...

'INDEPENDENCE

,

, OR DEATH!' \

East Timor's

border war

, eye-witness .reports by

I ROGER EAST .

.. ".- . .

2Oc.

. A boo~let published by the CAMPAIGN FOR INDEPENDENT EAST TIMOR, first floor. 232 Castlereaqh St. ,Sydney. ~SW-2000JAustralia

INTRODUCTION

Roger East, the author of these articles, was killed by Indonesian paratroopers at 8 e cm, on December 7,,1975, four hours after they launched their crimdna1 aggression against the East Timorese capital.

This news was given by A1arico Fernandes, Minister for Internal Affairs in the Democratic Republic of East Tirror, in a radio message moni tored in lJdI'win by the Campaign for Independent East Tirror, on January 4.

Mr. Fernandes paid tribute to Mr. East, who had arrived in Dili a m:mt:h earlier to help establish the East Timor News Agency (ETNA) and provide an independent journalist's account of the struggle of the East Timorese people.

Roger East decided to stay in Dili when all other Australian journalists, doctors and nurses left as the invasion drew closer.

He told Freti1in leaders he was willing to go to the rrountains with them and work with them, to provide a news service through the radio Mr. Fernandes is now broadcasting on.

It is tragic that Mr. East never achieved that goal and joined the many Timorese massacred by the Indonesian invaders.

Hr. East did, however, in November 1975, visit the war zone on the Indonesian border where Indonesian troops had bee.n a.ttacking for several months.

These articles were ~~itten in the border region where Mr. East observed the fighting. They speak for themselves of the valor and heroism of the Timorese people, and give a graphic introduction to the war now being fought in zeet: Timor.

This booklet is a tribute to Hr. East, an Australian who has died in a way be would have wished -- not in a deathbed in a Sydney suburb, but in the service of a courageous, smal.I nation that he had come to love.

These articles were originally sent to the Australian press for publication on November 28 -- the day the Democratic Republic of East Timor was proclaimed in Dili. Mr. East gave them to Australian nurse Carol Jobson and mechanic ~rren Kemlo on that day, when he told them the ceremony declaring independence was about to take place.

The campaign for Independent East Tiwar has produced these articles quickly, in roneoed form, to get them into your hands with the least possible delay. They are important documents for understanding the heroic str1lgg1e of the East Timorese people.

We hope, however, with other organisa.tions and individuals to shortly publish a larger collection of Roger East's Tirror articles in a properly printed form, as a lasting tribute to him ~nd to his devotion to the East Timorese struggle.

Printed & published by the Campaign for Independent East Timor, First floor, 232 Castlereagh St., Sydney, NSI'1 r 2000, Australia. (Phone: 26 1701;. after hours: 827 3598).

EAST TIMOR BATTLE ENDS IN STALEMATE ON 49TH DAY

Conflicting accounts have come from Djakarta and Dill on the fighting in East Tinr:)r. Access from Indonesia to the battle areas h'Ould be easy. Their helicopters commute regularly on the five-minute journey. But they have made it a forbidden zone to· outsiders. On the East TiJJDr side, the welcome mat is out, but it involves for the Westerner an allJX)st unacceptable degree of physical discomfort. I am the first journalist -to go there. Few are likely

to follow. ..

MALIANA= The 49th day of the battle for this beleaguered rice centre erupted around midnight and subsided 13 hours later under a pall of rain clouds.

In this action, the Indonesian-led forces unleashed a non-stop barrage of 1'l'Ortar and shell-fire against Fretilin troops restricted to hand weapons.

I watched the battle from a hilltop three kilometres from Malia~a and about 800 metres from the nearest Indonesian defence position.

It could be considered immoral to watch other people's wars from comparative safety. It is also uncomfortable to be sitting there without a gun.

Maliana, t.~ree kilometres from the frontier, at this hour is controlled by Indonesia. It is providing the troops, mostly Javanese, the firepower and the logistics to keep the war going. Sheltering under its wing are the remnan~s of the now discredited UDT and Apodeti parties opposing Fretilin.

