesday in Dili's main marketplace, seriously injuring at least four people, eyewitnesses said.
Dario Agnote – With a pack of Australian-made apricot jam and some bread she picked up from a heap of thrash, Margarita Pereira, a skinny 8-year-old, and her eight siblings hurry back home.
For the first time, Pereira said she and her brothers and sisters will be able to taste the dark-colored sandwich spread.
Dili – East Timor will adopt the US dollar as its official currency under United Nations rule, a senior member of the National Council for Timorese Resistance (CNRT) told Reuters on Monday.
The decision has angered the CNRT, the main political organisation representing the Timorese, which lobbied strongly for the Portuguese escudo.
John Martinkus, Dili – The Nobel Peace laureate Mr Jose Ramos Horta has blamed the Indonesian military for the militia border incursions that have seen Australian troops under fire in the past week.
Marian Wilkinson and Peter Cole-Adams – Australia would consider a request to hand over classified intelligence material to the Indonesian human rights inquiry investigating war crimes in Timor, the Foreign Minister, Mr Downer, said.
Linda Tenenbaum – Four months after the Australian-led military occupation of East Timor, the United Nations is establishing a colonial-style administration in the former Indonesian territory. Already, its callous indifference to the plight of the local population is fuelling growing resentment.
Ray Brindal, Canberra – Australia and East Timor stand to reap hundreds of millions of dollars in royalties if oil and natural gas projects in the zone of cooperation in the Timor Sea proceed, an East Timorese spokesman said Thursday.
John Martinkus, Dili – Pro-Indonesian militia challenged the authority of Australian troops in the East Timorese enclave of Oecussi this morning, the fifth time in the past three days.
The clashes with the militia, including one this week in which militiamen were wounded and one reportedly killed, have baffled the Australian-led Interfet UN peacekeeping force.
Tensions are rising as the rebuilding of East Timor begins, Conor O'Clery writes from Dili.
Conor O'Clery, East Timor – The electricity power station in Los Palos, a remote town on the eastern plains of East Timor, survived the devastation wrought on the former Portuguese colony by pro-Indonesian forces in September. All it lacked was diesel fuel.
Sam King, Dili – The stated aim of the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) is to effectively administer the country during the period of transition to a popularly elected government.
Jon Land – The low wages that workers receive in East Timor today are little different from the pre-referendum rate, but given the dramatic increase in food and basic commodity prices since then, East Timorese can afford to purchase only a fraction of what they could previously.
Canberra – The commander of the multinational peacekeeping force in East Timor said Monday that he had issued a warning to his troops after a group of women complained of sexual harassment.
Jakarta – Indonesia on Monday urged the United Nations to give Jakarta the chance to complete its own inquiry into atrocities in East Timor before stepping up international action.
Ian Timberlake, Dili – East Timor's leadership plans to start paying volunteer public servants as part of measures to ease growing frustration over the lack of progress since Indonesian rule ended.
The National Consultative Council (NCC) has also agreed to create a central fiscal authority which will be the foundation for a finance ministry.
Three people have been injured in Dili during violent scuffles when thousands of poor and unemployed East Timorese scrambled to apply for jobs offered by the United Nations administration.
They were frustrated their applications for about 2,000 available positions had been rejected. When the UN recently advertised the positions it received 9,000 applications.
Dili – A number of pro-Indonesian militiamen and members of their families were attacked when they tried to return to their homes in East Timor, a UN official said Friday.
Several people were injured in fights with their neighbors in recent days, said Paul Stromberg, spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.