Sydney – Indonesian military were rounding up East Timorese on the main Indonesian island of Java, one of Australia's leading pro-Timor activists said Thursday.

Melbourne Bishop Hilton Deakin, chairman of the Catholic charity Caritas Australia and the East Timor Human Rights Centre, said he had been told the Indonesian military was making a concerted effort to target East Timorese in Java.

"The Indonesian military has started rounding up East Timorese, especially pro-independence supporters, on Java," he said.

"They're being taken to camps, where they can cause less harm. It's exactly the same as what has happened in East Timor where thousands of people have been forcibly deported," he added. "You can't call it ethnic-cleansing but it's certainly dreadful," he added. "It's concerted and it's obviously planned."

Bishop Deakin said the news was relayed to him Thursday by the National Council for Timorese Resistance (CNRT) office in Jakarta. He was unable to make an estimate of how many people were being rounded up.