Indonesian troops leave Dili in flames (AFP+ReuTERS)

[Dao Van <daotb@yahoo.com>]

SEP 27 1999

Indonesian troops leave Dili in flames

Angry Indonesian troops bid an angry farewell to East Timor yesterday,
torching buildings and burning tyres as they pulled out of the territory

DILI (East Timor) -- Indonesian troops yesterday torched city buildings
in an angry farewell to the territory they occupied for 24 years. 

Thick plumes of toxic black smoke rose over the city as some of the last
Indonesian soldiers relinquishing control in a humiliating withdrawal
set fire to a pile of tyres inside a recently-abandoned barracks. 

Smoke also poured out of the Department of Education and Culture near
the Dili Cathedral and, across town, one of the few bank buildings still
standing was ablaze. 


"TNI and the militias arrived and burned
it," one man said.  The TNI is the Indonesian military. 

A UN aerial survey of remote parts of East Timor found an empty,
devastated landscape yesterday with many towns razed. 

The helicopter survey was carried out by relief workers in the
territory's west, home to many anti-independence militiamen who have
waged a terror campaign to keep it in Indonesian hands. 

"One cannot but be struck by all this
devastation in so many of the towns that we have seen," said Mr Ross
Mountain, head of the UN humanitarian operation in East Timor. 

"The burning sometimes reaches as much
as 80 to 90 per cent.  It really is extremely depressing and gives us a
measure of the challenge of reconstruction, even after we have managed
to cope with those who have been displaced in the hills," he added. 

The settlements of Oekussi, Suai, Ambeno and Ainaro -- all in the
heartland of the pro-Indonesian groups in the west of the territory --
were empty ghost towns. 

Streets were marked by the charred ruins of houses and shops. 

One member of the assessment mission compared the scene with pictures of
Dresden, the German city flattened in some of the heaviest bombing raids
of World War II. 

In Suai, a town on East Timor's southern coast and home to one of the
most brutal militias, little had been left standing except a radio mast
flying a huge Indonesian flag. 

About 2,000 people had taken refuge in Odolgomo, a camp run by
pro-independence guerillas on a hillside near Bobonaro town. 

A student who worked with the UN during the independence referendum and
identified only as Mr Crispin, was among those taking shelter there. 

He told visiting reporters of his flight from the town of Maliana,
another militia stronghold. 

"I was washing in the river when suddenly
there was shooting.  Two people were killed next to me.  One of them was
called Marcus, he was a good friend," he said. 

"The militia, TNI and the Indonesian
police formed a shape like the letter 'U' and were shooting at all the
students.  I ran into the mountains.  When I climbed up...  I looked
down on Maliana and it was burning on all sides."

The International Force in East Timor
(Interfet) will assume formal
responsibility for security in the territory today in a handover by the
Indonesian military which invaded in 1975. 

More evidence of the carnage emerged yesterday when UN officials said
the bodies of two East Timorese murdured during the militiarampage were
exhumed from graves on the outskirts of Dili. 
--AFP, Reuters


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