Jakarta – Two Indonesian policemen were killed and four injured after rebels attacked their convoy in the troubled territory of East Timor, church and hospital sources said on Wednesday.
Police and military officials could not be reached for comment.
Jakarta – Separatist (sic) rebels in East Timor killed two Indonesian policemen and wounded seven in an ambush Tuesday, according to an official who declined to be named
He said 18 police in two trucks were ambushed by about ten rebels in Lega district 160 kilometers east of the East Timor capital, Dili. After a skirmish, the rebels fled to nearby mountains.
Lisbon – The special representative of the National Council for Maubere Resistance (CNRM) does not believe that the forthcoming round of talks between Portugal and Indonesia on East Timor will produce any concrete results.
Thirty-three of those arrested during a demonstration on 23 March 1997 at the Mahkota Hotel in Dili, East Timor during a visit to the territory by the United Nations Secretary-General's Personal Representative, Mr Jamsheed Marker, are detained in custody awaiting trial. It was previously believed that only 24 remained in custody.
The East Timor Human Rights Centre (ETHRC) holds grave fears for the safety of four East Timorese men who were arrested on 30 March 1997 in the sub-district of Atabae, Bobonaro, by members of the SGI (Special Intelligence Unit) and Kopassus (Special Forces Command).
Eleven activists, including three East Timorese and a journalist, were arrested early today Monday when they entered a factory site in the south of England to protest against the export of armoured vehicles to Indonesia. Seven were released after being held by police for fifteen hours but the three East Timorese and the journalist are still in custody.
According to an unconfirmed report, at about 4.30pm on 21 April 1997 members of the security forces shot and arrested Edison Marcal Dias Freitas, an East Timorese man from Santa Cruz in Dili. On 23 April, relatives went to the police station in Dili to inquire as to his whereabouts and state of health, but without success. Since then there has been no more information.
On May 2, the Full Federal Court has set aside a decision of the Refugee Review Tribunal that East Timorese refugee, Jong Kim Koe, was not a refugee under the international Refugees Convention to which Australia is a party. The Tribunal will now need to re-hear the case.
Eyal Press – Never underestimate the power of partisanship to alter the consciousness of America's pundits and policymakers.
Dili – Four men have been arrested in the killing of a member of Indonesia's ruling Golkar party during an election meeting in East Timor, police said Monday.
The arrests brought to six the number of men held in connection with the killing Sunday of Alsino da Costa, 29. It was the only violence on the first day of the official campaign period for May 29 general elections.
Jakarta – Five East Timorese, including a junior high school student, have gone on trial in the territory in connection with the death of a soldier on a Christmas eve, Indonesia's official Antara news agency reported on Sunday.
Antara said the trial of the defendants, aged between 17 and 22, started on Saturday in Dili, East Timor's capital, under tight security.
Eighteen people believed to have been detained in East Timor on suspicion of links with the armed resistance in East Timor, Falintil, are feared to be at risk of torture or ill-treatment in custody.
Henk Bouwmans (Original in Dutch, translation by TAPOL), The Hague – The Dutch Parliament is furious about a letter from the Indonesian embassy about the East Timorese human rights activist and Nobel Laureate Jose Ramos Horta. In the letter Ramos Horta is accused of acting purely for personal ambitions by setting up a government in exile.
Jakarta – Fifteen East Timorese will face trial in the territory this week for their alleged involvement in the killing of a soldier on Christmas eve, Indonesia's official Antara news agency reported on Tuesday.
The East Timor Human Rights Centre still holds grave fears for the safety of Ildefonso de Deus dos Santos (also known as "Maudino"), a 17 year old student who disappeared on 14 July in Gleno in the Ermera district of East Timor. Maudino disappeared during house to house raids conducted by Indonesian soldiers following a fire at the Gleno market.
Geneva – The European Union (EU) resolution proposal introduced to the 53 annual meeting of the United Nations Human Rights Commission being held in Geneva has expressed "profound concern" over the continued human rights violations in East Timor.
The Australian Greens party is calling on people to join an organisation which is offering to hide asylum seekers from East Timor if the Federal Government tries to deport them.
The Greens say the Government will send thousands of asylum seekers back if it wins a case currently before the Federal Court.
Geneva – 378 people were reported missed from November 1995 to the same month last year in East Timor, according to a report by the United Nations (UN) chief, Kofi Annan.
Agencies in Dili – Independence leader Jose Ramos Horta said he had evidence troops killed four students who clashed with police in the East Timor capital of Dili last month as they tried to get a petition to a UN special envoy.
Jakarta – When thousands of people gathered in Dili on Christmas eve last year to welcome home East Timor Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo from Oslo, where he had been awarded the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize, posters of Xanana Gusmao fluttered from all sections of the crowd.
According to reports today from AFP (in Jakarta) and Reuter (in Dili), the resistance has killed six and wounded five others in two ambushes in East Timor. The exiled CNRM confirmed the attacks and said the death toll was probably higher, but sources in the Indonesian-occupied territory doubted whether the resistance was involved.
Dili – Secessionist rebels ambushed a vehicle in East Timor, killing four members of a village defense force and two others in the deadliest rebel attack in more than a year, the military said Wednesday.
Indonesian Ambassador-at-large, Lopes Da cruz, has refuted foreign allegations that a special program has been developed to spread Islam in the predominantly Roman Catholic province of East Timor. "That is untrue. Catholicism is well developed in that area [East Timor]," he said in Canada on Saturday.
Geneva – The camera zooms in to show a man's blood-covered wrist, nailed to his prison plank. Men in khakis torture inmates with sticks, chair legs, electric shocks and metal chains. A corpse wrapped in rags lies in a corner.