Their fighting n~ers have dwindled to a few hundred which would be decimated within hours of Djakarta withdrawing its protection.

Maliana is pancaked in the centre of a lush alluvial valley. I counted its 17 buildings compressed into a space no greater than two or three football fields.

Dozens of trucks were evident along with black-shirted Indonesians walking casually about during the battle. This was not surprising for the mortars and shells were on a one-way exchange.

Djakarta"s presence in East Timor at this hour gathers in a 90-degree arc of territory which includes a road access to the Nunuru River, the demarcation line between the two Timors. This hold extends to Baliba, 30 kilometres distant and Batugade ten kilometres further on. These three remaining thorns in Fretilin'g side are all within six kilometres of Indonesia.

The remaining 270 degrees of the compass is largely Fretilin territory. The airport, a few hundred metres from Maliana, is theirs and also the catholic college, a further SOO metres away. The surrounding hills and mountains are honeycombed with their units, both regular and militia. Special commando qrou~s operate around the clock in the role of harassing the occupiers.

An attempted breakout by the Indonesian-led forces sparked the 49th day flare-up. The attack was made by moonlight in the direction of the now unoccupied college.

Fretilin units entered the fray to ~ke a three-pronged counter-offensive.

It was all foot-fighting, and they used only the N~to G-3 issue and the Mauser. Small groups of men, acting independently and using any and all vegetation for cover, are an invisible target for blundering shell and mortar. Fly swatting is a more constructive occupation.

1.

Around 2 a.m., Indonesian automatic 'fire was opened 'about 800 metres on my' left in territory I knew to be Fretilin's. A group of infiltrators, tw:J kilometres from their border, had attempted a back door entrance and stumbled on a Fretilin patrol. The i'ire lessened as th~y were harried. back along the

route they came. ,;. .

Dawn in Maliana saw positions largely unchanqed from the night before. But FretiUn's pzeaence was obvious as the ~ul1?hurous White clouds frolR oortar bombs crept closer to the centre's perimeters.

As a civilian overlooking the pattlefield, it was markedly evident that sustained firepower can raze towns but it is a nit-picking exercise in the open spaces. Vietnam proved this, and this minor war, now taking place on Australia's doorstep, i~ only repeatinq the lesson.

But gnats torment and by mid-rnoming the Indonesians were spewinq I!X)rtar fire in four directions. The fire directed at us was accurate but in an old soldier's vocabulary "a miss is as good as a mile". They missed. The ,....,rd is either fizzed or sizzled as they passed overhead and exploded harmlessly in the valley SO to 100 metres behind us.

The oortar game is a lottery. Few win it if that is' the riqht phraseol.oqy.

And to survive against it night and day leaves these soldiers cynical of this weapon and stoical in its presence. Those who die are al~ys "unlucky".

Indonesia is f:!xp.:!nding hundreds of shells and' mortars around the clock. It is their big punch and tho . ItOments of comparative quietness can be neasured only. in minutes.

As the fire lessened towards mid-day, helicop!:ers scurried in from Indonesia at tree-top level. The l"TIltching. soldiers ~"€re hoping they were collecting casual ties.

On this hilltop the thought Of being woWldEld .leaves room fo:: melancholy.

Behind is Tape, a loose g'Olographical term to cover acompooitiori of moUntains and ravines where keepins a fcot'_i1.old is a pr ecar Ious pursuit. In a Soldier' 8 hut an elementary first~aid kit~

Beyond this is Eog6naro, 20 kiiome~es 'a~~y and'to reach~~ you must· first' climb a' mountain goat pa"'::h tc a 4,COO-foot summit befor8 stumbling, sweating .' r:' and cursing, to lower altitud::s. Six kilometre:> more o~. byways meant only for nature and :1Ci: for stretchnrs.

