[Chronology of Mahkota Hotel incident, Dili 23 March 1997. Received from Jakarta on 23 March.]

Seven East Timorese youth are thought to have died, seven were seriously wounded and 38 others wounded less seriously after failing to meet the UN Secretary-general's special representative for East Timor, Jamsheed Marker at the Mahkota Hotel in Dili.

A short while after, a police officer was knocked down by a city bus. The situation in Dili is still very tense and it is feared that it will worsen if the international community does not immediately make a response.

Background

The Special Representative Jamsheed Marker arrived at Comoro Airport on 22 March at 11.30am for an investigation of the situation and to meet government officials and representatives of the community. This is part of the efforts of the new UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to resolve the East Timor question.

Marker's arrival was announced on Indonesian television on Friday at 7pm but some people in Dili, including the youth, knew of the visit several days earlier and planned to hold a dialogue with Mr Marker at the campus of the East Timor University

For reasons that are not known at present, this plan was not carried out and about two hundred youth who had planned the dialogue were very disappointed that the UN representative cancelled the visit to the campus. They remained on campus till 2pm, then returned home deeply disappointed.

'We had already prepared a document 500 pages long to submit to the UN Special Representative,' said one student. Others felt the disappointment more deeply after realising that the UN Representative had spent more of his visit visiting government officials than visiting community representative

He had gone straight from the airport - a after brief rest - to see the Governor, the chair of the local assembly, the DPRD. Bishop Belo, the military commander and other officials. These meetings were held behind closed doors so that the general public knew nothing about what had been discussed. This caused people to feel that he would not hear the aspirations of the people

The Mahkota Hotel event Having failed to have the dialogue at the campus, around one to two hundred East Timorese youths and students pushed their way into the hotel at 5am on 23 March, carrying twenty banners and some documents for the dialogue. They gathered in the corridor and waited for the Special Representative to come out of his room to meet them.

At 6 am hundreds of police and troops from Battalion 744 surrounded the hotel. They forced the youths and students to disperse, saying they were disturbing law and order although it was absolutely clear that they were carrying out a peaceful action.

All doors into the hotel were closed tight and those inside the hotel were unable to leave. Some of the troops outside pushed their way into the hotel, armed with truncheons, firearms and loudspeakers. They began beating the youths inside. The situation turned very tense as the youths tried to protect themselves with their bare hands.

Unable to confront the military onslaught, some of the youths started breaking hotel windows in order to try to escape. Mr Marker himself did not take any clear stand and apparently tried to distance himself from what was going on.

Seven youths were killed, four severely wounded and 38 others wounded from broken glass and beatings. At the time of writing this report - 4pm, 23 March - details such as the names of the victims have not yet been confirmed.

According to one witness, eleven people have been arrested, including six women.

All those who escaped from the hotel took refuge in the office of the local newspaper, Suara Timor Timur, at Motael Church and private homes. Some managed to make it to the Motael Clinic next door to the church, for treatment.

On Sunday morning, at mass, the congregation saw many people covered in blood and rushed home at the end of the service, in fear.

News of the incident spread fast throughout Dili and led to widespread outrage. At 7.30am a policeman who was standing on the roadside was knocked down by a bus that was full of youths and students.

The security forces immediate sealed of all the roads leading to the hotal and at 9am, trucks full of troops and police checked all the roads in the town. Almost every intersection was guarded by troops, spreading a sense of fear among people in the streets.

Meanwhile, the UN Special Representative left for Baucau under security escort to meet Bishop Basilio. Further details of the UN envoy's itinerary are not known.

The situation in Dili has been very tense because people there don't know whether a meeting with Marker will take place. The streets are deserted because people fear new incidents may occur. And at the time of writing this report, military vehicles are still patrolling the streets.

It has not been possible to contact the Un envoy to know what his plans are.

Provisional conclusions

The UN envoy's visit was seen by the East Timorese as an opportunity to present their aspirations to him and give him information about human rights violations. An open dialogue with the local community would have increased their confidence in his mission. But the planned dialogue at the university did not take place and there was almost no opportunity to meet the envoy face to face.

The actions by the army and police resulting in seven deaths and scores wounded is concrete proof that human rights violations continue to be a routine part of life in East Timor. People in East Timor hope that these fact will be taken into account by the UN envoy because they happened before his very eyes.

[TAPOL received this report on Sunday 23 March from a source in Jakarta. No doubt, further investigations will be needed to confirm the number of casualties. But We are posting this report because of the detail it provides in the events that took place and because of the need to alert the international community without delay on the event.]