TIMOR GOVERNOR: 'I can hold out only until tomorrow'

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33932, 27 August 1975, Page 15

TIMOR GOVERNOR: 'I can hold out only until tomorrow '

(N.Z.P.A. -Reuter—Copyright)

LISBON, August 26.

The Governor of war-torn Portuguese Timor (Colonel Lemos has told the Portuguese Government in Lisbon: “I can hold on only until tomorrow, and after that I do not know.”

He said that armed clashes were continuing between rival political groups in the capital, Dili, and that the situation, already grave, was deteriorating.

An official statement issued in Lisbon, based on a radio report by Colonel Pires to Macao, the Portuguese enclave on the South China coast, said, however, that Portuguese troops were still in control of part of Dili, including the harbour and naval communications centre.

Colonel Pires said that] thousands of Timorese and local Chinese were taking shelter in the port area and churches, but that it was too dangerous to evacuate them because of mortar shelling ■ and gunfire. One of the contending political groups, the Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor (Fretilin) had urged the Chinese — who form the territory’s economic backbone — to stay, Colonel Pires said, but they had not given a definite reply, and had asked instead: "Who is guaranteeing our safety?” "The worst is that it is mostly women and children who are falling victim to indiscriminate grenade explosions.” the Colonel's message said. “No exact casualty figures are available because the dead are being burnt to avoid an epidemic.” The message said that a party of Portuguese paratroops sent out to help to evacuate the wounded had brought 14 people, including a pregnant woman with a bullet in her stomach, to hospitals in Dili. Referring to prisoners of war. the Colonel’s message said: "No-one knows where they are, who they are, or how they are being treated.” Plea for aid In Lisbon, the office of President Costa Gomes said that Governor Pires had issued an international appeal for medicines, nurses, and doctors. The statement said that Dili was now divided into three areas: one under the! control of the Timor Democratic Union, another under that of the Fretilin, and the third, comprising the harbour and the naval communications centre, under the control of the Portuguese. The statement added that

I because of the grave situation, Portugal had redoubled its diplomatic efforts to obtain the help of the United Nations, Indonesia, and Australia in evacuating the thousands of refugees sheltering in the Portuguese part of Dili. According to Foreign Ministry sources in Lisbon, Portugal’s former Overseas Minister, Mr Antonio de Almeida Santos, will lead a Government mission to Timor to negotiate an end to the bloody civil war “as soon as he can land safely.” The main obstacle to the mission is the problem of how to get the former Minister, who has been appealing for international help at the United Nations in New York, to the war-stricken territory. “We don’t quite know how to get him there—whether he will land there by aircraft, helicopter, or ship,” one source said. Indonesian view In Jakarta last night, Lieutenant-General Ali Murtopo, adviser to Indonesia’s ruling Golkar (functional groups) and Deputy Head of Intelligence, told reporters that Indonesia did not want to be condemned on the issue of Portuguese Timor. “We do not want to be a naughty boy in this case,” he said. “We are willing to help to bring about peace there, but I can assure you that we will not use force to settle the problem. “But neither does Indonesia want to sacrifice its stability over the issue. “In fact, it is a simple problem: the people there belong to the same clan as those on Indonesian islands around Timor.

“If Portugal leaves the problem to the people there, the game is over,” the general added, without elaborating; but he said later that Portu-

guese Timor was “a poor land, and we do not want to pay too high a price for it.” General Murtopo said that Indonesia had agreed to send a ship to evacuate refugees from the colony, and this mission was being handled by the Ministry of Communications.

A Ministry of Defence spokesman has again denied an Australian press report that 2000 troops of the East Java Brawijaya Division are standing by to intervene in the Portuguese colony. ‘Situation critical’ The Indonesian Governor of the East Nusa Tenggara Islands, including Timor (Brigadier-General El Tari) has called,on people in the province to intensify their vigilance and not be provoked by the situation in Portuguese Timor. In a report from Kupang, the’ capital of Indonesian Timor — the western part of the island — the news agency, Antara, quotes the Governor as saying that it was necessa -y to “prevent provocation in connection with upheavals in the Portuguese colony.” Indonesia holds Portugal responsible for the situation in Timor, which, it _aid yesterday, was threatening the general security of the Indonesian Consul (Mr Tomodok) and his staff in Dili. The statement said that any Indonesian evacuation of Portuguese and other foreign nationals from Timor was inseparable from the need to restore peace and order in the colony. A Foreign Office spokesman in Jakarta, who said todrv that Indonesia had on three occasions expressed concern over the safety of Indonesians in Portuguese Timor, confirmed that the Government had received a request for help to evacuate foreigners from Timor. Indonesian officials confirm that the situation in Dili is critical, the fighting having spread throughout tlr city between the Left-wing Fretilin and the Timor Democratic Union. The latter made a show of force two weeks ago. demanding immediate independence for East Timor and the imprisonment of all Fretilin members.

Another political group, the Apodeti, which wants the

colony to merge with Indonesia, is also reported to be under attack in the fighting. A jumbo aircraft chartered by the Portuguese Government left the north Australian city of Darwin today for Lisbon with more than 350 refugees from Timor. They are some of the 1170 refugees who arrived in Darwin yesterday on a Norwegian freighter. Nine were taken to hospital with shrapnel wounds, two of them boys aged nine.