Precedence: bulk Irish Times, Tuesday, August 31, 1999 PEOPLE POWER AT THE POLLS KEEPS MILITIAS AT BAY Despite fears of militia intimidation, the people of East Timor turned out in their thousands to vote yesterday on independence. David Shanks reports from Maliana In one of East Timor's most populous and strategic border areas, people power yesterday seemed to blow away the militias. Charging through the night to catch the opening of the polls in Maliana at 6.30 a.m., we found them walking the road in their Sunday best. Young, craggy or crippled, many had been on the move for 10 hours and more. Five thousand people registered by August 6th in Maliana and 3,000 of them were already outside the polling centre in the local hall. Before long all 5,000 seemed to be there. But the pecking order was that the local bupati (mayor) got to cast his vote first, and then the local military who had Timorese family connections. Many had been there for hours clutching their laminated UN registration cards and ID. They were in great form, waving and smiling at the international community that came to help them express themselves. One little old man shook hands and kissed my hand. About 30 people have been murdered in Maliana - a quarter of them in the last week of campaigning for a "popular consultation" that now looks likely to say the people want independence. And in the past two weeks about 2,000 have fled militia intimidation. As recently as Saturday, Maliana had been known as a hotspot. But the people had clearly nursed all their courage for this day. An Australian civilian policeman (Civpol) told how on Saturday he was pinned down by militia with automatic weapons and rifles and it took the police 45 minutes to get there. "We thought we were goners." But yesterday at least the militia made themselves scarce. Mr Filipe Soares (27) said he would vote for independence and so would everyone else there. Asked about the militia he said: "Maybe they will attack later." A woman with a baby said: "The police have not been neutral here. They were for autonomy but I am for the second option" on the ballot, independence. During a 12-hour tour of six remote polling centres starting from Dili at 3 a.m. it was much the same story. As the sun rose in an azure sky on the highlands and brown, fragile-looking wooden shacks with thatch or corrugated iron roofs, cocks crew and bantam pigs darted about in the ditches. At Balibo, however, there was tension because Indonesian police (the Polri) had been agressively checking IDs, which was "not their responsibility", a UNAMET (UN Mission to East Timor) official complained with some agitation. "They were being rough, unpleasant and intimidating." Their mandate was to provide security. People "who looked suspiciously like militia" had also come in brand new cars and checked IDs and taken video and still shots of the queue. Their leaders were still around, watching from the verandah of a wooden house across from the polling centre. Last Friday there had been an armed militia roadblock a few paces from the centre. Down the road in another brown wooden building, militia paymasters doling out money to young men in another queue were surprised when a journalist drifted in. The money was quickly put away. At Odomao Atas, Ms Jean Feilmoser from San Francisco was the "team leader", not the boss. Some 1,800 registered voters had all but voted and she was "esctatic". But she was particularly pleased that 590 FALINTIL "hill families", who had been under threat from militias, had been able to vote because Civpol and Indonesian police had guarded them for two days and escorted them to the polling centre. Ninety-five per cent of them were illiterate but they could understand the ballot paper and how to vote, she said. The families had made a ceremonial gift to herself and her fellow team leader: a bag of eggs each, a bunch of bananas, and two chickens. So they had named them "Autonomia" and "Independencia". A journalist asked her which they ate first. Two of her Timorese team had not turned up today. She was worried about the safety of the Timorese who worked for UNAMET - "especially afterwards". Mr Laurie Brereton, the Australian Labor Shadow Foreign Minister, was doing the rounds as an observer. "The voting performance must be one of the great successes of modern democracy." The indomitable will of the people was "nothing short of profound". But he too worried about the aftermath and said there was a challenge for the world community to see that the process was completed. He called for UN peacekeepers. Outside the polling centre at Anibal Paulo da Oriveira Maya, a National Council of Timorese Resistance (CNRT) "co-ordinator" - wearing a camouflage tunic - explained that everyone there had complete faith in the process and they were voting for independence. Down the road a group of cheerful Polri posed for a picture and one told me the make of his rifle, a Lugar mini. At Batugade, West Timorese with dodgy papers, who were supposedly trucked over by militias, turned out not to be the problem that had been anticipated. But a watch was being kept on the queue by Mr Jorge Tavares da Silva, a leader of the Hali Linta (Halintar, Red.) and Daduras Mera Puthi (Besi Merah Putih, Red.) militias. UNAMET reported no problems from militias. Asked if the turnout meant that there would be no more violence, Mr Tavares da Silva's taciturn reply was that there would be "no problems". His lips quivered as the question was asked.*** ---------- SiaR WEBSITE: http://apchr.murdoch.edu.au/minihub/siarlist/maillist.html
