Joanna Jolly, Kupang – Former Indonesian president Bacharuddin Habibie vowed to cleanse East Timor of "everything but ants" if it voted for independence, militia leaders claim.

The East Timorese militia holed up in West Timor say they are ready to release evidence implicating Mr Habibie and his generals in the destruction of East Timor in return for political asylum.

The militiamen, who have sent a letter to the United Nations Security Council offering documents backing up their claims over the violence that followed the East Timor referendum, say they believe Jakarta's military will try to kill them if they stay in West Timor.

They say the information includes documents and witness accounts of a meeting on August 20 last year in Dili at the Government Office for Women's Affairs at which former president Habibie, the then armed forces chief General Wiranto and former Udayana (regional) Commander Adam Damiri were present.

"Habibie, Wiranto and Damiri came secretly and collected all the militia leaders," said Nemecio Lopez de Carvalho, whose account was backed up by 30 top militiamen now in Kupang.

"Habibie said to us, as the president of Indonesia and supreme commander of the military: 'I give the order to all of you that if autonomy loses, your job is to clean East Timor from the East to the West and leave nothing alive but ants'."

The group of leaders, which includes former Baucau militia chief Joanico Cesario and the notoriously brutal Mahidi chief Cancio Lopes de Carvalho, say they have extensive documentary proof that the Indonesian military gave money and arms, provided training and controlled the militia. In their letter to the UN Security Council, the leaders asked for security guarantees and legal immunity in exchange for their testimony before an international war crimes tribunal.

"They used us like killing machines. We were created by the TNI [Indonesian army] and Polri [Indonesian police] in order to kill each other. This machine was controlled by the TNI and Polri. It was as if they were using a remote control," Nemecio said.

The militia now believe the Indonesian authorities are trying to kill them to prevent this information from becoming public. "The machine did not gain its aims and they are blaming us. We believe they will abandon us and try to destroy us," Nemecio said.

Militia leaders cite the murder and mutilation of a former Suai-based top militiaman, Olivio Mendoza Moruk, in Betun on September 5 as proof that the TNI is trying to assassinate them.

"Before Olivio was assassinated, he went to the Bishop of Atambua and asked to confess. We do not have concrete evidence to say his murder was carried out by TNI and Polri, but who else wants to wipe out the witnesses to last year?" Nemecio said.

The leaders say that, following Olivio's murder, the TNI and police manipulated militia anger to kill four UNHCR workers in Atambua on September 6. And despite pledges by the Indonesian Government to disarm the militia in West Timor, the militia say they still have many automatic weapons.

But they say they will not hand their weapons to the TNI. Instead, they want a UN team to visit West Timor and supervise the disarmament so they can begin the task of reconciliation with East Timor and negotiate for the return of about 120,000 refugees.

[On October 19 Agence France Presse quoted Guterres as dismissing the letter as the "emotional" and "personal" statement of a small group of his sub-ordinates who wrote it without his authorisation. The commander of the umbrella Pro-Integration Fighters (PPI), Joao Tavares told the Java Post newspaper that the letter had angered other ex-militia leaders. "They included my name and Eurico Guterres' name without our knowledge ... as former PPI commander and deputy commander [respectively], [we] knew nothing of their plan and we feel we have been disregarded," Tavares said - James Balowski.]