Australia IS' 'Independent Company, wloich operated here again,st the Japanese, has probably penii'(~ better dezcriptls~"!s. Ar.d . more lurid.

I left the ·vici.nity of Malia'":a, ~9 hours later with thebattlelines frozen

as before. Indon<;f.ia l"tith a vc« 3.1 hand:ul of puppets is clinging on to a \'

bloody acre. Fre'_ilin contii.m.i. s to attack because, iIi the 'wo:::ds of one soldier,

ttthey (.:=~th~re ill~d t."'leland is OI.:rS".

The fate of Y'....).liana is ur,:!.:'-'k~ly to be dedr:'!c:! except at the conference table.

The hand we::.pons of P-..:et.il~ n e.-co inadequate ':lgainst t."1e firepower ranged against it. On Indonesia's part it ll'.ay ho:.Io to accf,pt the cost of thi~ daily bloodletting to ensure its suppor~cr3~ theUDT tin~ Apodeti, ~ voice, in East Timor;a future.

Indonesia is not winning thi:"l b~::,~~:'~ war. Air-sea operations cou1d ensure its occupation of coe stiaf c~ntreG grandiose:'y named towns_ But the 'countryside, judged by \.mat I fla;,1 in recent dayc, Ls likely to remain forever Fretilin.

2.

WHERE THE CRUCIFIX AND CLENCHED FIST,ARE CRUSADE SYMBOLS

ON THE FRONTIER: Circled by jungle-clad Freti1in soldiers the slight Whitegowned figure made his plea: "Please'ask, Australia to send us some rosaries and crucifixes".

No, not ams which were needed, Nor food and medicines which were .needed even more. Only Christian necklaces. For there were souls to be succoured even in the business of dying.

Timorese-born Father Antomio (correct) ¥~ia's plea followed a memorial service in Bogonaro for th~ 20 villagers who had died in the fighting around Ma1iana.

"Nineteen", he proudly stated" "were Christians. Only one waS. a pagan-.

The crucifixes were evident as the shirts of the soldiers flapped open ,in a midday cooling i:lreeze,. Some wez e silver, others of l«lOd and cardboard •

, "They 'are coming to lis before leaving for the frontier, but we have to turn them away, Our. stocks have been long exhausted", lamented the priest. Three Spanish-born Carmelite sisters standing beside him were to nod agreement.

lOAU:stra1ian volunteer priests w:>uldalso be welcomed", continued Father Antomio. "I have now 40,000 Christians to look after. How i9 this possible?-

A sweeping gesture of the hand gathered in his Christian domain. Boqonaro is a panorama of magnificent roountains and lush valleys with the name app1yinq to the colonial cavalry outpost superim?Osed on one of its hillsides.

It'was from in this green acre of the father's kingdom had come the villagers that day to pay their respects to the dead. Some had started out before dawn and in the~ Sunday best. Or tne best that could be afforded by a people steeeped in poverty.

They carne in their hundreds'. On foot. They sobbed when the roll call of the dead was 'announced in t.'1e main square, sang' softly the hymns selected 'for the Catholic service thnt followed, then wept again as they scattered the petals of wild flowers o~ the rough-hewn soldiers' memorial.

It carried the Fretilin flag arid the names of the dead. And also the words in Te'tum, the local dialect, which read when trans1a.:ed: "Forget us not, my people, for we died for you".

More names will 'be added in the days ahead as this paradoxica1'war continues. It began as a coup, flared briefly into civil war and is now lapsing into border blood-letting exchanges with Indonesia. The crucible now is whether East, Timor will achieve its independence.

And ironically among the' standard-bearers for this attempted revolutionary break with the past are the crucifix carrying soldiers, of the Freti1in forces.

3 • '.'

'INDEPENIENCE OR DEATH' THE APPOINTED GOAL OF EAST TIMOR

Below me the Indonesians sleep badly. They have left home and inherited a hostile world. These notes were scribbled looking down on these uninvited guests and rehasbed a little later in more pleasant surroundings.

