Less than 24 hours after the United Nations announced that more than 78 per cent of registered voters in East Timor had voted to reject Indonesia's autonomy package, Indonesian military and paramilitary forces have sharply escalated their campaign of terror. 24 hours after the UN announced that more than 78 per cent of registered voters in East Timor voted to reject Indonesia's autonomy package, Indonesian military and paramilitary forces sharply escalated their campaign of terror.
Many children are among the dead.
The paramilitaries and TNI are systematically targeting buildings which house refugees. With the evacuation of UN staff and media from outlying towns, foreign observers are unable to confirm the extent of violence outside Dili, but it is believed to be severe. Hundreds of houses have been burned and dozens killed in Maliana alone. Reports have come in of mutilated bodies littering the road to West Timor. Thousands more East Timorese are now refugees, many of them forced onto trucks headed for unknown destinations.