Dili – Multinational troops clamped down on East Timor's militia with a raid and a high-profile arrest Friday and issued warnings against Indonesian soldiers wreaking havoc as they retreat.
The soldiers have burned their barracks behind them and let out volleys of automatic gunfire in defiant parting gestures as they are shipped out of the territory.
Kalinga Seneviratne – Australia has taken the high moral ground in organising the rescue of the East Timorese people, perhaps 25 years too late.
Doug Struck, Dili – As a large contingent of Indonesian troops marched to the port to withdraw from East Timor today, the international peacekeeping force here tightened its control of this capital city.
Vaudine England, Jakarta – At least three people were killed and more than 50 others injured in another bloody clash between security forces and at least 10,000 Indonesian demonstrators yesterday protesting against a new law giving the armed forces sweeping emergency powers.
Craig Skehan and Ningrum Widyastuty, Jakarta – Police used tear gas and beat protesters in the streets of Jakarta as pro-democracy groups claimed the way had been cleared for Indonesia to be ruled by a military junta in the wake of Parliament's passage of new security laws yesterday.
Jakarta – Indonesia on Thursday lifted martial law in East Timor and said it expected to hand over control of security in the territory to the UN-approved force there on Friday or Saturday.
Washington – Events in East Timor and the Bank Bali scandal threaten to derail Indonesia's fragile economic recovery but it has not yet been knocked completely off track, the World Bank said Thursday.
Sarah Crichton, Kupang, the capital of West Timor, may soon explode into riots because of mounting tension between local residents and arrogant militias from East Timor, says a returning aid worker.
At Least 100 members of the Indonesian armed forces (TNI) in East Timor have deserted and joined the pro-independence Falintil guerrilla movement, in a further indication of discord within TNI ranks.
Lindsay Murdoch, Dili – The thugs of Dili's streets disappeared quickly. When the first Australian soldiers arrived in full combat dress, their rifles at the ready, the militiamen pretended they were the very refugees they had terrorised for weeks.
Anne-Marie Evans – Eurico Guterres, leader of the Aitarak anti-independence militia, was made the head of a clandestine military-funded organisation earlier this year and supplied with guns and money, a source said yesterday.
Lauren Martin – East Timorese resistance leaders had "disappeared" from militia-guarded refugee camps across the border, and the mainly women and children who remained were at risk of becoming hostages to other vigilantes, a Senate committee heard in Canberra yesterday.
Vaudine England, Jakarta – International calls for the prosecution of Indonesians for war crimes in East Timor are sure to meet stiff opposition in Jakarta, and even some human rights monitors in the capital suggest now is not the time to pile on yet more pressure.
Singapore – An American journalist and activist deported from Indonesia said Monday he was convinced armed forces chief General Wiranto was behind the militia killings in East Timor.
Allan Nairn was in Dili for about two weeks before Indonesian authorities detained him for violating visa regulations by entering the country as a tourist.
Keith B. Richburg, Jakarta – In the port town of Balikpapan, on Borneo island, an Australian diplomat was dispatched to help rescue Australian mine workers besieged by people demonstrating against foreigners. He spent most of his time hiding from angry crowds, running down back stairwells and being trundled into a getaway van.
Seth Mydans, Jakarta – When international peacekeepers land in East Timor in the days ahead, they will witness the departure of a defeated Indonesian army at the lowest ebb in its history – humbled, hesitant, embittered and convulsively violent.
Andrew Marshall, Jakarta – Indonesia's decision to allow an independent auditor to probe a damaging banking scandal has backfired spectacularly – instead of placating foreign donors and investors it has highlighted the myriad risks they face.
Grainne McCarthy, Jakarta – The drastic deterioration in relations between Indonesia and Australia over East Timor threatens to damage trade and investment between the two countries, business executives say.
Jill Jolliffe, Darwin – East Timorese independence guerrilla commanders warn that Indonesian forces are preparing to resist United Nations troops.
Speaking from the Los Palos district, the deputy chief of the Falintil army, Mr Lere Anan Timor, said Indonesian soldiers were threatening to "kill the international troops, using the [pro-Jakarta] militia".
London – The government of Prime Minister Tony Blair came under a hail of criticism Sunday over the imminent delivery of British military planes to Indonesia despite a European Union embargo resulting from the East Timor crisis.
Lewa Pardomuan, Dili – Nine warships of a multinational UN peace force sailed for East Timor on Saturday and the force commander was expected to hold talks with the Indonesian military in the shattered territory on Sunday.
Joanna Jolly in Darwin and Irwan Firdaus of Associated Press in Baucau – As international troops prepare to go into East Timor, fearful refugees are coming down from the mountains in the territory and returning to homes still smouldering and in ruins.
Jakarta – Some 2,000 Indonesian students on Friday converged on the national parliament to protest against a draft security law and demand a trial of former president Suharto.
Some 1,500 students marched towards the parliament from the Jayabaya private university in in South Jakarta about one kilometre southeast of the legislative complex.
Lisbon – Indonesian soldiers and militiamen are laying mines in Dili, the capital of East Timor, as they stream out of the province ahead of the arrival of a multinational peace force, a resistance leader told Portuguese radio Friday.
Jakarta – Opposition to the state security bill continued on Thursday, with the National Mandate Party (PAN) and National Awakening Party (PKB) demanding the House of Representatives drop the government-sponsored draft law.
