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Police detain Australian labor consultant

Source
Agence France Presse - February 11, 2000

Jakarta – Indonesian police have detained an Australian labor consultant for questioning over his alleged participation in street protests here, the Jakarta Post said Friday.

Roger Anthony Smith, of the American Center for International Labor Solidarity, was being quizzed by intelligence police for violating existing immigration regulations by taking part in labor rallies and collecting data on Indonesian laborers, the Post said.

"He'll be charged under Article 20 of Law No. 9/1992 on immigration regulations," Colonel Saleh Saaf of the police information office was quoted as saying.

Saaf said Smith was supposed to be working as a consultant with the health division of the All Indonesian Labor Union (SPSI). "Instead he participated in meetings that discuss labor union activities, in board meetings that tell of union problems with businesses here and also found time to monitor labor rallies," Saaf added.

Four other Australian nationals had also been "held for questioning" over the Smith case, he said. Australian embassy officials were not immediately available to comment on the report.ave of Oecussi. He has been implicated in a reign of militia terror inside Oecussi including the massacre of up to 60 people in post-referendum violence last September.

"We know the cross-border incursions were people acting under Moko's instructions – that's accepted by all involved and all those parties that investigated it," General Cosgrove said.

He said a heavily armed group of Indonesian soldiers had surrounded Soares' house in Indonesian West Timor. Soares had some weapons and ammunition at the house, in breach of Indonesian law.

"Now he is available for further investigation in relation to the raft of charges and allegations made by Interfet and the UN Civil Police," General Cosgrove said. The UN Civpol are expected to formally request access to question Soares.

"Certainly he is an Indonesian citizen and one who was arrested in Indonesia and one whose crimes occurred while Oecussi was under Indonesian administration. How those factors pan out in a legal sense, I'm not sure, but ... he is now off the street," the general said.

Expressing gratitude to General Syahnakri and his newly appointed area commander in West Timor, Lieutenant-Colonel Pontoh, for their decisive action, General Cosgrove said there was ample evidence that Soares had previously held some kind of sway over the Indonesian military. "That's not the case here," he said.

United Nations police officers patrolling in East Timor, including Australians, will be issued with sidearms from today following an increase in violence in the territory.

Carlos Lima, commissioner of the multinational civilian police force (Civpol) ordered the officers be issued with guns "following security concerns raised by Civpol officers after the recent violent incidents", a UN official attached to the transitional administration in East Timor (UNTAET) said. By the end of this month, 80 Australian State and Federal Police officers will be serving with Civpol in Timor.

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