Dili – New violence flared between pro-and anti-Indonesia factions in the East Timor capital Sunday, with shots fired and attacks on foreign journalists.
As dusk fell in town, gunfire had left at least one man dead and another wounded, and small fires of tyres and wood were burning in the middle of downtown streets.
A man, identified as Eugenio Antonio Fatima, 26, was brought already dead, shot in the head, from the Kuluhun area near the municipal market, a nurse at the church Motael hospital said.
It was unclear who had shot him, but another man, Jose Augusto el Pinto, 31, was recovering after surgery at the same hospital after he was brought in earlier Sunday, wounded in the stomach by a gunshot fired by the pro-Indonesian Aitarak (Thorn) militia at the market.
Anicetto Guterres, who heads the local rights watchdog, the Foundation for Human Rights and Justice said earlier Sunday that a man was wounded at the market but was taken away by his attackers to an unknown destination.
A group of men, some brandishing handguns, chased a car carrying seven journalists, as it approached the main market.
Shots were fired and armed plainclothes police had to protect the car and rush the journalists to a nearby police station.
Shots continued to be fired as the reporters – two from French media, three from Portuguese media and two for international photo agencies, were taken inside the police post. The journalists were later taken to a hotel in a police prisoners' van.
Earlier, a group of Australian journalists was pelted with rocks by pro-Indonesia supporters, one of whom was waving a pistol, when they arrived at the same market. At least one of them, a woman, was hit by a rock.
Police fired warning shots into the air to disperse the attacking crowd, they said. Several trucks disgorged more than 100 members of a special police unit not far from the market, while hundreds of curious onlookers gathered nearby.
Witnesses said pro-Indonesian supporters, had lit fires with car tyres and small piles of wood in the middle of their streets to ward off pro-Indonesian militias.
"I asked the police how close could I go and their response was pretty straightforward, a lot of the town was barricaded off," Australian ambassador to Jakarta John McCarthy, who arrived here Saturday, told AFP.
Indonesia and Portugal agreed at the United Nations on Wednesday to send an estimated 300-strong UN civilian police force to East Timor to help ensure a peaceful vote in three months' time.
Indonesian officials have said the first contingent was due to arrive here Monday, but McCarthy said police would not start arriving until the last week of June, and in small contingents.
But the pro-independence supporters in the streets, and students at the university here, all said they believed news reports the police would arrive Monday.
Tension between supporters and opponents of independence have risen since Jakarta in January announced it could let East Timor go if the people there rejected autonomy.
Pro-independence activist Leandro Isaac, sheltering at the police headquarters following violence in Dili last month, was battling against police plans to move him to Liquisa, a pro-independence stronghold some 50 kilometers west of here.
Liquisa was the scene of bloody massacre last month when the feared Besi Merah Putih (Red and White Iron) pro-Jakarta militia hacked to death at least 25 refugees at a churchyard there.
Dan Murphy, an American volunteer doctor running a clinic here, is incensed by the lack of access to Liquisa, currently home to an estimated 1,500 refugees.
"Don't tell me the refugees are staying there voluntarily," he fumed. "They used to come in and out of Dili all the time. Where are they?" Few militia were seen in the area Sunday morning and journalists were able to travel there freely.
The UN civilian police contingent is expected to advise the Indonesian police and determine whether the security situation will allow the 800,000 people of East Timor to proceed with the scheduled August 8 vote.
East Timorese will choose between autonomy under Indonesian rule or outright separation, capping a tortuous 24 years for the former Portuguese colony since it was invaded by Indonesia in 1975.
Early on Sunday, Dili Bishop Carlos Ximenes Felipe Belo told a morning mass at his residence the UN police were on the way. "You have a choice. Vote according to your conscience," he urged followers.