Marianne Kearney, Dili – Despite a huge turnout at an independence rally in Dili on Saturday, leaders of East Timor's independence movement (CNRT) announced they would not stage campaign rallies, due to fear of attacks by pro-autonomy groups.

Mr Leandro Isaac, a CNRT co-ordinator, said the movement would avoid staging rallies in the lead-up to the ballot on Aug 30. "We don't want any more victims," he said. He said CNRT would not campaign in hotspots such as Liquisa.

Pro-independence supporters were killed there in clashes with pro-integration militia in April and an aid convoy, which included members of the UN Mission in East Timor (Unamet), was attacked there in June.

Mr Mario Carascalao, whose son was killed when militia attacked his house in April and who returned from Australia only on Friday, said he was, "still frightened to be here".

"If Unamet and Polri provide security it's fine, but not if TNI provide the security because I don't trust them."

Polri is the Indonesian police, while TNI refers to the Indonesian Armed Forces.

Mr Carascalao said CNRT was scared to organise an event any larger than Saturday's 5,000-strong rally because it feared pro-integration supporters or members of the army would infiltrate the crowd and provoke an incident.

Mr Agio Perreira, a member of CNRT's National Political Commission, said political rallies would not be part of the movement's strategy as "CNRT doesn't need to campaign because people know what they want ... We just have to tell them about how to vote," he said.

He said that, instead of organising rallies, the movement would inform people about the voting process via CNRT's radio broadcast every night and through its Tetum language newspaper, Vox Populi, which was launched on Friday.

The opening of the CNRT office in Dili was not meant to be a campaign rally. However, it became one quickly as the huge crowds, spilling down the street and onto the beachfront park, cheered CNRT's second-in-command David Ximenes when he spoke about an independent East Timor.

Young men in Che Guevara-style berets and Falantil T-shirts flocked to the opening, while huge posters of jailed resistance leader and head of the CNRT Xanana Gusmao were everywhere.