Subject: WP front page: Fear Still Reigns In E.Timor
Hills; Thousands Remainin Hiding
Date: Sat, 25 Sep 1999 10:45:13 -0400Washington Post Wednesday, September 22, 1999;
Page A01 -front page, day's top int'l news story-
Fear Still Reigns In E. Timor Hills
Despite Peacekeepers' Arrival, Thousands Remain in Hiding
By Doug Struck Washington Post Foreign Service
MOTA ULUN, East Timor, Sept. 21—Thousands of people are huddled on a mountainside
here beneath shelters of palm fronds, listening to the drone of scores of planes ferrying
peacekeeping troops, supplies and salvation to the capital, Dili, a few miles away.
But the arrival of international forces has not coaxed these East Timorese from their
hiding place, where they have been protected by rugged terrain and pro-independence
guerrillas. Many say they will not return home until their Indonesian military tormenters
leave the territory.
Escorted by guerrillas on a two-hour trek up a mountainside, a reporter found families
hiding in flimsy shelters built into crevasses. They were hungry, but not starving. They
were surviving on a diet of papaya leaves and a woody, potato-like root mixed with the
little rice they had.
"This is how we lived for two weeks," said one woman. "The children do
not have enough to eat. There is no medicine. Look at this baby," she said, motioning
to an infant at her mother's breast. "This baby was born here. Is that any way to
start life?"
Hundreds of thousands of East Timorese fled into the hills after a vote for
independence from Indonesia triggered a convulsion of violence here, and they are a major
concern of international humanitarian agencies. Although some men began to trickle down
into Dili today, many simply scavenged for supplies and headed back to their families in
the hills carrying large sacks on their heads, some barefoot on the rocky trail.
While the peacekeepers have helped restore some sense of security to Dili, areas just
outside the capital remain fearful places with fresh evidence of violence by
anti-independence militia groups and their supporters in the Indonesian military. Between
the hilltop refuge and Dili is a swath of destruction wrought by the militias. Along eight
miles of back roads outside the capital, no house has been left unburned or undamaged, and
some set ablaze recently continue to burn. The occupants of the houses were nowhere to be
seen.
On one trail that leads into the foothills outside Dili, the wails of Guida Alvez
pierced the air. She had just come down from the mountaintop to find her home destroyed.
"This is the work of the military," she raged, brandishing a machete. Her four
children and husband would rebuild only when the soldiers are gone, she said.
"We haven't gotten any order to come down from the mountain," said Mano Kehy,
an official of the political arm of the pro-independence guerrilla movement. "We
won't go down with the military there; it would be better for relief agencies to bring the
food up here."
U.N. spokesman David Wimhurst said airdrops of food had been delayed for a second day
because of heavy military air traffic at Dili's small airport. U.N. High Commissioner for
Refugees Sadako Ogata said her organization would send missions into both East Timor and
western Timor -- part of a separate Indonesian province -- to assess the needs of people
who have been driven from their homes by 2 1/2 weeks of killing, burning and looting.
The peacekeepers' mission is to restore order to East Timor, which was devastated by
rampaging militias and elements of the military after the territory voted overwhelmingly
for independence from Indonesia -- rather than autonomous status within the archipelago --
on Aug. 30.
Australian Maj. Gen. Peter Cosgrove, commander of the multinational peacekeeping force,
offered qualified assurances to displaced East Timorese about the anti-independence, or
"pro-integration," forces in East Timor. "Dili is safe to the point that we
are in here in some force," he told reporters. "But Dili has been a flash point
in the past, and there are still people who are pro-integration. Obviously bad blood
exists."
More than 2,000 peacekeeping troops have arrived here so far, with 5,500 more still to
come, and Cosgrove added: "It will still be a number of weeks, rather than days,
before we are in a position to have a pervasive presence through the province."
But the troops at hand were enough to rescue two Western journalists who were ambushed
by a militia gang while driving in central East Timor. An intervention force spokesman
said Jon Swain, a reporter with Britain's Sunday Times, and U.S. photographer Chip Hires
were unhurt in a recovery operation that involved both helicopters and armored vehicles.
Otherwise, the verdant countryside outside Dili seemed empty and oddly quiet.
Indonesian soldiers at an isolated post were setting fire to their own buildings,
apparently intending to leave nothing behind as they prepared to withdraw. But Cosgrove
refuted reports that all Indonesian troops would withdraw quickly from East Timor.
"I'm expecting [Indonesian] personnel will stay for some time," he said.
"They are cleaning out, but they will maintain a substantial presence," he said.
Cosgrove noted with approval the increase in the number of civilians on the streets of
Dili today. "It was virtually a ghost town when I set foot here, and it is starting
to come back," he said.
It still has a long way to go. With more than half its buildings destroyed and its
infrastructure heavily damaged, Dili is a dark and frightened place at night and a
monument to destruction by daylight.
And with untold thousands of East Timor's 800,000 people scattered across the territory
and elsewhere, it also is a place of desperate anxiety. Many families are separated,
uncertain of their loved ones' fate, unclear when and how they will reunite.
"My baby is only two months old," said a distraught Raul Pinto, 28. "My
baby, my wife, my sister and my mother -- 10 people in my family -- were forced by the
militia to go to Atambua" in western Timor. He has not heard of them since.
Today, some families sent a scout, Abdul Gaffer, down from the mountains to see if it
was safe to return to their homes. "I think I will bring my family down from the
mountain tomorrow," said Gaffer, 30. Then he began the long trek back up.
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