MALIANA: Virgilio is in his mid-thirties. black, grizzled by sun and environment and now leading a commando unit in the hills above this occupied town.

It was dusk and the end of a day's patrol under fire. From a rock he gathered his Mauser and a cloak to fend off the mountnin mist. Ahead lay a lang night of walking, waiting and always watching.

I was to ask Him: "When do you sleep, soldier?" And his gniling response:

"After independence".

Virgilio is one of uncounted thousands now crusading under the Fretilin flag.

They get no pay, receive no food and live their lives wi thin am's reach of their guns.

They are dedicated, tough and inured to hardship. For it has been said that joys never known are joys never missed. They air no grievances and shrug off discomfort. And their disci~line is ragged.

"Independence or Death" is a Western cliche of another century. Here it is a daily salutation and they mean it.

Leave the coastal resort of Dili, inhabited now by about 6,000 people, and there are no real centres of population. The map names exaggerate what are primarily hamlets and market centres. The thatched homes which dot m::luntainside and valley are where the people live and beneath their feet the soil which gives them a subsistence existence.

The torturous nature of East Timor is best illustrated by the fact that Maliana to Dili is about 70 kilometres as the crow flies, and 218 on the back of a truck.

The colony's only three kilometres of sealed roads were laid down to ease the wear and tear on Portuguese bncksides in the capital of Dili.

Any aggressor against the East Timorese must accept that the battlefields are pre-determined. Viewed as such it is unlikely that the poorly lOC.ltivated Indonesians will register any greater success than the more durable Japanese

33 years ago.

I -.etched this homeless, frontline army being fed. There were no bugle calls, no cookhouse and no hard rations.

Tape commander Le100s Furrill, lithe and 29, patted his stomach. "Here on the frontier we get the best of food , Rice, beans, chicken, potatoes, goat and sometimes pig. Fretilin is one family. While we fight tlJe women feed us.

"If we don't fight they tell us we won't get any food. Sometimes when they see us sitting around talking they want to take our guns. Rice is what we mainly eat and down there in the Maliana valley are our best fields.

"The women want to return there to re-sow the crop."

This is International WOmen's Year but the joys of speech-making and bannerbearing by liberationists is a luxury the East Timorese have yet to win.

4.

!!ley have an open--fireon whicli to prePare food, a bamboo pole re~tPl9 Q'n frail shoulders to carry the prepared meAl sufficient for groups of up to 20:',':', men. They are assigned forest bivouacs or rendezvous' pOints and their jo~ey' could be as great as six kilometres which they travel twice a day.

These ~en are barefooted and ragged and the rock-pitted paths they traverse alonq mountain ranges were chiselled out by nature only for lDOuntain goats. To' western eyes the ~ctacle is poignant, pitiful,'even shameful.

One's compassion is partly dissolved by the knowledge that ,these women, too, are reaching out for a dignity denied' them through the centuries. Their knuckles whiten in the clenched salute of ·~'sttength and Unity", the Frctilin paSMrd to the Promised Land. They are illiternte and isolated but have been brUshed by

an instinctive feeling that a brighter future is near. '

Yet the dreams and the realities of East Timor remain detachea. The colony is pathetically ~r and its quarantine by nations almost complete~

A patchwork administration is 'being developed by Freti 1 in' in the vacuum. left by the Portuguese. A large que.stionmark is poised over whether they will return, in what role and for how 10l1CJ.

Time is running out for PeJrtuguese civilians in the current mood and has run its course for its garrison soldiers. Fretilin will not give up its guns.

It believes the Governor, Col. Lemos Pires, now sulking on the island of Atauro -- the St. Helena of his choice -- aided and abetted the UDT to stage its ill-fated August coup. Frctilin had been told of the coup plot and a request to the governor ,to disarm the plotters was turned down.

Pretilin was defenceless when the fighting started and its members hounded, jailed, and some murdered. UDT lost when the Portuguese-trained Timrese soldiers Qefected in favor of Fretilin. It will not now 110s6O its hold.