Jakarta – Indonesia said on Monday that Nobel Peace laureate Jose Ramos Horta's claim that he had fresh evidence of widespread torture in East Timor was "a lot of nonsense."
34 people accused of being involved in the demonstration in Dili during the visit last month of Jamsheed Marker, the UN special envoy, are to go on trial very soon, according to a report in today's Kompas 7/IV., quoting Dili police chief, Lr ColBeno Kalipong. They will be charged with physical assault against members of the security forces.
ASIET has received the following message (abridged translation) from the East Timorese underground in Java.
Statement begins: Suharto regime murders more Maubere people
When Jose Ramos Horta won the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize jointly with his fellow East Tmorese, Monsignor Carlos Felipe Ximenes Belo, there were hopes he might be able to dispel the dark cloud of silence that has engulfed the genocide of his people.
ASIET has received the following message (abridged translation) from the East Timorese underground in Java
Statement begins: Suharto regime murders more Maubere people
Paul Mcgeough and agencies – Dozens of young East Timorese detained since the military broke up a peaceful demonstration in Dili two weeks ago are still in prison, some showing clear signs of being beaten by their captors, the Most Rev Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo says.
Ian Howarth – BHP Petroleum was announced yesterday as the operator of a new multibillion-dollar oil and gas development in the Timor Sea, based on the rich Bayu-Undan discovery.
The $1 billion first stage of the project was confirmed yesterday, and the final details of an associated proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) project will be settled within weeks.
Lisbon – The Indonesian police has still under custody 25 out of the 33 East Timorese students arrested last week after breaking into the Austrian embassy, sources told Lusa.
Indonesian police have freed 33 East Timorese who had been held since last Thursday after entering the Austrian embassy in Jakarta in an effort to meet a United Nations envoy on East Timor. A diplomat says the youths were dropped off in three groups at different bus stations in the Indonesian capital. It is not known whether police plans to press charges against the youths.
Four East Timorese refugees and a Catholic priest arrested in East Trespass at British Aerospace Warton
In a letter dated 31 March 1997 to the chief of police of Jakarta, the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation, the YLBHI, has asked whether the Jakarta police are holding the 33 East Timorese who were arrested in Jakarta on 27 March.
Jakarta – A member of Indonesia's National Human Rights Commission has accused the country's police of physically maltreating East Timorese who staged a demonstration during a visit to the conflict-territory last week by United Nations (UN) envoy, Jamsheed Marker.
Jakarta – An East Timorese man has been jailed for one year for spreading hatred against Indonesian President Suharto after displaying a banner in the territory last year, the Antara news agency reported on Monday.
Lisbon – The Indonesian police has demanded 33 East Timorese youths arrested last week after breaking into the Austrian embassy in Jakarta to sign a declaration accepting the annexation of East Timor by Indonesia if they want to be released, sources told Lusa.
Jakarta – The UN special envoy on East Timor on Thursday met Jose Xanana Gusmao the jailed leader of the troubled territory's pro-independence movement as part of UN efforts to reactivate a peace process.
A group of 33 East Timorese who sought refuge in Jakarta's Austrian embassy have left the complex for an undisclosed destination.
An embassy spokeswoman says the youths left of their own will and were picked up by the police shortly after they emerged. The spokeswoman says the Indonesian Foreign Ministry has promised that the group will be treated well.
Jakarta – The United Nations special envoy for East Timor, Jamsheed Marker, said he met jailed rebel leader Xanana Gusmao on Thursday at the end of his fact-finding mission to Indonesia.
Marker told a news conference that he met Gusmao in Jakarta but would not give any more details.
Twenty-four of those arrested in connection with a demonstration at the Mahkota Hotel in Dili on 23 March 1997 remain in custody and are now facing charges for publicly expressing hatred against the government. The remaining 21 arrested on 23 March appear to have been released.
Jakarta – Forty-five people remained in detention in the East Timor capital on Monday, a day after a violent demonstration outside the hotel where a United Nations special envoy is staying for a key visit.
Residents said Dili appeared calm but the area around the downtown hotel where UN envoy Jamsheed Marker was staying remained heavily guarded by police.
The United Nations special envoy on East Timor has held talks in Jakarta with East Timorese who had demanded the meeting after earlier forcing their way into the Austrian embassy.
Agencies in Jakarta – A group of East Timorese youths gained a meeting with a UN special envoy yesterday after breaking into the Austrian Embassy in Jakarta and demonstrating for self-determination in their homeland.
Jakarta – The Indonesian military said on Wednesday 33 East Timorese youths now inside the Austrian embassy in Jakarta would be questioned once they left the mission, the official Antara news agency reported.
The agency quoted armed forces spokesman Brigadier-General Slamet Supriadi as saying the actions of the youths, who climbed over the embassy's fence, were improper.
Police in East Timor say they have charged 24 people with showing hatred towards the Indonesian government.
ASIET has received information from the Jakarta based Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI) that seven East Timorese youth have been shot dead, four severely injured and 38 with lesser wounds at a peaceful gathering taking place inside the Mahkota Hotel in Dili.
Jakarta – Thirty-three East Timorese entered the Austrian embassy compound in Jakarta on Tuesday, demanding a meeting with visiting U.N. special envoy for East Timor, Jamsheed Marker.
Geneva – East Timor independence leader Jose Ramos Horta, quoting Catholic Church sources on the troubled island, said on Tuesday that Indonesian troops had seriously wounded 18 youths at a weekend demonstration.