| Subject: Troop
reinforcements flown to Timor border after kidnapping, murder
Troop reinforcements flown to Timor
border after kidnapping, murder
DILI, East Timor, Dec 15 (AFP) -
Reinforcements from the multinational peacekeeping force have been flown
to the border region after a civilian was kidnapped and another man
murdered, a spokesman said Wednesday.
Between 50 and 100 infantrymen from
Canada's Royal 22nd Regiment were flown by Australian Army Blackhawk
helicopters to the village of Boeana on Tuesday, said Lieutenant Commander
Chris Henderson, spokesman for the Canadian contingent with the
International Force in East Timor (Interfet).
"It was an operation that reinforced
the authority of Interfet in that area," Henderson told AFP on
Wednesday. "It was a requirement to get them there quickly and show
some force."
The operation went without incident,
Major General Peter Cosgrove, the Interfet commander, told journalists
earlier Wednesday.
Henderson said the troops dispatched
after two incidents on Sunday and Monday were patrolling and checking
suspicious activity in the remote area about 15 kilometres (nine miles)
northeast of Maliana.
On Sunday, peacekeepers freed a man they
said was captured by radical youths seeking revenge on pro-Indonesian
militias. The youths are based in Maliana and the village of Marko, just
west of Boeana, Cosgrove said.
The next day, a man was found with his
throat cut in Marko but Cosgrove said the incidents did not appear to be
related.
Cosgrove said peacekeepers freed the
kidnap victim "within hours" of his capture from his unarmed
captors.
The man was a native of Indonesian West
Timor but was not a militiaman.
"We quickly moved on this particular
group, freed the man that they had abducted, established that he was
innocent, returned him to West Timor, and we'll do that every time,"
said Cosgrove.
"It's true that there is a small
group that is radical and has declared that it wants to act against
militia," Cosgrove said.
He gave no specific number of the size of
the group, saying only they were "under the guidance of some older
people" and could include former members of the Falintil
pro-independence guerrillas.
But their actions were not endorsed by
either Falintil or the National Council or Timorese Resistance (CNRT), the
pro-independence umbrella organization that is presided by Xanana Gusmao,
he added.
"I would rather characterize it as a
misguided youth gang," the general said. "Falintil do not want
to be associated with them in any way."
Cosgrove revealed that Gusmao, who is
also Falintil commander, has stationed some Falintil members in the border
region "precisely to reassure the militia that there is a line of
reconciliation which he, CNRT and Falintil are looking to pursue.
"Now, I applaud that."
The CNRT's acting secretary, Venceslau
Pinto, said he had no information about the kidnapping and could not
comment.
He confirmed that Falintil commander
Falur Rate Laek has been posted to the border town of Batugade to act as
an observer.
Cosgrove said the radical youths were not
believed to be linked to the murder of a young man whose body was found
Monday.
"This appears to be a revenge
killing," he said. "The man killed is reputed to be the relative
of a militia person who is again reputed to have killed people during the
troubles."
Civilian police from the United Nations
Transitional Administration in East Timor were investigating, Cosgrove
said.
Militias and their backers in the
Indonesian armed forces went on an orgy of murder, rape and destruction
after the August 30 ballot in which the East Timorese voted overwhelmingly
for independence from Indonesia.
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