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Western districts off limits to UN

Source
Agence France Presse - September 16, 1999

Jakarta – The deputy commander of East Timor's pro-Indonesia militia has warned that the militia will put eight of the territory's 13 districts off limits to multinational troops, a report said Thursday.

Deputy Commander Eurico Guterres said that the militia will offer an agenda to the multinational forces of the United Nations dictating what it has to do, the Antara news agency said.

"I will propse an agenda to the peacekeeping force about what has to be done. If they don't want to go along [with the agenda], I will demark the boundaryline, which region can be managed by the UN peacekeeping forces and which regions they cannot," Guterres said in Kupang, West Timor.

He claimed that the militias controlled eight districts in the western part of East Timor and that the United Nations could manage the remaining five in the east.

The western districts are the agriculturally-productive regions while the east is mostly arid and dry land. Guterres had already aired a plan to divide East Timor into two, saying that the pro-Indonesians would not leave their alleged strongholds.

Antara quoted Guterres as saying that the militias, as native East Timorese, had more rights over the territory than the UN peacekieeping forces. He also expressed worries that the presence of the multinational force would worsen, rather than improve the situation in East Timor.

Guterres heads the Dili-based Aitarak militia which has been balmed for the widespread destruction of the East Timorese capital, the killings and burning as well as the forced trucking of East Timorese to neighbouring West Timor.

The United Nations Wednesday approved a multinational force for East Timor, under the leadership of Australia, with a broad mandate to take every measure to halt the violence and get vital aid to thousands of starving refugees.

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