Timor war in another light

Press, 23 May 1977, Page 9

Timor war in another light

Ry PETER DEELEY, of the Observer Foreign News Service Melbourne Under the nose of heavilyarmed troops on East Timor, a clandestine radio station is broadcasting weekly bulletins on the guerrilla war being waged against Indonesian occupying forces. j Despite attempts by the Australian police to track I down monitoring and broad-’ casting stations in touch l with East Timor from Aus-1 tralia’s northern coast, stor-i ies are pouring into Austra- '■ lia of atrocities by In- ■ donesian soldiers sent byl President Suharto n. December. 1975. to put down a threatened Left-wing coup. The radios are oper-| ated by members of Freti-j lin. the banned resistance) movement on East Timor, j Apart from Jakarta Govern-1 ment sources, they are vir- ' tually the only source of) news of Indonesian troop activities in the country. They show a picture different from the one) painted by the Suharto re-1 gime of a population wel-) coming Indonesian soldiers. I Broadcasts come from the, outlawed Fretilin “Democratic Government." There is) no way of checking the au-

thenticity of their information. But certainly both Jakarta and Canberra are embarrassed by its existence. It is supported in Australia by many hundreds of East Timorese refugees who fled their homeland when Indonesia moved in to fill the political vacuum left by the former colonial ruler, Portugal. j “Radio Maubere.” as the station styles itself, gives) Idetailed rundowns in thrice-j weekly broadcasts of skir-) ( mishes between Fretilin and , Indonesian soldiers. This is a typical message received by , a hidden receiving station ; near Darwin. ! “14th November, 1976. , Unity in victory. Fierce ■ fighting is continuing against the Indonesian colo- , , nial troops in East Timor. On October 28th, on the way from Krybas to Laclubar, Fretilin troops have ambushed the enemy, eliminating 36 Indonesian soldiers and wounded a lot. j “Two escaped families; from the concentration camp . in Same village reported one); 16-year-old girl named Jo-1] sepha Artires was barba-j] rously violated by the In-1 donesian soldiers, and died! some hours later due to the! barbarity of the crimes. The murderer Suharto will pay soon.”

Broadcasts always end on a note of revolutionary rhetoric: “Independence or death. To resist is to win. Armed struggle continues. Respectively yours, Alarico Jorge Fernandes, Minister for Information and National Security.” The Australian Government recently instructed the State-run t e 1 e- ; communications service not | to transmit any further pubi lie messages to East Timor lover its cable link. The presence of these receivers in Australia has caused political problems at a time when the Canberra Government — while not condoning the Indonesian invasion and alleged atrocit es — is trying to establish closer links with the Suharto Government. In a broadcast last month, Fernandes claimed that United States supplied military equipment was being used in attacks on the civilian population. He cited Bronco OVIO ground attack aircraft, UHI and CH47 helicopters, Cl3O Hercules, Colt rifles, and !Ml5 carbines. The most brazen gesture

a. of defiance towards both V ■ governments yet was a wellr! publicised recent broadcast ~ from a transmitter erected ;. in scrubland 60 miles outx side Darwin. r It was Fretilin’s first I “open” press conference in its 18-montb guerrilla war. Despite Australian Govs ernment warnings that the - broadcast was illegal and t anyone taking part might be - prosecuted, a Labour mem-! r her of Parliament relayed! I tape-recorded messages from -! leading Labour politicians to 5! Radio Maubere, and journaltlists conducted a question-Jand-answer session with; II Fernandes. -i During the 90-minute; ;■ broadcast the underground i leader told listeners that • Fretilin forces now controlled villages only a few , kilometres outside the capit tai of Dili: a very different - story from the Indonesian ; claim to have subdued resis--ftance. ; Fernandes rejected offers )!of outside armed help, sayi) ing: “We have a lot of stock )!of war materials which we ijhave captured from the Indonesians.” — O.F.N.S. ! COPYRIGHT.