Lisbon – A Portuguese former governor of East Timor said Saturday that the 1991 massacre by Indonesian troops at a Dili cemetery was followed days later with more bloodshed, with 50 people shot dead and 100 buried alive.

Mario Carrascalao was governor of East Timor when Indonesian troops fired into a crowd of peaceful pro-independence demonstrators at the Santa Cruz cemetery in November 1991, killing around 50 people, according to official tolls.

He told the independent Portuguese weekly Expresso that after the massacre, around 100 people held in the cemetery by Indonesian forces were shuttled out in two army trucks and buried alive in a rubbish tip on a road outside Dili. Some 50 others were shot dead at approximately the same time, on the banks of the river Bemos into which their bodies were thrown, the governor told Expresso.

Carrascalao, who is currently advisor to Indonesian President B.J. Habibie on East Timor, said he remained silent over the killings, judging that it was "not the time to open new inquiries" which could derail UN-sponsored talks between Lisbon and Jakarta regarding the Timorese territory.