East Timor I s problems grow daily. Theix pr imary ricebowl in the Maliana valley is now a battlefield. Other crops ~re destroyed or neglected in the turmoil of fighting'. H\Ulger is a reality and starvation a growing threat. "

The colony is broke and denied credit. Its fuel stocks are perilousl¥ low, its transport progressivel¥ cannibalised to offset the shortage of spare parts.

It has two grounded helicopters for lack of pilots, no artillery pieces, a

few howitzers and an abiding faith in the efficacy of hand weapons. But here, too, the problems are magnified by the day. Each battle fought brings East Timor .that much closer to exhausting the Nl'.TO stocks left behind by the portuquese.

A number of Afro-Asian states have expressed sympathy and support for this fledgling administration, but none h~ve yet offered guns. East Timor is defenceless against air attacks like Abyssinia. The world was horrified then.

Indonesia has already expended thousands of shells and mnrtars in securi.ng for the opposition groups a 40-kilcmetre strip linking Maliana with Bal:Lbo and Batugade. '!his frontier strip, deserted by civilians, survives in its present state through the grace of Indonesia and the firepower it can call upon from all three celliX'eS, its artillery bases from across the NWluru River and the flotilla of warships pe%lMnently stationed off Batugade in East 'i'ilror wate~s.

Djakarta's generals have reasons to feel ~g. Their battle areas have been closed to Western journalists who are daily spooDfed on border developments

by their hosts. This part accounts for the distortion of events now reaching the world media.

5.

An a9qressive Indonesia, glancing over its shoulder to note Asian reaction, sees Malaysia applauding its stand, Singapore silently acquiescing and Australia, Wldoubtedly' the mst influential, at an arms-fold position. Portugal, too~ broken-backed at home, perfers to wait and see.

Indonesia's ploy to date has been to label Fretilirr as a Communist front ~d for northern neighbOurs, battling Red insurgencie$, the argument is very persuasive.

Fretilin'sarmy is basically anti-colonial, strongly catholic tinted and, not surprisingly, has many vehement anti-nommunists in its midst. The paths and the policies it will map into the fu':ure are likely to be deterndned 'py the' friends it wins in the coming crucial mnths. It is watching and waitinq.

Its president xa~ier do Amoral, the Jesuit student ~ned revolutionary, knows a plebiscite, in Ea:!'\t Timor will provide him with a crushing victory. But he does not know Whether Indonesia will accept ~s conventional exercise ~ d8lll)CX'acy •

**

6.

AUSTRALIA' S TINY NEIGHBOUR SHRUGS OFF WAR iN INDEPENDENCE BID

Australia's nearest neighbour, East Timor, has cast the die. In three convulsive months this tiny Portuguese colony has springboarded from passive poli tics into an armed camp crusading for independence. The standard-bearers are Fretilin, a loosely knit grouping of many political shades cemented toqether only by the beckoning beacon of freedom. It is unchallenged now, and unchallengeable. Their opponents UDT and Apodeti were thrashed on the battlefield of their own choice and are now despised by the Timorese for accepting the patronage of Indonesia to recoup their losses. For Australia to pretend the situation is otherwise must reflect either on their intelligence or their integrity. Canberra's studied neutrality has elevated the possibility of Indonesia embarking on all-out war against the East Timorese.

BOGONARO (on the border): The m:msoonal rains are now whooshing down on these mountain passes to creato a new scenario for this border ~ar.

Within days these snaking rivulets will be fast-flowing streams. Beneath me at this hour on the now sodden valley the Indonesian-led troops are marooned in Ma.liana.

They know they are going nowhere in the next five months except to a wider war or the comforts of home.

The Fretilin soldiers viewing the foe are exuberant. In this dense low-lying cloud cover and driving roin they are being provided with a customs-made

camouflage for their hit-and-run forays. .

The initiative has passed to Fretilin. The firepower which to date has blunted their offerisives will be dramatically reduced by the weather.

