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Interfet wants to disarm Falintil

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Associated Press - October 5, 1999

Slobodan Lekic, Dili – Stung by criticism of alleged bias, the commander of the international peacekeeping force in East Timor demanded today that pro-independence rebels hand in their weapons.

"The policy is that we disarm any East Timorese who are not in TNI ... we disarm them all," Maj. Gen. Peter Cosgrove said. TNI is the acronym for the Indonesian army, which has retained two infantry battalions in East Timor after evacuating most of its forces from the territory.

Pro-Jakarta militias, along with Indonesian media and officials, have accused the peacekeepers of a bias toward independence supporters, including the Falintil rebel group, which has battled Indonesian rule since 1975.

The militias and their Indonesian army backers are widely blamed for unleashing an orgy of violence after East Timorese overwhelmingly endorsed independence in an Aug. 30 UN-sponsored referendum.

Top commanders of Falintil have repeatedly stressed their willingness to disarm but have criticized the peacekeepers for their slow deployment.

In the village of Cairu, 50 miles southeast of Dili, a contingent of Gurkha soldiers from the peacekeeping force asked the local Falintil leader to order his men to hand over their weapons.

With journalists watching, the Falintil leader responded he would do so only if the Gurkhas established a permanent presence in the village as protection from marauding militiamen. That ended the discussion, since the peacekeepers, who had been escorting a convoy of relief aid, planned to spend only a few hours in the area. The rebels kept their arms.

Cosgrove, however, described the incident – which had appeared innocuous – as verging on violence, calling it "very tense indeed."

"There could have been bloodshed right at that time," he said. "For this province to be at peace, we must take arms out of the hands of those who are untrained and unsanctioned as a military force."

Cosgrove also said he had written to Indonesian commanders to demand that four of their officers be returned to Dili to "assist" in a criminal inquiry into the killing of a Dutch reporter, Sander Thoenes, slain outside the territory's capital on Sept. 21 by men reportedly in Indonesian uniform. He declined to say if the four were suspects.

Meanwhile, Ross Mountain, a UN relief aid coordinator, said the first of some 250,000 East Timorese who had fled to the Indonesian territory of West Timor – many allegedly at militia gunpoint – would begin returning Wednesday.

Inside West Timor, pro-Indonesian militia leader Joao da Silva Tavares claimed his forces now number over 53,000 troops and he intended to take East Timor by force.

He said militiamen would accompany groups of pro-Indonesian refugees who planned to cross back into East Timor on foot from camps in the west on Tuesday.

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