Fretilin claims big ‘kill’

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34046, 9 January 1976, Page 9

Fretilin claims big ‘kill’

CV Z.P A -Reuter —Copyright) DARWIN, Jan. 8. Fretilin troops claim to have inflicted heavy casualties on a force of Indonesians, according to a radio message received in Darwin today. The message from the Fretilin Minister for Internal Affairs (Mr Alarico Fernandes) said that up to 76 Indonesian troops'were killed in an ambush. In his message to Darwin, Mr Fernandes claimed that Fretilin forces had temporarily halted the Indonesian advance on the town of Viqueque, in the south-east of East Timor. Mr Fernandes said that Fretilin had engaged about 100 Indonesians in a battle near the village of Venilale, 30 kilometres from the coastal town of Baucau. He said about 75 cf the Indonesians had been killed in the ambush and the other 25 had fled back to Baucau. The Indonesian Foreign Minister (Mr Adam Malik) was due to arrive in Baucau today but it is understood that this has now been postponed.

Mr Fernandes said the Fretilin troops had collected United States-made bazookas, mortars, and shotguns abandoned by the fleeing Indonesians.

Mr Fernandes said also the Indonesian forces were collecting their war dead for return to the East Timor capital of Dili.

I There they were placed on [ funeral pyres and given cereimonial burials, he said. Davis pleader Colin Brian Dean, who was given a suspended gaol sentence at Leeds for damaging the Headingley cricket test pitch, has been fined £2O after demonstrating 300 ft up on the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral. The court was told that both incidents were part of the Free Geoige Davis campaign. — London.