By Cameron Stewart
April 30, 1999
Planning for the UN observer force in East Timor is being hampered by a lack of information from Indonesia about the situation in the territory, according to senior UN officials.
The complaints came as the UN held a flurry of meetings in New York to try to work out the size and composition of the UN mission, which will oversee a ballot on autonomy for the former Portuguese colony.
Officials said they had not received critical information from Jakarta about the size, location and structure of police and security forces in East Timor. This information was needed to allow the UN to assess how many UN police and other personnel might be required for the mission. "At the moment, we need more detail from Indonesia about command and control issues, logistics and other aspects, which will determine the nature of the UN presence," a UN official said.
The UN hopes to finalise details of the mission by May 5, when the foreign ministers of Indonesia and Portugal are due to sign the autonomy agreement in New York. Officials said the UN was planning for a larger presence in East Timor than originally anticipated because of the uncertain security situation in the territory. The number of UN personnel sent to Timor for the August 8 autonomy ballot could be anywhere between 300 and 800.
This would include between 30 and 300 unarmed UN civilian police, who would help supervise security without actively carrying out law enforcement tasks. While law enforcement would be the responsibility of the Indonesian police and military, key pro-integration leader Eurico Guterres warned on Wednesday that the safety of Australian police could not be guaranteed if they were sent to the troubled territory. UN officials have expressed concern about several aspects of the mission to East Timor. They said there were no clear guidelines about how UN personnel should react if they encountered violence during the autonomy ballot.
They also said the logistical details of the voting procedure had not been spelt out, despite Indonesia's promise to hold a direct democratic vote. Jakarta has reaffirmed its promise to grant East Timor independence if voters reject the autonomy package.
Australia is expected to provide the largest number of UN personnel out of the six nations contributing to the East Timor mission. The UN's special representative on East Timor, Jamsheed Marker, said yesterday that the size of the UN presence had not yet been decided.
Indonesia has promised its armed forces will remain neutral during the election process. Pro-independence activists have accused Indonesian troops of assisting, or at least turning a blind eye, to recent violence by pro-Indonesian militia. Any ongoing violence would pose a risk to the UN presence in East Timor. REPORTS yesterday said Mario Vegas Carrascalao, a former Timorese affairs adviser to Indonesian President B.J. Habibie and former East Timor governor, had arrived in Portugal after fleeing Indonesia via Macau.