Don Greenlees and Robert Garran – Australia's battered relations with Indonesia suffered a new blow yesterday when Jakarta terminated the bilateral security treaty.
Philip Cornford – An assistant to East Timor's spiritual leader, Bishop Carlos Belo, claimed yesterday that he saw the Indonesian intelligence official Major-General Syafrie Syamsuddin direct the separation of boys and men from refugees forced from Bishop Belo's home 11 days ago.
Surabaya – Hundreds of Indonesian students protested in the country's second largest city on Thursday against a controversial draft security bill which they say would increase the power of the military.
Some 600 demonstrators gathered in front of two local government offices in the commercial city of Surabaya, 700 km east of Jakarta.
John Aglionby, Jakarta – Thousands of people in Aceh province in western Indonesia demonstrated yesterday to demand a referendum on independence from Jakarta amid reports of unabated military brutality both there and on the eastern spice island of Ambon.
Compere: East Timor's anti-independence militia have now been seen on the streets of Jakarta, threatening pro-independence East Timorese and foreign journalists. There were scenes which seemed quite out of place in the Indonesian capital, as Geoff Thompson reports from Jakarta.
Dennis Schulz and Louise Williams – Pro-Indonesian militias are fleeing East Timor ahead of the arrival of peacekeepers, some saying they fear they will now be killed by Indonesian troops to wipe out evidence of Jakarta's leading role in the carnage.
Bernard Lagan, Darwin – Two suspected East Timorese militia members and a suspected Indonesian soldier are being held by Australian authorities after infiltrating the UN compound in Dili and being flown by the RAAF with 1400 refugees to Darwin.
Strasbourg – Deputies at the European parliament on Thursday passed a resolution demanding that the European Union (EU) and its member states recognise an independent East Timor.
Sydney – Pro-Jakarta militia are harassing East Timorese refugees throughout the eastern islands of Indonesia, an Australian aid agency said Thursday.
Janet Hunt, executive director of the Australian Council for Overseas Aid (ACFOA), said the situation was dangerous in Flores, Lombok and Bali – a popular holiday spot.
Jakarta – The deputy commander of East Timor's pro-Indonesia militia has warned that the militia will put eight of the territory's 13 districts off limits to multinational troops, a report said Thursday.
Anne-Marie Evans, Macau – Rui Lopes could count former president Suharto's son-in-law, Prabowo Subianto, and General Gleny in Jakarta among his closest friends.
They have been fighting and working together since the Indonesian invasion of East Timor. Since 1985, Mr Lopes, 47, had also been working for Xanana Gusmao's resistance guerillas.
Anne-Marie Evans, Macau – The political cleansing of East Timor was planned as early as February, one of the militia leaders present at a meeting which hatched the deadly plot has revealed.
Jakarta – Protests erupted here Wednesday as the UN approved sending troops to East Timor, with security forces opening fire outside the UN building at students protesting Indonesian military atrocities.
Susan Sim, Jakarta – Indonesia's powerful defence forces (TNI) chief General Wiranto will likely step down next month to prepare for his presidential campaign as a parliamentary investigation into a banking scandal looks certain to implicate close friends of Dr B.J. Habibie and kill off his chances.
Hong Kong – The Indonesian foreign ministry organized and paid for leaders of the pro-Indonesian militia in East Timor to be trained in public relations ahead of the recent election, the Far Eastern Economic Review said Wednesday.
London – British ministers were under fire Wednesday after it emerged that millions of pounds of public money had been used to help Indonesia buy jets and secure industrial contracts, newspapers reported.
Vaudine England, Jakarta – On the same day that an independent commission to investigate military abuses was visiting Aceh for the first time, seven leading political parties announced proposals for "special autonomy" for the rich, violence-wracked province.
The UN forces in East Timor at first are likely to be involved more in fighting terrorism than keeping the peace, argues Hugh Smith.
One of the few journalists remaining in East Timor is Allan Nairn, Who writes for The Nation. We caught up with him in Dili today and asked him about the reaction there to news of an international peacekeeping mission.
Compere: Which brings us to the war crimes issue more generally. And fresh evidence is emerging of the Indonesian military's complicity in the crimes against humanity in East Timor. The Senate Committee on East Timor heard first-hand accounts today of TNI links with the militias that rampaged through the country before and after the referendum. Karon Snowdon reports:
Macau – A former pro-Jakarta militiaman has claimed that Indonesian forces eliminated more than 2,000 East Timorese by dumping them in waters off the East Timor coast.
Doug Lorimer – The Democratic Socialist Party has called on supporters of democracy in Australia to mobilise to demand that the UN and/or the Australian government immediately send troops to East Timor to help the East Timorese people resist and defeat the Indonesian occupying army's genocidal campaign to physically extinguish the East Timorese people's struggle for liberation from
Jakarta – Indonesia's armed forces (TNI) appears to have organised the mass bloodshed that hit East Timor, after it voted overwhelmingly for independence, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson said yesterday.
Derwin Pereira, Jakarta – President B.J. Habibie's decision to allow foreign troops into trouble-torn East Timor sparked an upsurge of nationalist sentiments especially in the government and local media, with many resentful of international pressure on Indonesia.
[Dita Sari, the workers leader who was released from prison in July this year after serving three years of a five-year sentence, is now in the UK at the invitation of the TUC. She gave this interview to Tapol before departing for Brighton yesterday.]
Q. What was the impact in Indonesia of the result of the referendum in East Timor?