Thousands of IlPrtars and shells have. rained on them in the past eight weeks, most to explode harmlessly against the mountain face or valley bed. Fewer than 20 have died as a result.

In their rock crannies it is a weapon they treat with contempt. On the valley floor in the open countryside it wins a grudging reSpect.

The Indonesian firepower has been ma.ssive on occasions. Yet they are largely beleaguered in their bases at ~~liana, Balibo and Batugade on the coast.

Their numbers have been estimated by Fretilin commandos at around 51000 but they admit their counting could be faulty. These Indonesian forceS, which include the survivors of the East Timorese political parties, UDT and Apodeti, are now anchored along the border in a corridor about 40 kilometres long and which juts no deeper than eight kilometres into East Timor •

.

Earlier reports emanating from Djakarta of fightinq near aacau , Aileu and Dili were either patently urrtzue or the singular exploits of a phantom army.

On October 16, Indonesia's censored war began with a ship and shore bombardment of Maliana. At dawn that day Fretilin forces were in disarray followinq their first real eneoun tez with shell and mortar.

Thirty kilometres away, Balibo was falling in the same offensive. That was the morning the five Australian newsmen died. Ten kilometres towards the coast, Batugade was already occupied.

7.

·' Maliana we~ captured wi thin hours and the Indonesian-led force swept on to over-run Saharai f.nd the mountain strongpoint of Tapa, roughly ten kilometres from the frontier. ?his was their deepest penetration into East Timor.

(In the seccnd week of September a 100-strong force over-ran Atsabe, about 50 kilometres fro~ Maliana, and killed 30 villagers before being repulsed. It is now believed they ,.qE:re largely Apodeti recruits).

Fretilin was to re-muster and counter-attack in the mountains and the offensive became a rout. By the evening of October 17, the Indonesians were back :I.n Maliana.

One of Tape IS b70 military cODllMnders, Lemos FUrrill, told what happened. tlThey swarmed aczoas the ·nllE:y and up the muntainside. It was the first time; we had seen the IndonesiaLls. We were being shelled and mortared and we kept falling back. We backed off all that d~y and through the night.

, "We had crossed a mountain range, a valley, and were climbing another moWlta~n. Next lIOrning we ,,,erG surprised to see the Indonesians sitting down, lying down .' and leaning' against trees. They were completely exhausted.

"We attacked and "they offered little resistance. They were running and falli~cj back the way they ceme , It was easy killing them."

1md so ended the first and only real attempt by this acorss-the-border force to penetrat~ East Timor's hinterland.

In. Maliana t..~e gu."'lS are rarely quiet. The harassed defenders are daily Switching their fire to five different mountain targets in an arc of almost 270 degrees. Their 90-degree sa~~tuary is a road corridor to the border and

a craggy hill ·two kilometres distant. All else is No-Manis Land or Fretilin's.

Along the corridor three helicopters scurry during lulls in the fighting.

Two are white and display the red cross. The third is equipped with machine ~s.

The two Second World War bombers.which stooge around each morning are largely toothless at t..".iG houz . From "r.:he safety of about 3,000 metres they machine-gunat random. ':'0 nate, no bombs have been dropped and their daily targets are ~inly"the former Portuguese cavalry outpost at Bogonaro or Atabae to the north.

One is silvery white ,,':-'5..1e the U' ~w.r ir' hrm,m, and both are umnarked. '

Casual tics are few and wi:!.l get fe\';er when soldiers and civilians learn to ~ive up <;:iil"l'JKing and go f':'>r cover. Three times in the past four days I have been in the line of fire wnich reflected neither competence nor a high degree of couraqe or. the part of these cloud-clinging warriors •

. Excited soldiers occasicnally ignore orders and· release a fusillade from their·M2l~sers. S~one-throwj_ng would be equally effective.

Whither Indonesia?

