Precedence: bulk 6:28 pm AEST May 28 1999 RELIGIOUS PROCESSION FIRED ON, 1 DEAD AAP -- A man has been shot dead by Indonesian soldiers in East Timor's second largest town, Baucau, as United Nations staff arrived to prepare for the August referendum. Twenty five-year-old Julio Caetano Ximenes was shot in the back of the head and killed yesterday as he tried to flee a group of more than 100 soldiers who had surrounded the religious procession he was taking part in. Two other young men were seriously wounded in the shooting and another four were detained. All have been taken to Kodim headquarters in Baucau. According to relatives there was no motive for the attack other than that the military, a combined force of Kopassus special forces, Kodim territorial troops and Brimob police units were staging an operation in the area five kilometres south of Baucau. The blood spattered corpse of Julio was surrounded by terrified relatives at the local hospital today as heavily armed Kodim troops arrived to take away his body. Foreign journalists looked on as the relatives, wide-eyed with fear, fell silent as soldiers from the same unit that yesterday shot the young man demanded that his family surrender his body. UN representatives are currently in Baucau to prepare locations for the UN sponsored August 8 ballot that will allow the East Timorese to choose between autonomy within Indonesia or independence. Yesterday's shooting was the latest killing by the Indonesian military in a conflict that according to human rights groups has claimed the lives of at least 250,000 East Timorese since Indonesia invaded in 1975. In other developments, a second UN-chartered plane touched down here today, 130km east of the capital, Dili, carrying 28 tonnes of communication equipment for the UN mission. *** ---------- SiaR WEBSITE: http://apchr.murdoch.edu.au/minihub/siarlist/maillist.html
