World: Jakarta `behind East Timor terror gangs'

UNITED NATIONS observers in East Timor claim they have evidence that Indonesia is training militia forces to disrupt a referendum on independence due to take place in August. The UN has accused Indonesia's government of breaching the accord it signed with Portugal in May.

Last Sunday, at least six people were reported to have been killed when pro-Indonesian militias attacked Atara, a remote village. The attack was the latest in a series which observers claim are encouraged by the Indonesian authorities to intimidate the local population into rejecting independence. UN officials were prevented by the Indonesian army from investigating the Atara killings, but David Wimburst, UN spokesman in East Timor, said he had come across an Indonesian militia training camp in Atsabe, a town just a few miles from Atara and 30 from the capital, Dili.

Pro-Indonesian militia are said to be responsible for the deaths of more than 100 people since January. The Indonesian authorities say their forces are only helping to carry out "socialisation" campaigns in preparation for a referendum, but yesterday there were reports of yet another massacre, this time in the coffee-growing region of Ermera. As many as 20 people are alleged to have been killed by a militia group calling itself the "Red Dragons", which burnt houses and murdered or kidnapped farmers and their families. A local priest told Radio Australia that 10 people were killed last week in the town of Olge Ermera, and 20 in the nearby village of Fantubolo, where the headman said farmers had been too afraid to enter the plantations to collect the bodies.

East Timor's resistance movement claims that most of the militiamen come from neighbouring West Timor, an Indonesian province, and that many of the East Timorese who have joined their ranks have been coerced by the Indonesian army.

In August the East Timorese vote in a referendum offering greater autonomy from Indonesia, which annexed the former Portuguese colony by force in 1976. If the offer is rejected, the Indonesians have promised to grant independence to East Timor. However, there are concerns that the UN observer force overseeing the referendum will be woefully inadequate, and that intimidation could be widespread.

On Friday the Indonesian government announced that it was planning to bring forward the date of the referendum by one day. The UN said it had not been consulted.