It is cbv Ious irom here that it must commit its forces to a full-scale intervention or accept the verdict that its proteges, UDT and Apodeti, are a part of history.

It was here in these regions that UDT had its greatest strength and this rested larg€ly on a platform of independence and its. respectability in the eyes of both the Catholic Church and the Portuguese Administration.

The church leadership is now fragmented and the Portuguese have gone.

UDT is now being judged as either war criminals or quislings and they face shortlived lives if they roturn.

B.

The anger is genuine and the bitternes.s· deep.

OCT's leadership is now split three ways. Some are languishing in Timorese jails and others in the more comfortable surrounds of Australian cities. The remaining standard-bearers are in Indonesia, hosted and promised a triumphant return, aibeit in the wake of mortar bombs.

Their platform of independence, which only a year ago saw them in a political alliance with Fretilin, is now abandoned. They are opting for Indonesia after 450 years of Portuguese domination.

Apodeti is a bad bar-room joke. Its political rallies could be staged in the proverbial ten by four room which includes a table. Founder al'ld president is Arnalda Araujo, 62, a respected horse thief, who is currently beinq detained at Fretilin's pleasure in Aileu. The prison routine revives for him memories of former times.

The Portuguese Administration jailed him for nine years for war crimes· committed against the T~rese during the Japanese occupation.

This leaves only Fretilin which would embrace an offer of a UN-supervised plebiscite in the knowledge that it would win by the handsomest of margins. This "front" would appear to have struck the right note at a historical moment. It gathers in intellects, passions and aspirations of varying degrees and intensity.

The mortar that binds them is the singular and irrevocable process towards independence. East Timor will settle for nothing less.

This COIIIId tment to independence is symbolised in the clenched fist and the unspoken tI strength and unity" which this iulplies. It is the greetinq at all hours and in any situation.

The fists belong to children, their parents, the elderly~ the soldier, the peasant, the peddler. Young women, traditional household appliances, emphasise their emotional intensity by the whiteness of their knuckles.

Moral reasons are necessary to wage an immoral war. And Djakarta has elected

to win support for its nervous neighbours by attaching the Red label to Fretilin.

Visions of Chinese sampans, Hanoi dhows and Russian cruisers riding at anchor in Dili harbor is sufficient for Asean states, countering communist insurgencies, to see the threat and applaue its removal •.

Fretilin is indisputably anti-colonial which may be accounted ,'for by the $30 per capita income it enjoys after 450 years of portuguese rule.

Its initial planning is a blending of socialistic and co-operative policies which would again appear natural for a colony bereft of secondary industry and winning from the soil a subsistence existence.

The membership by an Australian measure would include thinkers from the centre to the extreme left, the latter a fringe grouping in the SOO-stronq Central Committee, Fretilin I s policy council.

Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs, Jose Ramos Horta admits that the committee I 5 views vary on many iesues, the sole exception being independence.

9.

"I expect to see a multi-party set up in East Timor after we cross this hurdle", he observed. nWe are a tolerant people who have waited a long time for the democratic process. We I 11 share it when it comes."

~e crucifixes on the chests of Fretilin's soldiers are the trademarks of their education. Many are outspokenly anti-communist, but how the majority thinks Dlust awai te events.

Refugees who fled East Timor, many under duress, have told on their return: of forced labor conditions in Indonesia. Primarily on building roads to the frontier.

Djakarta's generals may now be weighing their options. Certainly the construction of tourist autobahns into East Timor is not among them.

It would appear that the genera.ls are prevailing and that an open conflict may pe in the offing. If it comes, the curtain will be lowered on the censored war ~d raised on an aggressive one.

SuCh an event will embarrass East Timor's neighbours, including Australia, in the short term, and shame them in the long run.

Indonesiats 130 million has certainly the numbers and the military hardware to ·sphdue 650 ,000 TiJoorese, but only along the coast and in the few centres of popu~ation.

On present border form, its army in the hinterland will haeDl)rrbaqe to death.

** ** ** ** ** **

10.