UN pulls workers from East Timor

The pullout came after the workers spent several days trapped in the besieged compound. Among those evacuating was U.N. mission head Ian Martin, wearing a light blue flak jacket and riding on the back of one of the trucks heading for the airport. Some gunfire was heard in the distance.

Yesterday, the Roman Catholic Church accused pro-Indonesian militiamen of targeting nuns and priests in predominantly Catholic East Timor, where voters have overwhelmingly chosen independence from mostly Muslim Indonesia.

''The world is talking and we're dying,'' nun Esmeralda de Araujo was quoted as saying by the Vatican's newspaper L'Osservatore Romano. ''It's hell here and I'd like to cry out to everybody to save us."

Keeping the U.N. compound functioning is considered key to the world body's plans to give East Timor nation status after its people voted overwhelmingly on Aug. 30 for independence from Indonesia, which invaded in 1975. The result triggered a backlash of looting, burning and killing by anti-independence militias. The Indonesian army had pledged to ensure security.

More than 200,000 East Timorese have been forced to leave their homeland, U.N. officials said. More than 50,000 were shipped to militia-run camps in West Timor, where refugees told of massacres and arson attacks by anti-independence militias either backed or led by Indonesian army units.

International outrage grew yesterday with the Pentagon suspending official relations with the Indonesian military, and foreign ministers at an Asia-Pacific summit demanding that Indonesian leaders stop the rampaging militias. While some countries advocated an international peacekeeping force, key nations shied away from committing troops absent an invitation from the Indonesian government. NATO said it wouldn't take part in such a force.

In Washington, Gen. Henry Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday that the crisis presents no threat to U.S. national interests that would justify sending American troops. Shortly after, President Clinton suspended relations with Indonesia's military and insisted its government allow in international peacekeepers.

The militias have reportedly killed about 100 people, including three priests, in a grenade attack on a church in Suai, the Vatican's missionary news agency Fides reported Thursday. Fifteen priests and some nuns have been reported killed in Dili and Baucau. Caritas Australia said its East Timor office head, the Rev. Francisco Barreto, and ''most'' of his staff had been killed.

''The militiamen have launched a targeted action of retaliation against the Timorese church, accused of having backed the cause of independence,'' Fides said.

The government has denied massacres are taking place. Officials predicted the situation would stabilize when martial law takes hold under a new general.

Refugees in the camps said their neighbors were killed, their bodies dumped and mutilated in the days after the United Nations announced the referendum's results. Many spoke Thursday on condition of anonymity, fearing retribution from militia leaders.

''I saw dozens of people shot,'' said one man, who watched militiamen storm Roman Catholic Bishop Carlos Belo's home in Dili last Monday. ''Militia men wearing black shirts and masks stabbed a young man right in front of me. He bled to death.''

Jose Ramos Horta, who won the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize along with Belo, has warned of genocide and demanded international military intervention.

Independent confirmation of the death toll was impossible. Militias have threatened to kill foreign journalists or observers who try to enter East Timor or the refugee camps. The 82-year-old father of rebel leader Jose Alexandre ''Xanana'' Gusmao was killed by militias in an attack on a Dili suburb. The news was kept from Gusmao, who was freed from house arrest Tuesday, until he finished meeting with diplomats to plead for international peacekeeping forces to rescue his homeland, which is about the same size as Vermont.

Gusmao, widely expected to be the first president of an independent East Timor, wept when he learned the news. The fate of his mother, sister and brother-in-law were uncertain.

''He is a very strong man,'' said Ana Gomes, Portugal's representative to Indonesia. ''He says that he doesn't cry only for his family - he cries first and foremost for his people.''

09-10-99