Indonesian troops and their auxiliaries torched scores of homes -- including that of Nobel Peace laureate Bishop Carlos Belo -- and rounded up and deported thousands of terrified people from East Timor's capital yesterday.
Besieged UN officials ordered the evacuation of 300 of the world body's elections workers from Dili to Australia.
"The situation in Dili is grim, it borders on anarchy with widespread shooting and looting," UN spokesman Nick Birnback said.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Bishop Belo fled his residence in the capital as militiamen attacked it yesterday, driving some of the 5,000 refugees cowering in the grounds out onto waiting trucks, witnesses said.
A British journalist who was staying in a seaside hotel next to the Red Cross compound, which was also attacked, said soldiers and militiamen had herded the screaming refugees, most of them women, to an opposite beach.
"As I left [the hotel] I saw hundreds of refugees marching at gunpoint on the beach, marching towards the east surrounded by military -- I repeat the military -- and not the militiamen," he said.
PHOTO: AP
Joao Carrascalao, Australia's senior East Timorese resistance officer, told Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) radio he had received a report of mutilated bodies along the road to Dili.
"One person who travelled from Dili to Atambua [in West Timor] reported that alongside the road there were hundreds of heads on sticks and bodies everywhere," Carrascalao said.
The East Timorese International Support Center, based in Darwin, Australia, said more than 170 people had been slaughtered by pro-Indonesian militiamen yesterday.
Witnesses said Indonesian military personnel have fired guns to intimidate and chase out journalists and UN workers. They also accused the military of supporting the militias.
"There is very clear evidence of collusion among elements of the security forces and the militias," said Birnback, holed up in the besieged UN compound. "A campaign of forced deportation seems to be taking place, with the Indonesian army and militias loading people onto trucks and sending them to West Timor."
Tens of thousands were fleeing East Timor yesterday. Refugees were streaming into neighboring West Timor at a rate of 1,000 per hour, the International Committee of the Red Cross said.
The mayhem has followed a UN-sponsored referendum a week ago in which 78.5 percent of the voters opted to secede from Indonesia.
A top UN envoy met in Jakarta with Indonesian President B.J. Habibie, amid accusations that security forces were doing nothing to halt the bloodshed.
For the first time, even a senior Indonesian official acknowledged the breakdown in security.
"The situation remains out of control," Gen Rusmanhadi, chief of national police, said in Jakarta. "The government there is no longer functioning."
Australia put troops on emergency alert late yesterday, increasing its readiness to send peacekeeping forces to East Timor.
Troop readiness was reduced to 24 hours from 72 hours, Defense Minister John Moore said.
Earlier yesterday, Prime Minister John Howard had condemned Indonesia's failure to stem the violence in East Timor and said IMF aid could be withheld from Indonesia until it takes action. The IMF has organized a US$43 billion bailout program for the economically crippled nation.
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said US$1 billion in aid Australia has pledged to Indonesia could also be withheld "as a last resort if Indonesia isn't prepared to allow some sort of international presence on the ground."
Britain yesterday became the latest country to declare its willingness to support a UN peacekeeping force in East Timor, but said Jakarta would have to ask for help.
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright yesterday denounced the ongoing violence in East Timor and warned that international intervention may be an option if Indonesia does not take firm control of the situation.
Indonesia has steadfastly ruled out giving up security responsibilities until the country's supreme legislative body endorses the result of the referendum in November.
Indonesia Defense Minister Gen Wiranto said he would dispatch another three or four battalions to East Timor to beef up the estimated 20,000 soldiers and police in the province.
The Habibie Cabinet met yesterday to consider upgrading the security status from civilian emergency to military emergency, which would theoretically give the army more powers. A government spokesman said the plan was facing objections because the government feared it might be misinterpreted as martial law.
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