| Subject: RT: Interview
w/Cosgrove: militia still a threat Received
from Joyo Indonesian News:
INTERVIEW-Indonesia militia a threat-INTERFET head By Tim
Johnston
DILI, East Timor, Nov 4 (Reuters) - Pro-Indonesia militias
in West Timor are still a threat to peace in East Timor, the head of the U.N.-backed
foreign force in the territory said on Thursday.
``We belive that there remain a substantial number of
militia who by their grouping, and by their rhetoric and perhaps by their daily
activities, seem to be suggesting that they remain in military training,'' Major-General
Peter Cosgrove told Reuters.
``Therefore you have to say there remains a threat,'' he
said.
Cosgrove estimated there were about 5,000 militiamen
training with everything from military rifles to machetes, although the number fluctuated.
``The numbers alone suggest that it (the threat) must be
taken seriously,'' he said.
But he said the militias, blamed for much of the
devastation in East Timor after the overwhelming vote for independence in August, posed a
greater threat to the East Timorese than to the international forces.
``The individual skills of those militia would probably not
compare at all with the sorts of soldiers who are arrayed to defend against such a threat,
but against innocent people the threat would be significant.''
Cosgrove said he belived the militias were now receiving
less support from the Indonesian military than in the past.
INDONESIAN TROOPS HALT MILITIAS
``We think we notice that there is a lessening of
support,'' he said, adding he had heard of Indonesian soldiers stopping militiamen from
harrassing refugees trying to return to East Timor.
Cosgrove, who heads the 15-nation international
intervention force known as INTERFET, said almost all of East Timor had been secured but
some areas were still at risk of hit-and-run attacks.
``I would not want people to put themselves at risk by
settling in settlements very close to the border,'' he said.
INTERFET and the Indonesians use different maps often do
not agree on the exact location of the border.
Cosgrove said he had been trying to set up a meeting with
General Adam Damiri, the Bali-based regional head of the Indonesian army (TNI), since a
border incident in October in which an Indonesian policeman was killed.
``The stumbling block at the moment is my inability to
engage General Damiri...in a discussion to launch quick, and I belive simple, negotiations
to set up these border protocols,'' he said.
Cosgrove has told his troops not to conduct normal
operations within 1,000 metres (1,100 yards) of where they believe the border to be, but
warned his troops would move in if necessary.
``Nobody should think that that thousand-metre gap is
somehow sacrosanct and in there you can kill East Timorese, that will not be allowed,'' he
said.
But he added that without a clarification of the exact
border, all sides were running a risk.
``I think that anyone operating in the area of the border
without some kind of confidence building measures being attempted is at risk -- TNI
soldiers plainly, INTERFET soldiers, East Timorese, and indeed militia.''
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