Kupang – The mayor of the East Timorese capital Dili warned Wednesday that the UN Mission in East Timor (UNAMET) had to leave the territory or the killing and destruction there would continue.
"If they don't go, it would be better if we just destroy everything, because they have destroyed everything of ours," said Mateus Haia during an impromptu press conference in a hotel lobby in this West Timorese capital.
"We are one island with the West Timorese. Why on earth should we be separated? We are going to continue our armed struggle for as long as it takes.
"If foreign troops come in, we will resist and shoot them. We have 25,000 weapons. The UN are the new colonialists. First we had the Portuguese, now we have the UN," he said.
Haia, who like other officials in East Timor was approved by the Indonesian government, echoed pro-Jakarta groups which have accused UNAMET of rigging the territory's self-determination vote.
"We completely reject the result because UNAMNET was so biased. They didn't want to accept us at any stage of the voting process," he said.
The result announced by the United Nations on Saturday showed an overwhelming 78.5 percent of eligible East Timorese had opted for independence 24 years after their territory was invaded by Indonesia.
But Haia disputed the figures. "We counted that in nine districts we had more than 60 percent [of the vote] and the rest was 50-50," he said.
Asked why he rejected the results when Indonesian President B.J. Habibie had accepted them, Haia replied: "He is just the president, he has never been in the field."
Pro-Indonesian militia, in many cases backed by army soliders and police according to witnesses, have attacked and driven out all but one of the UNAMET posts in East Timor.
Only the Dili compound is left, and that is under seige with access to food stores cut off and communications dead as at least 1,300 refugees crowd inside. The mayor said he had flown into Kupang to bring his family out and would return to Dili on Thursday. "No one is left in Dili, everyone is at the police station, at the harbor or has run to the hills," he said.
But he added that the army could not be expected to control "a guerrilla war" by the militias in response to the vote. "It's very hard for the authorities to do anything," he said.
"Everything could return to normal in one to two weeks if UNAMET accepts responsibility for the mistakes it has made. As long as they don't take responsibility there will never be peace. We don't trust the UN any more. They are not neutral."