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".

He said Falintil, although well armed, would fight only if asked to by the international force, InterFET, because it was determined to honor the peace agreement signed in New York last May.

"Our people voted 78 per cent in favor of independence, and we have kept our word to maintain the peace," he said. "We will only fight if needed."

Mr Lere said Indonesian troops in his region were withdrawing from rural areas to towns, but continued to kill independence supporters and force people to go to Indonesian West Timor.

"The United Nations force is very welcome," he said. "The majority of our people have fled to the mountains and are dying of hunger and of ongoing massacres. The death toll is high and rising."

He said the Indonesian army had used heavy artillery south of Los Palos last Thursday, but with no casualties. "They are firing mortars and bazookas. The aim seems to be just to terrorise the population."

A spokesman for Mr Virgilio dos Anjos, the veteran guerrilla leader known as Ular, who commands the fourth military region, said he also believed there would be resistance to the international force.

The spokesman, Mr Meno Paixao, said: "It won't be frontal, but by means of snipers bullets, using the militias – but they don't have the power to resist themselves, and the TNI will be behind them," he said.

Mr Paixao said known independence supporters were being shot and food shortages were acute. "In my zone there have been around 300 deaths from starvation, principally children, since referendum day [30 August]," he said.